If you want to read the part 1 of this story.

I was in my 38th week when the contractions started. Suyai who was my friend and midwife, was on her way for my scheduled home natural birth would only arrive after 5 days. I had given a bath to our cat the day before, a rather laborious work. I don’t quite remember when exactly the contractions started, because they were very mild at first, but it had already started when I was having lunch. I bathed after that but bathing didn’t ease them. I was still 16 days away from the due date. We called up Suyai who was in New York by then. She didn’t think it was active labor. Interestingly, in the demographic she had practiced with, first time births usually happened post-term; while here it seems to be the exact opposite. She told us that it was most likely a false labor and said that it would go away if I relaxed. I did a lot of things to relax but it just didn’t go away. This was happening. Time for Plan B!

We had been planning for a waterbirth with Suyai all along. We bought the pool and supplies, arranged for hot water etc. Suyai was supposed to reach in time according to our due date, but we had to be prepared for a home birth even if she couldn’t make it. Because going by the figure, if I end up in a hospital, I would most probably get wheeled in through the labor room straight to the operating table. The mother of Valentina (the friend I got through facebook), who was also a midwife along with one of her friends agreed to assist us in having a home birth even if Suyai couldn’t make it. But they were not confident to handle a water birth by themselves so I would have to settle for a normal one. We were OK with it as it still ticked all of our boxes of having a natural home birth except in water. On the day of the first contractions, Valentina’s mother had visited around noon and we had still not known that I was in labor. She had told me that it wouldn’t be long though. She could tell from the drop in my tummy. When I could no longer ignore the contractions, we gave her a call and requested her to check my dilation. She had been hesitant to do it since Valentina, her daughter who was also due at the same time was spotting after her doctor checked her cervix. We insisted as we thought that was the only way to know if I was truly in labor. She told us that I was one finger opened and that it was indeed a true labor. The sign for a true labor for me, however, was the baby’s position. I could feel baby’s hiccups in the birth canal vertically pointing towards the vagina.

Well, not only was I feeling his hiccups in the birth canal but my mucous plug had broken too. Little by little I started to lose mucus. It was indeed time! I called up my younger sister asking her to come, and come prepared. She had packed extra towels for the baby. My sister arrived with a bag full of her clothes as she was planning to stay over. My husband and sister took charge. Valentina’s mother had left after checking my dilation. It was just the three of us in the bedroom now. I had specifically instructed the two of them not to allow anyone in. They were my guardians.

The contractions came about 15 minutes apart. But it was 10 minutes if I could relax my body. We made sure I was drinking water like a fish. I had to keep a tub near me to urinate every 20 minutes. Walking to the bathroom next door frequently was proving difficult. My husband and sister did all they could to keep the water filled and the tub empty. They took all my requests very seriously. They made sure that anyone coming into the house talked in whispers as I could hear them from the bedroom. My cries had started getting louder and word of my labor had been out among the neighbors and the extended family. Some had even come to talk to my mother in law telling her that what we were doing was crazy. I am sure that half of her believed in what we did while the other half panicked. But in any case, she knew that our team of three was too strong to be persuaded to give up. My two angels made sure that I had my undisturbed labor in silence. We were constantly in contact with Suyai and Valentina’s mother. We had no idea when the baby would come. We had thought that it would be late that night or early in the following morning.

My sister and my husband took turns to catch some sleep. And I continue laboring throughout the night without my water breaking. I could manage only a few minutes of sleep between my contractions and it had tired me out. The next day, Valentina’s mother visited again around lunch time and she told us that it would not be long.

Everyone thought that we weren’t prepared since Suyai wasn’t here yet. But we had a plan B and we were confident about it. We knew we may have the stress of convincing and resolving issues with our midwives in real time; but we believed we’ll succeed. We had been monitoring my health carefully, checking my blood pressure and sugar regularly, looking out for signs of spotting or abnormal stomach cramps. We had even been keeping a tab on the baby’s position. Everything was going fine and we knew that we could do this without treating it like a medical emergency which it actually wasn’t. Some still think I was crazy to have had my home birth without medical interventions while others have changed their opinion and said that it was brave of me. But I see myself as neither as it was a very logical and natural decision to make after doing my research on birth.

I continued with the cycle of drinking water, peeing, losing mucus, contractions and rest. When Valentina’s mother had visited in the morning, she had told me that I would know when the baby was coming. It would be nothing like any pain I had felt, she had said. And that I would hear my hip bones crackling as they opened. Though it scared me out of my skin, I was prepared to embrace the pain and run through it all. Because of this, I was expecting immense pain when I would be ready. And that is why when the nurse friend of Valentina’s mother, finally arrived and checked my dilation in the evening at around 6.30 pm, I was surprised to hear her tell me that I was fully dilated. The pain hadn’t increased. It was tiring because of the lack of sleep and laboring for more than 24 hours but it wasn’t unbearable. She sent word out to my mother in law to open all cupboard doors and leave the lid of the chengphu (a big lidded pot to store raw rice. This vessel is considered sacred and important) open. This tradition of opening up when ready for the baby has been part of a home birth since the days of the traditional Maibi midwives. I was very careful while she checked my dilation and didn’t allow her to prod me for long. Because of that I was feeling unsafe.

