My Birth Story - Maeve Calla
One of the things I love the most about babies is hearing about other women’s birth stories. I’ve always been fascinated with birth and find myself relating, sympathizing, and engaged while listening to others share their stories.
Personally, I’ve had 3 completely different births.
With my oldest, Drake, I was under-prepared, scared, and didn’t advocate for myself like I should have. This resulted in some birth trauma for me and a deep fear of ever giving birth again. In fact, I contemplated even having more kids after birthing him. It truly felt traumatizing. However, after 2.5 years of just him, we decided to try again and add a new baby into our family.
Then came Georgia. My feisty little lady. Her birth was so healing and exactly what I had envisioned for myself. I felt supported through every decision I had made in the delivery room and I really felt in control over my body. I didn’t have an OB pressuring me for a C-Section or an Episiotomy, I wasn’t told when to push, I was just really in tune with my body and my wishes. (I wrote in depth about her birth story here)
Instead of waiting another 2.5 years to try again, we only waited 6 months…leaving only a 15 month age gap in between our youngest 2.
Maeve’s birth is a whole new story.
August 26th, 2022 - The Night Before
My due date was Sunday August 28th, 2022.
The entire week leading up to my due date felt exhausting. I was feeling quite large, I was sleeping terribly, my iron levels were at an all-time low, and I just felt depleted. Nathan’s parents had taken our kids camping for 1 night, so we decided to go on one final date before the baby arrived. Nathan had been working something called shut-down at work, and this meant that he was working basically non-stop until I had the baby - so I felt like we needed to get out at least once.
That evening, we went to a new Pakistani restaurant local to us. We both love trying out new food and don’t have many eating options here in our city. We loaded up on samosas and curry, and then hit up DQ before heading home.
I had been seeing a midwife throughout this pregnancy and she had talked to me about something called the Midwives brew. With my history of going overdue (Drake = 3 days late, Georgia = 8 days late), I felt skeptical to try anything to try to naturally induce my labour. Baby will come when they want to, right? However…I knew that I was going to have the next day to myself since my kids were with their grandparents. It felt tempting to at least try something…
So, I made the Midwives Brew. Once it was all blended together, it was just over 3 cups of liquid. It smelled horrible and I had JUST filled up on curry from our date. I plugged my nose, and started chugging. Only taking breaks to quickly change the flavour in my mouth to avoid puking.
By the grace of God, I managed to drink the entire thing AND keep it down. However, I felt absolutely terrible. For the first hour after drinking the brew, I felt ill. My stomach had started cramping and it felt like I was starting to have minor contractions, but I was skeptical. There was castor oil in the brew, so I wasn’t sure if I was cramping from that, or if the brew was actually doing its job of kickstarting labour.
We went to bed around 11pm and I felt so uncomfortable. By midnight, I was having some contractions, but they were tolerable. I did draw a hot bath and get into it, hoping to stop any false labour pains that were occurring. But, they kept on coming. Not enough to think that I was in actual labour, but enough to think that within the next 24 hours, something was going to happen.
August 27th, 2022
Thankfully I had a really decent sleep. I did wake quite a few times, but quickly fell back to sleep and then woke for good around 7am. I hate when that happens - especially when my kids are elsewhere. Waking at 7am on this day was okay though - because I knew my body was in labour. My contractions started coming on a bit stronger and I figured I’d be labouring all day.
I filled up my bathtub with hot water again and climbed inside, hoping to relax. I had texted Nathan at work letting him know what was going on, but let him know that I didn’t think things would progress that fast, so just to be on the lookout for a text from me.
By 8am, I had already texted him to come home.
I had called my midwife, Angela, and let her know that I was in labour, but although my contractions were strong, they weren’t intolerable. I was still in the bath when Nathan got home, and it seemed like as soon as he arrived, things really picked up. It was like my body knew that it was go-time.
I called Angela again to give her an update and she said that she was already at the hospital with another mom who was getting induced that day. So either she would come to me at the house to check how fall along I was, or I could head down to the hospital.
I really wanted to labour at home for as long as possible since I didn’t have that experience the other 2 times I had given birth. So I told Angela that I wanted her to come to me. Not even 5 minutes later, Nathan was calling her again telling her to scratch that plan - we were on our way to the hospital.
Things were moving quick.
As I was leaning over the couch - contractions coming and going, Nathan was getting the carseat installed in our vehicle, packing the last couple of things in the hospital bag, and grabbing some drinks and snacks for us. Thinking about this now makes me laugh. Of course with your third baby you just aren’t as prepared or stressed about what’s happening.
By 9:30am, we were packed up and loaded into the car. I hardly remember opening my eyes once during the drive. My contractions were SO intense and about 2 minutes before we got to the hospital, my water broke.
At 9:45am, Nathan pulled up to the hospital and ran inside to get me a wheelchair. There was no way I was making it through the lobby and upstairs quick enough. The security guard pushed me to Emerg while Nathan parked - I had to go through registration before being wheeled upstairs.
Angela met us on the second floor in the NST clinic to check me and see how far along I was. Everything hurt and the short breaks in between contractions felt like a dream. The only thing I was thankful for in that moment was that I had had a good sleep right before and that this was happening in the morning. Angela let me know that I was a “stretchy 5cms” and then asked if she could do a stretch and sweep to help get things going even more. I agreed. As soon as she was done, I remember feeling so much pressure. So intensely that I knew I was going to need some sort of pain relief. I wasn’t sure how my body could possibly manage without.
As we slowly walked over from the NST clinic to my room, I told my midwife that I was going to need an epidural. My epidural quite literally saved me during my last delivery and it was such a helpful component to healing from my previous birth trauma. She told me that the only step needed next was to get an IV in place, and that the anesthesiologist was already called.
Four times.
The nurse tried to get an IV in place 4 times before handing the reigns to someone else.
By this time, I was quite literally sweating bullets and she had in fact gotten 1 IV in place, but as I was transitioning, I was sweating so heavily and the fan on the wall wasn’t working, so the sticker to hold it in place fell off and my IV fell out and I started bleeding everywhere.
I didn’t care about the blood or the needle pokes, all I cared about was getting it in so I could get some pain relief. Couldn’t they see that I needed SOMETHING? I felt so frustrated since my contractions were not letting up and my epidural was slipping away as I knew I was getting SO close to delivering this baby.
So close, that I started involuntarily pushing. My body was ready to have this baby whether I wanted to or not.
Finally, another nurse got an IV to stay on as she mummy wrapped my hand in medical tape. I got a quick shot of Fentanyl since I was told that unfortunately, an epidural wasn’t in my books - the baby’s head was visible.
As each contraction came and went, the breaks in between got smaller and smaller. It seemed like the relief I got was always immediately interrupted by another tidal wave of pain. I couldn’t help but scream in pain into my pillow. I was on my knees facing the bed at this point and I was holding onto the top of the bed. Screaming, crying, begging for something to take the pain away, as my body went through the motions on its own. Pushing, pausing, pushing, pausing, pushing.
“Good job Bailey, the head is out!!”
“On your next contraction, give me 1 more good push”
“There you go!! Here is your baby girl”
Within 8 minutes of getting that shot of Fentanyl, our baby girl was born at 10:50am. Almost exactly 1 hour after arriving at the hospital.
Maeve Calla Aulenbach.
Maeve was my smallest baby, weighing in at only 8lb and 9oz.
The perfect piece to fill our family puzzle.
