The most amazing experience I have been apart of in my lifetime is the birth of my nephew. Back in April, my sister and brother-in-law announced that they were pregnant. This is the first baby in our family, which as you can imagine, is very exciting! They did not want to find out the gender, but instead, keep it a surprise. Throughout their pregnancy, many old wives tales led them to believe they were going to have a girl, but there were in-fact more team boy representatives. Little did we all know the life change we experienced when a beautiful, Scorpio baby boy was born Earth side on the early morning hours of November 6th.
Birth Plan
When my sister originally asked me to be part of their birth plan, I was in total disbelief. I thought she was just asking me to be nice and trying to include me. Closer to the end of her pregnancy, I became part of the solidified plan for their natural, home birth. I had a list of things that I was in charge of and mostly to be there to support her and advocate for her if she wasn't able to do so. With my medical background, she wanted me to know what the midwives or medical professionals were saying so that I could be her voice. I also had the job of documenting everything, so I had to make sure that they had the content they wanted to cherish forever (no pressure).
A few weeks before the baby's due date, Taylor Swift released her new album. My sister stayed up listening to it and called me the next day to tell me her thoughts. She was so upset that it was not the album she hoped for and she couldn't birth to it because it was not like Folklore or Evermore. For those Taylor Swift fans out there, you know that her Midnights album is amazing, with some songs matching the contemporary, calm, gentle style of both Folklore and Evermore. But my sister thought it was too cryptic for her child to listen to as they entered the world. Some of the songs made it on the birth playlist, but who knew we would be so unfocused on the music playing during a home birth? Still to this day, we cannot figure out the exact song that was playing as my nephew entered the world, but we do know that it was not Taylor Swift.
Labour
It was a young, lively Saturday night. After hosting a social gathering to celebrate a set of twins' birthday, my partner and I got ourselves and our puppy ready for bed. This was the night of the time change, so we were both very excited to get an extra hour of sleep (and for those of you who know me personally, you know how much I love my sleep). My sister had told me that she was having some contractions, but were not close enough together to be concerning, so they were going to try and get some sleep before the long days ahead. Just as my head hit the pillow and my eyes shut into a light sleep, I hear my phone vibrate. I left it for a second, but I heard a second vibrate and knew that is was my sister double texting me. Her texts read one after the other: "I am in active labour" and "come now."
After asking her a few questions in panic and her not being able to respond properly due to her intense contractions, I woke my partner up and we headed out the door right before the clocks were turned back for the time change. We drove in separate cars downtown, so that I could pack up my sister and brother-in-laws' dog and send my partner back home with him for the night. At least he and the dogs could get some sleep, while I knew it was going to be a long night for the rest of us.
When I showed up at their house, I saw my sister sitting on the exercise ball with her hands outstretched on either side of the island. She was squeezing the island and using this to hold herself up as she breathed through the deep pain. In between contractions, there were short pauses where she was able to tell me that after she texted me saying she was going to get some rest, she took a shower and noticed that she could not get through a Taylor Swift song without having multiple contractions (and no she was not listening to the All Too Well 10-minute version). They started timing her contractions and realized that they were about 2 minutes apart. This is when they called the midwives and myself because they knew it was time.
Upon arrival to their house, I also noticed that the birth tub was set up already in the middle of the living room, but my brother-in-law was struggling to get the water flowing into it. I commend him as he was trying to attach the hose to a faucet while also trying to comfort his wife and support her in anyway he can. I took over the job of trying to fill the birth tub and quickly realized that the hose would not attach to the type of faucets they have. My sister was aggressively telling us to try a funnel or tape and be creative, but she did not understand, with all of the pain she was experiencing, that those ideas would not work in this case. The hose needed to create a suction in order to draw the water from the faucet, down the length of the hose and into the birth tub. Selfishly, it was approximately 2:30am (3:30am without the time change) and I was just a tiny bit frustrated that they did not try the hose connection to a faucet before having to use it in a panic during the real action.
My brother-in-law and I had to come up with a solution to fill this tub as it was my sisters' firm wish to have a water birth in the comfort of her home, and we did not want to be the ones to crush her dreams. We found two buckets and began filling them with warm water, switching them out and dumping them into the birth tub. It did not take us as long as we expected and I think it was a great way for one of us to keep distracted, while the other supported my sister. It also gave my sister something to focus on while riding out her contractions. Just to clarify, yes, we filled a birth tub with two random buckets and an ordinary kitchen sink (the midwife found this very entertaining once she arrived).
Transition Phase
When the midwife first arrived, she did her physical exams on my sister and announced that she was already 7-8cm dilated. We were all a bit shocked because my sister had only been in labour for a couple of hours (come to find out, she was in labour all day and did not even know). She encouraged my sister to get into the birth tub once it was filled so that she could be more comfortable moving around by using gravity and water to assist. Once in the tub, my sister was propped up on the side with her arms hanging over and her belly facing down. She was able to move her legs around, stretch them out, tuck them in, arch her back, lean forward or whatever felt good as she powered through each contraction.
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