Later I found out that she had wanted to break my water manually. She had got impatient with us for asking her to speak softly and not touch me unnecessarily. Then she tried to sweet talk me into getting me in a supine position for the final push. My water had broken then. I knew that it was the worst position to give birth in. So I told her that I wanted to be on my hands and knees instead. I had read that it allowed the widest opening for baby’s had to pass through. Now, both Valentina’s mother and the nurse friend had started persuading me to lie down on my back. They thought that an episiotomy was necessary. I knew that wasn’t true and that even a natural tear was a better option. By now they had started calling me Thoibi (sweetheart) and started sweet talking to me while trying to get me do what they wanted. I just wouldn’t give in. I had to stay strong throughout. They then started to blackmail me emotionally by saying that my baby was suffering too because of the long labor. It had started to get to me a little. But I still couldn’t surrender because I knew it would spiral out of my control if I did. My body and my birth may have been a bloody mess if I had surrendered. And I imagined that they would cut my baby’s cord too early and beat him to get him crying. And all because the nurse friend was in a hurry to leave. I was on all fours on the bed and starting to push. They shouted their slogan, “Push! Push! Push!” During all this I managed to tell them that I wanted to wait for the fetal ejection reflex. But my words were getting drowned in the commotion. The nurse friend tried to touch me while I pushed but I asked her not to. I had wanted to be not touched all throughout the labor. I had even declined my husband’s kind offer for a back rub. By now I was pushing hard against my reflexes. I knew that it was still early but I did it anyway.

They shouted that they could see the head. I made one final effort and pushed him out forcefully. Sora fell on the bed and started crying. He was born in the evening of 7th December, 2015. No one caught him as I had asked not to be touched and everyone was standing away from me. “The cord is around the baby’s neck!”, one of them exclaimed. I jumped up and turned towards the baby behind me, the cord still connected to the placenta inside me. They had told me that they would cut the cord early if baby had two or more rounds of cord around his neck. I knew that even multiple nuchal cords around the baby was not a danger and there was no need to clamp the cord early to tackle it. But Valentina and I had failed to convince them this. I shouted to my husband to handle the situation. And before he could act on anything they had undone the cord from around his neck and handed him to me with the cord intact. My anxiety had almost made me forget that immediate skin to skin was the first thing I had wanted. They had remembered. I held my slippery blue crying baby on my chest and started consoling him. He was so warm. Very interestingly, his cries mimicked the patterns of my cries during the contractions. It almost felt as though he was making fun of me by doing that. It was funny.

I had a second degree tear. I believe it was avoidable and was largely due to all the forceful pushing. Now that my baby was in my arms, it felt alright to surrender to their procedures. They gave me an injection on my thigh to induce the birth of the placenta. I didn’t feel like arguing that we could wait for a while for it to happen naturally. They were already terrorized by my natural tear.

I had to give the baby to my husband once the placenta was out since they had to stitch me up. We didn’t have a full hour of immediate skin to skin but it was okay. My husband had taken off his shirt and embraced the baby. The baby and the placenta was still connected. Someone was holding the placenta in a bowl above my husband as he held him. I think it was my sister. We had a full 50 minutes or so before the cord went white and limp and Sora got all of his stem cell rich blood in him and then the cord was cut.

The nurse friend and Valentina’s mother had forgotten to bring along a local anesthesia in their hurry but they still had to stitch me up quickly. ” It’s going to hurt a little”, she said. Stitching up the inside was painless. I could just feel a tingling sensation as they ran the threads through me. But when they started stitching up my perineum, it was like no other pain I had ever felt. At a point, it crossed the threshold and I had felt numb for a few moments. It finally ended.

My mother then helped me get him latched on to my breast for the first drops of colostrum. He had a good latch and sucked hungrily. My mother had teased him for that. Sweet little Sora then slept like an angel and I placed him right next me on the bed and stared at him for a long time. I couldn’t believe that he was finally here.

Sora was born skinny and wrinkled at 2.6 kgs but he was active and healthy. He gained weight and caught up fast within the 15 days that he was early. Together with Suyai and Valentina, we held a small public talk to share about our birth experiences and the midwifery model of childbirth and care. My father was converted after listening to Suyai. We set up a group on Facebook called Birth Circle Manipur to share information and experiences to guide other would-be parents to make informed choices for their births.

To sum up, I want to thank all those who helped me and were part of our birth journey. Priyanka, Lina, Suyai, Gauri, Valentina’s mother, the nurse friend (even though she still thinks we were crazy), my mother in law, my sister, my husband, Valentina, all those on Birth India and everyone else who had a role to play in our story. I would definitely love to play a part in another’s birth story too someday. I hope my story inspires others to believe in themselves, in their bodies and their ability to birth. I wish that someday all women have a birth plan based on informed choices and I hope that they carry it out too.

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