The birth of Zane Morrison ...
6:11pm, Friday 7th December 2008.
By Clodia Porteous
It was around 5pm on a Thursday night and I was
driving home from doing a ‘big shop’ at the supermarket
in Mt Barker. My beautiful First Born, Bodhi, was asleep in the back
seat and I felt a gentle tightening of my belly. Nothing new, but
I wondered whether this might be a sign that I was going to meet my
new baby soon. The weather had been crazy windy, and I pondered the
marvels of the universe and wondered whether there would be lots of
babies born during this tempest. I considered the fact that today
was the 6th December, and that the 7th of December sounded like a
good birthday! I was 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant.
When I got home and lugged my shopping into the
kitchen while my toddler slept in the car, I discovered that one of
our beautiful gum trees had dropped a major limb over our back veranda!
All thoughts of babies coming disappeared as I dealt with the logistics
of panicky dogs, a crushed fence and letting the next door neighbours
know what had happened. Very luckily the veranda and house remained
undamaged! Our super friendly and helpful neighbour Paul came up to
the house when he got home from work and he and Simon managed to saw
up the most significant chunks of the timber, so that the limb could
be moved and a temporary fence put in place.
With that stress dealt with, the shopping put away,
dinner cooked and eaten and Bodhi put to bed, Simon and I were watching
a bit of telly. Not sure what was on, but I was noticing that the
tightening were back. Not a t all painful, but I had to be careful
of my posture or I would be uncomfortable. I had the fitness ball
out and was sitting and rocking casually on it. This was my usual
night time seat, so Simon thought nothing of it, but I decided to
check out the timing of the contractions. They were varying, anywhere
from 5 mins to 8, 10 or even 20 or 30 minutes apart. Very mild tightening
but I decided to just let Wendy know that I thought I was having a
bit of build-up. It was about 10pm when I sent her the text message.
I still wasn’t certain and felt that there was a strong possibility
it could peter out and be nothing. We decided to set up the pool.
We even went so far as to get it filled – we had Wendy’s
water heater on hand if the water cooled down before I needed it.
I collected together one of my candles from my blessing way with my
necklace and took them with me as we went to bed.
I actually managed to sleep! But by early morning,
around 6am, the contractions were regular, coming every 8 minutes,
and I had to get upright and breathe strongly through them. I was
lying down to snooze in between, but having to get up and kneel on
the bed, bracing my arms on the head of our bed. I was using my wheat
pack over my lower back almost constantly which felt just lovely and
yummy.
At about 6:30am I decided that I wanted Wendy
there as a re-assurance, just to acknowledge what was happening and
to be with us. Simon also called work to get Kate to re-schedule his
patients for the day – I was sure we would be meeting our baby
soon and there was no way I was letting him go anywhere!! Wendy arrived
at around 7am. I was still in bed and she came in quietly, grinning
from ear to ear. Her presence gave me a buzz and I was brimming with
nervous excitement!
After a short chat and update with Wendy I got up. I think I had some
peanut-butter toast for breakfast. Bodhi woke up at around 7:15 and
came into the kitchen for a hug with mum, during which I had another
contraction. He was a lovely brace!
I decided to have a shower. I had a couple of
contractions there, during which I would brace my arms across the
glass of the shower and just breathe. When I came out I got dressed
into some comfy clothes. It was quite warm, so I didn’t need
or want much on, and I didn’t want anything restrictive on either,
but I felt the need to put something on, so I did. I did my hair,
brushed my teeth and smiled to myself in the mirror “OK, let’s
do this!”
As I walked back out into the kitchen, something
felt distinctly different. I commented to Wendy “It’s
funny how different it all seems now that the sun is up ...”
and I think that I should have listened to myself a bit more closely
at that point! Contractions were still coming and going, but the timing
and intensity was varied and everything just felt different. Between
contractions it seemed unreal that I was in labour, I just felt normal!
After about an hour of this Wendy suggested that
I try hopping into the pool and see whether that would help things
establish. This was just too much for Bodhi though ... he was very
excited by the appearance of the pool in our sitting room and Mum
getting in was just the final straw! He wanted to in there BADLY but
Daddy wouldn’t let him ... concerned about the depth of the
water and the fact that when I had contractions I wouldn’t be
able to support him. Julie, Simon’s mum, was on her way to be
Bodhi’s support for the day but still a little while away, so
Simon decided to take Bodhi for a walk so as to avoid him distracting
me from the task at hand ... sounds like a good idea in principle??
