Everything just seemed so much easier because I had hope. I kept taking the homeopathy, and it triggered stronger contractions without fail. (I’m now keen to learn as much as I can about it, I’ve been converted!)
I kept waiting for transition - that stage where you think you can’t take anymore, the pain is too much, the waves unending and overwhelming, but it never came. I laboured on. It got harder, but I was pretty tired too. My muscles ached, my knees were red raw, I couldn’t sit down because of the pressure in my bum.
And it was cold. The first day I’d laboured naked pretty much the whole time, but the second day I kept getting cold, and then a contraction would hit, I would overheat and cast off all my clothes only to scramble back into them once it subsided – only to throw it all off for yet another shower. The hot water and change of scene helped. My life saver that day was the heat packs, I used them on my lower back, tailbone and lower belly mostly in-between contractions to ease the muscles and melt the pain away. I did manage to burn my back on them at one point though, and I felt like I bruised myself with the rubbing too. When a contraction hit I’d use my palms (or my fists if it was a bad one) and I’d rub my back/bum as hard as I could, while Dustin stood by and reminded me to breathe and not clench my ass. The rubbing helped with the not clenching part. Did you know it’s nearly impossible to clench those muscles if your fat is being jiggled? Go on, give it a try!

Jackie didn’t pay me much mind. Where Sonja was obviously watching over me when she was around, Jackie was on the phone ordering cement, writing notes, playing with the zen garden on my altar... She didn’t care, and that was very helpful believe it or not. I laboured another hour or so and then Jackie started to talk to me about pushing. My cervix was gone save for a tiny lip on one side that she was confident I could push past.
I was seriously already having a crack at pushing (because the pressure still made me want to crap) when Jackie gave me a little talk. She’s like “You’re not going to be able to breathe this baby down, it’s your first, it will take a lot of hard work. Go to the bathroom and push as hard as you can, try to poo.” I’m thinking “I’m not a hypnDustinrther – I’m not trying to breathe anything down” and “WTF does it look like I’m doing?” but being honest with myself I knew I was holding back. I was starting to become afraid of the contractions. I was so sore, I didn’t want to work even harder and cause myself more pain. I was using all my tools to remain calm and focused, to distance myself from the pain, when what I really needed to do was surrender to it, immerse myself in it and get through the darkness to come out the other side.
~Ihwaz. Find liberation from the fear of death. Embrace within you this powerful transformation. Surrender. ~

I took Dustin to the toilet with me, because hell I knew I wasn’t actually going to poo, I was empty. (That’s really reassuring actually. No one wants to deliver the poo baby before their real baby) And I poured my fears out to him, we confided some stuff in each other and I felt normal again. It’s amazing how much power that man has to make me feel better. So I pushed like nothing else. I strained for a long time. And nothing seemed to be happening. Jackie was asking me “Do you feel the urge to push or do you just feel pressure?” and I’m like “I feel like I need to push because of the pressure” and then she’d repeat the question like I was some moron, and I just didn’t know the right answer. So I’m like “I don’t know!” and she’s like “You should know.” Fuck you woman, does it look like I’ve done this before? I was still grateful she was there: hours had passed, not the planned ten minutes, I wasn’t paying her and she was obviously busy. I knew she was helping as best she could. I went and tried to poo some more.

At some point in all my pretend-to-poo action, I’d reached down to see if I could feel any movement in the baby station… but instead, I felt something more sinister.

…

Is that a cauliflower sticking out of my arse?!?!

Oh, no. Of course not. It’s my bowel turning itself in-side-out and bubbling over the edge of my ring. Charming! I was very alarmed at this new development. I mean, there was a lot of it there. I guess if you strain hard enough and there’s no poop, your bowel is going to push something out. So I waddle back to the lounge room, holding my arse apart because there’s nothing like feeling your cauliflower rub against your cheeks and I’m like “Is this normal? When can I expect it to go back in… it will go back in, right?” and Jackie is all “Oh that’s normal. As the baby’s head moves down, sometimes your bowel has nowhere else to go.” I accepted that at face value, but honestly? That makes no sense because my baby’s head was going nowhere. It was right there with that lip of cervix where we left it.

Anyway, Jackie had stuff to do, and my baby wasn’t going to come shooting out at any moment. So she decided she’d go do stuff. But she’d be in the area if we needed her; except we didn’t have her phone number so if we needed her we’d have to contact Sonja and get her to send Jackie. (Sonja hadn’t called for hours, and as it later turned out was actually attending another birth and likely wouldn’t have picked up ) I didn’t care. It was nice to be left alone.

I took more of the little white magic sugar pills and invited Dustin to come lay down with me – because that’s what worked before. I figured, we could lay down for a nap, and if I could lay just right maybe owlet’s head would slip past that last bit of resistance and I could face the transition of doom, and then have a baby. Poor bloke really would have preferred a sandwich, though.

Every time it looked like I’d be ok for five minutes, a contraction hit or I’d get lonely and be like “just lay with me another minute”. He didn’t once complain.
And, over an hour later, he did get that sandwich. Jackie had come back, and said she’d be reading in her car outside if we needed her and Dustin was lying in bed watching me as I sat on the can and pushed like nobody’s business through a contraction. Something moved. Downward. Unmistakably.

I’m like “Something just moved!”
He goes “Oh? What did it feel like?”
... “Jupiter”
Yes, before you point it out, Jupiter IS made of gas and I do know that. But it’s the biggest planet, and the round thing moving inside me felt HUGE. Next time, I’ll choose a more solid planet so I can be accurate in my descriptions though!

Because I’d had a successful push, I knew there would be no more napping, and I’m like “you better get that sandwich… I’ll be here.”