It’s said that a “Hollywood birth” rarely happens in real life. You know the story; the water breaks in a dramatic gush, a race to the hospital, and a baby pops out very soon after. Sometimes the baby is even born on the way, in the taxi, for example. And someone, typically the father figure, faints. Leave it to me to check off almost all of those boxes.
This isn’t common because most of the time, the water doesn’t actually break until well after labour is underway and even rarer still is for it to all come out in one big rush. In fact, this only happens in about 10% of births! I was prepped for this possible scenario by my hospital but didn’t think it would ever happen this way.
It was a regular, pregnant day. I’d gone New Year’s sales shopping and took myself out for lunch. It was a regular pregnant night too. I took a nice bath and tucked into bed before midnight. I had no idea it would be my last regular day and night for a very, very long time. Just after 2am - I woke up with a mighty urge to pee (par for the course during pregnancy), and thar she blew - an enormous gush of liquid. I didn’t even mistake it for peeing myself because I’d never peed quite like Niagara Falls before.
It was clear - my water broke. Half awake, I ran to the bathroom and woke my husband. It took him a moment to process before he sprang into action and called the hospital, who instructed him to call a taxi and get me in immediately. As for me, I was cussing for forgetting to buy “just in case” maxi pads, so I awkwardly grabbed a puppy pee pad before I could get myself a towel.
Now - I’d read that if your water breaks, labour usually follows 12-24 hours later. I had half a mind to go back to bed with the puppy pad and/or towel for a few more hours, but the hospital was adamant I head there immediately. I felt perfectly fine, with no contractions or any pain whatsoever. The hospital was a 5 minute walk away and even faster by taxi, so I asked my husband to wait 10 minutes to call for me to get in a quick snuggle with my pets, run a brush through my hair and grab any last minute things I had forgotten to pack in my hospital bags.
My husband was distraught that I would give birth right in the taxi, but I assured him that wasn’t very likely. Spoiler alert - that was the one box this Hollywood style birth didn’t tick.
When we arrived at the hospital, eerily quiet at that hour, a midwife came to get me in a wheelchair. Oooooh, dramatic! She took me to check and make sure it was my water that had broken, and I figured I’d go back to get my bags and say bye to my hubby afterward. I rode in the legendary rocket chair and confirmed that my water had broken, as suspected. It wasn’t baby time yet, though. I was only 2cm (out of 10) dilated and could expect labour to start in the next 12-24 hours, as I’d read about. I asked if I could go back home to snooze for a bit and the midwife’s eyes widened as she said no, I was staying at the hospital.
I asked to go say bye to my husband (I wouldn’t see him for 5 or 6 days - the hospital policy was no one could be with me or visit due to COVID) and to get my bags. She told me my bags were already brought to my room, and my husband had gone home. My eyes welled up with tears, and she said not to worry, the COVID policy had changed, and he’d be back for the baby’s delivery. My eyes welled up with tears AGAIN because I was so happy to hear that. After months of psyching myself up to do this entirely on my own, finding out that my husband would be with me when Ebi chan came info the world was a massive relief.
I was taken to the labour, delivery, and recovery room (LDR) so she could check and monitor the baby’s heartbeat and do other health checks. Shortly before 5:30am, I started to feel some very minor pangs that she said were likely some early labour contractions. The mission was beginning! She finally took me to my room, and I was pretty tired by now. She showed me around and then told me to get some rest as it would likely be a long and exhausting day. It was sinking in that I would be meeting Ebi chan soon, and I chuckled to myself because I was supposed to come in for my 39-week check and have a scary membrane sweep later that day. I think Ebi chan felt my stress and decided we would be blowing off that appointment.
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| The LDR I thought I would have spent more time in |
The bed had a fancy Tempurpedic style mattress, but I couldn’t get comfortable. The contractions were coming in a little stronger. It was starting to feel like the return of my usual monthly cramps, but lying in a fetal position wasn’t helping. I needed to be up and moving for relief. By 6:30am, I could still walk and talk between and during them, but things were definitely getting more intense. I tried to remember my Hypnobabies techniques and how to breathe, but in the moment, that all went out the window. I was starting to feel overwhelmed, thinking if this was only early labour - 2cm out of 10 - how bad would it get?
I’m not sure if it was the pain, fear, or both, but I started to feel nauseous. I quickly realized that the contractions were coming only a couple of minutes apart, so I called the nurse. She came right away and checked me out in my bed. I was already 6cm dilated! In the words of Ron Burgundy, “Well, that escalated quickly” - it was time to head back to the LDR; the baby was coming much sooner than expected. I was already in full-blown active labour. Basically, things had gone from 0-100 really fast. Still - I’d read that active labour could last for up to 8 hours for first time pregnancies, so I figured I still had a long road ahead of these painful cramps. Then again - early labour is typically up to 12 hours, and I blew through that stage in an hour, so that should have been an indication of how things were going.