Well actually no, not at all. As they left I felt another distinct
down-shift in gears, and I truly began to wonder what on earth I was
doing.
So, they got back from their walk, and Julie arrived
to take over care of Bodhi – he was very excited to see his
Grandma! She took him for another walk. Wendy supplied me with Clary
Sage on a face washer, I moved around in the water, I walked around
in the water, I got out of the pool and walked around the room, I
got the ball down from upstairs and sat on that. With each change
in position I would have one or two decent contractions and then they
would fade and disappear. I was starting to feel disheartened. Was
this actually going to happen or not??
Simon went into Bodhi’s room and brought
out a book, “Little One Step” and handed it to me. I laughed
and proceeded to read it out loud ...
“It won’t be far,”
said the middle one.
“I want my Mama,” whispered the little one.
“My Legs feel all wobbly.”
“Tell you what,” said his oldest brother.
“Have you tried doing One Step?”
There were tears. Copious tears. I wanted my baby,
but was unsure of the journey to arrive at that point from here. Julie
and Bodhi got back from their walk and sat down to read a book, and
Simon and I went for a walk of our own. We didn’t go far or
fast. We took the camera with us and ambled down our street. Every
few paces we stopped to take a photo or breathe through a contraction.
I would lock my arms around Simon’s neck and hang with my head
on his shoulder. That was just the most comfortable way to be, but
I guess that way my legs didn’t carry any of my body weight,
so my pelvis could move and open as needed with gravity helping little
Zaney move down.
When we got back my spirits had lifted. We got
out some food and had a picking platter of lunch. I had a few more
really good strong contractions, but still just felt so casual in
between. In many ways we were just having a lovely relaxed day at
home! Bodhi was watching all the goings on with sponge-like eyes,
and was soon ‘helping’ mum just like Dad and Wendy had
been doing. He would lift my top, put his hands on my back and breathe
out loud at regular intervals. So precious! And yet still things seemed
to be going nowhere.
Eventually we had a chat about doing a quick exam
to see where we were at and see where to from here. We knew that my
waters hadn’t broken yet and that if that were to happen we
could go from nothing to baby very fast, but I guess both Wendy and
I wanted to get a clearer picture of how much work had been already
done and how much was yet to go. She did a quick VE as I floated in
the pool and reported back that I was about 5cm dilated. So plenty
of groundwork had been done, but there was still a way to go.
At about 3pm we decided we were fine on our own,
so we let Wendy head out to do a few things like pick her girls up
from school. Then at about 4:30pm Julie also had to leave. That night
was our Niece Bella’s first ever ballet concert and Grandma
had very important duties to perform! However, that left us in a dilemma
of what to do for Bodhi. Should he stay or should he go?? If he stayed
who would be his support while Simon looked after me?
A couple of quick phone calls and we had drummed
up the extra support we needed in order to feel secure in keeping
him with us. I so desperately wanted him to be a part of his new sibling’s
arrival, but didn’t want him to feel isolated during the experience.
My good friend Louise said that she would be able to come up if needed
and I also left a message with Lisa Lewis who was close by. So Julie
headed back down to Victor on her own.
When it got back to just the three of us, I decided
to just forget the whole baby thing and release some energy. I blew
out all of the candles, turned off the gentle labour music and put
on some Daara J (African Hip-Hop) and Bodhi and I played upstairs,
singing, dancing and bouncing on the mini-tramp! (That is after we
found him busy in the bathroom cleaning the floor!) It was very refreshing
and I think well needed to disperse some of the anxiousness that had
accumulated during the course of the day.
A little after 5pm, Wendy called to check in on
how we were going. I reported back that not much had changed, but
that our mood had definitely lifted! She suggested that I try breastfeeding
Bodhi to see if that would stimulate some more activity... I decided
that I was ready and we gave it a shot. Lisa Lewis called us back
shortly after Bodhi had latched on and was privileged enough to hear
the first of the more full-on contractions of the evening! Within
the space of 15 minutes I had 6 contractions!! Simon called Wendy
on the 4th and then again on the 6th (she was already on her way)
when my waters broke in a rather spectacularly gushy kind of way (as
opposed to the streaming effect that I had when Bodhi was born). That
was about 5:30pm. He also called Louise and asked her to come ASAP.
