Rebecca's 3-Day Check for Anthem

Here I am doing the 3-day check on Anthem Kotze, the beautiful daughter of Melanie and Nick. I love this part of my job...looking after the baby as she transitions into her new world.

Melanie Kotze's Birth Story

Baby's Name: Anthem Hendriena Rae

Date of Birth: December 5th, 11:12 am

Original Due Date: November 30, 2007

Height/Weight: 18.5 inches... 8lbs even!

Gender: Girl

Our Story:

My mother called me at eight in the morning on December 4th and she made me laugh so hard that contractions started. I didn't think much of it seeing as I had, had major contractions two days before that didn't turn into anything. These progressed throughout the day and finally at 10am I called Nick and told him he should start looking for someone to take over his shift because my contractions were steady at 8 mins apart. As soon as I got off te phone my contractions changed to 4 mins apart, so I called the midwfe and she said she would stop over around 2pm to check on me.

Nick got home around noon and he timed the contractions and they were consistant at four minutes apart. Rebecca arrived and checked me. I was 2 cm dialated and 30% effaced. That was pretty disheartening to hear because it had already been 6 hours. I decided I would try and sleep, no luck, the contractions were too strong and didn't give me enough time to fall asleep.

BUT HERE'S THE BEST PART! Our water heater broke. Here I am awaiting my perfect homebirth and we don't have ANY hot water. I was pissed to say the least and the apartment manager said, "Well the guy who usually fixes that stuff is off today, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow." I got out my mean growling voice and said, "We're having a homebirth and my contractions are 4 mins apart. I suggest that you find someone to replace it TODAY!" So he did, and so I had weird bearded men walking in and out of my house all throughout my early labour.

So the midwife left and came back, left and came back, left and came back and finally stayed around 12pm. I wanted to do most of my labouring with just Nick but once my active labour started and he saw how much pain I was in he started to break down too. I was crying, "Let's go to the hospital" over and over and que in Rebecca! She came to save the day! She gave me a pep talk and helped me to manage my contractions. She was so wonderful on how she filled the tub for me and just sat and helped me with my "ooooooohhhhhhhhssss" until I got the hang of it. I think she went to take a nap for awhile but I'm not sure because I got into this weird zone and nothing mattered except me, my noises and the toilet ( I spent a lot of my labour on the toilet, we're very good friends now, haha). I'd go through a round of contractions (one small, one big and another small one), walk around the bedroom, walk back to the toilet and do it again. I think this lasted a couple of hours maybe from 4am-7am? I can't remember, even though I was looking at the clock the whole time I was only makng sure time was passing not really keeping it in my head.

Then its time for transition! Oh boy was this fun, I'm sure I gave everyone a headache. I started crying, "let's go to the hospital" over and over again and "I can't do this!" Nick touched my shoulders to try and help me relax and I screamed. At one point Rebecca asked me what I wanted to do (in terms of what position do you want to be in right now, do you want anything to eat or drink) and my response was, "Die".

I started to fight the contractions and just to let you know, this doesn't work at all, haha. My back was killing me and I really wanted to quit. I kept praying in my head, "God just give me the urge to push!" Rebecca kept asking me to squat, which I refused to do because I swear it would make me split in two. Eventually Rebecca demanded that I squat and with the help of Nick and Rebecca I finally did and guess what, after that initial dynomite explosion of pain IT FELT SO GOOD! After that point all I wanted to do was squat and be on all fours (and the toilet of course).

Then I got the urge to push. Once I realized what that urge was (I had, had it for the past coupel contractions but fought it) I couldn't stop myself. My body was crunching down all by itself and its the best and most painful feeling in the world. I started chanting in my head, "Out! Out! Out!" and once I touched the baby's head I was ready to go! They wanted me to lay down (to prevent tearing) and all I wanted to do was squat even though my legs muscles were giving out from holding myself up. Eventually I got on the bed (Labouring women are VERY hard to convince to do anything, hehe) my pushing became really productive. DH was getting ready to catch the baby and he said to me, "The baby has dark hair!" I said, "The baby has hair?" and then I started thinking, I gotta see this! About five minutes later little Anthem's head streatch my vigina into a scream (it was a loud one). Once her head was out one squirt and the rest of her was out too. DH's was trying to take pictures of her head coming out but it all happened so fast that Rebecca had to catch the baby.

27 hours later Rebecca put the baby on my tummy and the first thing she did was yawn at me (like she had such and easy ride or something), then she started crying, and then she peed all over my stomach. Such a charmer.

DH got to tie off the cord and she's a big healthy girl. My homebirth was exactly what I wanted, even though I kept yelling otherwise during the whole thing!