I’d packed an entire suitcase just for this moment; labour. Knowing it could take hours, I’d packed everything from a fan, essential oils, a TENS machine, a Bluetooth speaker, snacks, face mist, and steam eye masks. I had planned to labour in as much comfort as possible - my own delivery room spa. But I had no time to grab any of it and only managed to take my phone, iPad with my Hypnobabies meditation tracks, and favourite blanket before hurrying back into the LDR.
I was set up to a heart monitor for Ebi chan, meaning I couldn’t move around, which was exactly what I wanted to do during the contractions. I wanted to be able to squat down, stand against a wall or basically do anything except being stuck lying flat on my back. But here I was, and the contractions were coming in pretty hard. I could still talk through them, mostly, and managed to convey how hard it was not to push - the feeling of wanting to bear down was so strong. I kept begging the midwife to let me go to use the washroom - but she assured me it was pressure from the baby and not a number 2.
The midwife urged me to breathe and exhale with a “hooooooo” and told me to call my husband. I did, and she told him to hurry over while I “hooooooo’ed” my way through another contraction. I put on one of my Hypnobabies tracks, hoping I could find my magic “Hypno anesthesia,” and while it didn’t work completely, I was able to zone out so much I’d barely noticed when my husband arrived. Despite the hypnosis tracks playing, I was given an oxygen mask because I wasn’t breathing as much as I should have been. By now, the room was becoming a flurry of activity. To be honest - I couldn’t tell you how many people were there, but I remember a woman wearing bright blue scrubs who took over.
I later realized she was the doctor who delivered my baby. There were midwives and nurses, but they all looked the same to me in that fuzzed-out moment. Just when the struggle not to bear down was so intense, a midwife told me it was time to push. Already?! I looked up at the clock; It was 8am - only an hour and a half after active labour had started. She said I was at 10cm, and Ebi chan was making a break for it.
With my husband holding my hand and encouraging me, I started to push with all my might. Things were happening very quickly now, and I finally understood what it meant when people said they went inward while giving birth. With the speed that Ebi chan was coming, the doctor did an episiotomy either without a local anesthetic or too soon after one because I felt it; it stung like nothing I’d ever experienced before. That and the resulting stitches after were the most painful parts of the whole experience (I apologized to the doctor later for yelling at her throughout). My husband said something about Ebi chan’s head coming, and the midwives urged me to give one last big push. In a blur, I gripped the sides of the bed, bore down and within seconds heard the most beautiful sound in my life - Ebi chan’s cry.
It was 8:24am. The baby was here! I was pretty out of it and almost felt like I was floating above the room, watching a blurry scene unfold below.
Despite my initial requests for immediate skin-to-skin contact, the midwives whisked Ebi chan to the heated table on the other side of the room to begin the baby’s checkup and cleaning. I wished I’d brought my glasses with me because from where I was lying, my baby, seemed to be staring at me and straight into my soul. I know newborns can’t see that far but Ebi chan’s eyes stayed fixed in my direction. There was my baby. I was his mother.
A wave of panic swept over me when I realized my husband was no longer there at that moment. I could hear the midwives talking and the sound of a man’s voice that wasn’t my husband. Was there something wrong with the baby? I was mad at myself for not understanding more Japanese. Did they pull my husband out of the room to explain that something was happening that I couldn’t grasp at the moment, and with the language barrier? No. This is my Hollywood birth, remember? The baby was fantastic - my poor husband had fainted.
What?!
Turns out it was too much for him to take. I don’t really blame him, though. I was in a daze and couldn’t see jack while he had to see EVERYTHING. If I was in his position, I would have fainted too. In many ways, it’s better to be in pain than witness someone you love in it. He was wheel-chaired into the neighbouring delivery room to lie down and get checked over. He was able to rejoin me shortly after feeling a little embarrassed and light headed.
Then Ebi chan was brought to us, our beautiful baby boy, whom we named Yoshitora (優虎). His name turned out to be perfect; Yoshi (優), meaning kind and Tora (虎), meaning tiger. And that was precisely how he was born; he was kind by not causing me too much pain, and he came into the world fast and fierce, like a tiger. I later joked that I’d gotten tattoos that took longer and were more painful than childbirth. I was fortunate; 6 and a bit hours from when my water broke, 2.5 hours of labour and 24 minutes to deliver the most perfect baby, just like in the movies.
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| No Hollywood perfect makeup, at least my headband matched my hospital gown |
Holding Yoshitora in my arms for the first time and him staring right back at me - was the true definition of love at first sight.
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