When Wendy arrived she watched me go through a
contraction and said to me “If you want to have your baby in
the water, now is the time to get into the pool.” Up until this
time I had been using Simon as my support, hanging from around his
neck during contractions. “But I don’t want it to go away
again!” I replied. Wendy communicated very clearly that there
was no going back from this point, so in I hopped. I suddenly realised
that I didn’t have anything to put the placenta into! I told
Simon that he and Bodhi had to finish the tub of ice-cream that was
in the freezer, so that we could use the container. For some strange
reason Simon wasn’t keen on sitting back and eating a bowl of
ice-cream at that stage (!) so he simply popped Bodhi up on the couch
next to the pool with a towel, the ice-cream tub and a spoon!! He
thought this was just about the best day of his life!!
Louise arrived at about 5:45pm and assumed the
role of photographer as well as looking out for the now sugar-laden
Bodhi. As much as she told me repeatedly that she didn’t think
she did a very good job of the photos I think she was awesome and
was just so thrilled that she came to help us out. After Zane had
been born she put the final jewel into her crown by running out and
getting me a packet of tim-tams!!
So, Zane Morrison Porteous was born at 6:11pm
after a really cruisy day of ‘build-up’ and 41 minutes
of established labour. He came out head first, with 10 fingers and
10 toes, apgars of 9 & 10. He was quite purple when he first came
up out of the water, but very quickly turned a bright shade of pink
after his first big cry. As I pushed him out I screamed out loud,
I said “I’m scared!”, “I don’t want
to do this bit!!”, “IT’S HUGE!!” and then
my body stretched and I squeezed him out, without a tear!! He might
have looked a lot like a squidgy little alien, but here was my beautiful
little baby in my arms!! And this time I remember with clarity all
of the emotion and the sensations of his actual birth, as I was so
much more aware of my own physical existence than I was when Bodhi
was born, even though that too was a drug-free natural homebirth.
At some stage we looked and saw that we had another
beautiful baby boy - no surprise to us as I had ‘known’
for the last month or so that this would be the case. “Is he
a Zane?” Simon asked. Yes. He was indeed Zane. However, the
big surprise to me came with his eye colour. “He’s got
blue eyes! He’s got blue eyes!” I repeated over and over
again to the room. Bodhi’s are a dark brown, just like mine.
They were pitch black when he was born (you couldn’t tell his
pupils from his irises for a couple of weeks!) and gradually lightened
into brown... So a blue eyed baby looked very strange to me!!
Simon went and got my computer so that I could
speak to my Mum, half the world away in Bangladesh. He called his
Mum in the middle of the ballet concert and told her the news. Zane
was mouthing around and within 15 minutes of his birth had his first
attempt at the breast. He didn’t latch on, but he knew that
it was there and seemed content with that knowledge.
We stayed in the pool for about 20 minutes before
we hopped out onto the couch and rugged ourselves up. After a short
while I got up into a supported squat and birthed the placenta into
the eaten-out, scrubbed clean ice-cream container. Dad got his first
cuddle just before 7pm. Shortly after that Zane’s cord was cut
and Louise took him to get him dressed. She came out and announced
that he was an ‘arms out’ kind of boy, as she had been
trying to swaddle him and he kept wriggling his arms free –
he still likes to sleep with his arms above his head, much like both
his brother and his dad!
Wendy had to head off to another lady who was
in labour, and we were very thrilled to hear that she birthed her
baby at around 9pm that evening – and Wendy made it!! Lisa Barrett
was kind enough to quickly chow down her Indian take-away dinner so
that she could come around and help out getting us settled in for
the night. She weighed Zane for us – 4.2kg (9lb4oz), very close
to his bigger brother who was 4.27kg (9lb6oz).
We all had a beautiful deep night’s sleep
that night, together in our own bed. Zane had his first feed at around
7:30pm and barely fed again between then and morning – I managed
to feed fairly consistently on the Tim-Tams though!!
With love and gracious thanks to all who supported us along the way,
Clo.
xox
