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So this is the birth story of our second
child, Muhammad Zayd Harith. He was born in the comfort of our home, in the
same pool his sister was born, in god-blessing Friday morning calmness, safe
and fast onto my palms.
It all started when my wife peed on a stick
after finding up her cycle wasn’t come as usual. At first we thought this could
be breastfeeding effect. But no, it was another gift from god that we instantly
embraced and thankful for.
Chapter 1: The decision
When she reached 3rd trimester, we
hadn’t decided where to deliver the baby. Our parent insisted on having it
delivered in a hospital. We were like “Okay, let’s do it in a hospital, but we
will fight against unnecessary intervention (Dear Doc, take a deep breath, we
are not against you. When we said unnecessary, it really meant unnecessary
until it medically required for the safety of the mother and the child, we know
that and I hope you respected that, too. Yes, episiotomy and AROM, Pitocin, and
pain-management medication MAY help, but we don’t want that until needed, put
the frown away please).
So we went shopping for hospitals that offer
mother-friendly birth environment (and pocket-friendly for the fathers too).
KPJ looks promising, Columbia and Pantai too. But none of those near to our
place (except KPJ Kajang, notoriously known for medium-high cesarean rate), and
others are handled mostly by male doctors
(Dear Docs, I know what darurah
meant, we still have options, so we put our options into consideration. No it’s
not about aurat, it’s about letting other guy seeing you wife butt-naked, when
you know you can actually find a woman to do the same. Plus my wife would
rather have a female doc looking at her vajayjay, let’s just respect that.)
We also put government hospitals into our
consideration, but judging by the “habitual” intervention most women endured
(Not to disrespect you Docs, but it really does happened, just maybe not on
your watch, or maybe it became too habitual you subconsciously find it helpful
and necessary to do so, and i find it rather ‘normalcy’ about it, no big deal),
we have to cross the hospitals from our list.
So we decided, if everything is alright (I
meant brightly excellent clear cut alright) for example the baby position, the cord,
the amniotic fluid, the heart rate, the growth, the mother’s BP, HB, no GDM, no
protein trace in urine samples, no weird pain and complications, we decided to
do homebirth. If there is a slight chance of complication, we will not put
ourselves in such risk, and we will get admitted in a hospital, no compromise.
You might say second attempt should be easier
because we have experience doing it. WRONG. You are dead wrong. Remember, every
pregnancy is different. The food intake, the environment, the exposure to
stress and state of minds, those are external affluent to the growth of the
baby and the end result of a birth. You don’t eat the same food as you did, or
having the same environment, or developing self management for stress and
stuff, on your prior pregnancy; then how could you say the pregnancy would be
the same for all your babies? That partly explains the 5% rate of giving birth
exactly on your EDD.
Anyway, the decision has been made, after we
find out that we are really ‘qualified’ to do the homebirth. The baby was
perfectly fine, Alhamdulillah, no lead of complications (that our doc could
think of), Alhamdulillah. And the mother was also in good state, despite the relentless
control freak, which is good for a laidback-but-ready-to-strike husband (me).
But, I drew the borderlines; which means whenever I sensed prolonged labor, or a
slight sign of complication (fresh blood, baby not moving, rising body temperature, stress, fatigue, cramps, shivering,
and fatherly-intuition) I will not hesitate to call it off, and admit her to
hospital immediately.
Before we reaching to our decision, we took a
birthing class, famous-amongst-the-hippies-or-birth-junkies, hypnobirthing. It
was a good class. It was the practical class of managing pain by
self-hypnotizing. And honestly no, it was not as it claimed self-hypnotize.
You, the husband is the one who hypnotize your wife by channeling and diverting
the wife’s mind to think of other thing while she subconsciously handling the
pain. And you might ended up hypnotizing yourself to sleep (happened to me most
of the time, and boy, it was a good afternoon nap). The book of Mongan Method
teaches us a lot of breathing and birthing techniques, which really helps you
to keep calm and birth the baby out (I really meant it, I made myself to sleep
by doing the breathing technique, and it works like a charm, every single time.
Oh and if you are doing it right, you’ll sleep like a baby (air-liur-basi kind
of baby)).
Chapter 2: The plan B
We took out the pool from our storage room,
inflated it, and place it in our room. We start imagining the situations, and
come up with the list of required items. We were 50% ready for it, until I
received a phone call of my mom telling me that she is coming over and stay
with us until my wife give birth.(oh wow, mother instinct, I think she knew her
son is doing it again) “Mission abort. Mission abort”. We deflated the pool,
hide it, and clean up the house to make it looks like normal. So we revisit
plan B, hospital birth. At first the wife looks like an impregnated cat looking
for cupboards. The husband keep it cool by persuading his mom that everything
is working as planned (in reality, we don’t even know which hospital to go to).
The wife’s acting was the key my mom decided to return back home. She acted
like she’s not pregnant at all (by climbing up and down the staircase everyday,
doing the dishes, laundry, and taking care of our first daughter; made my mom
to believed that ‘oh okay, they seemed fine. I don’t need to stay then’. So my
mom return to hometown.
Phew
Chapter 3: The day
17 Dec: I was still hoping that the baby will
be born in January 1st. but the wife have weird feeling that the
baby is coming sooner (currently on week 38). We haven’t bought those item in
the list, so my wife decided to not waiting on me, and called up her friend to
accompany and help her buying those stuff. She managed to complete the required
item. That night, she felt heavy pressure on her pelvic floor “the baby is
engaging further”, and she felt the slow leaking on her underwear. What did I
do? I got back to sleep “people leaks for weeks honey, relax..”
18 Dec: the birth show. The streak of
brownish mucus. And the leak becomes frequent. Again, “relax, it’s just birth
show and you don’t feel the contraction. it could be next week. Drink a lot of
fluid honey”, and went back to sleep. But this time she was in anger and
insisted me to get all the equipment ready. Judging by the angry-mother high
pitch, I knew she was not goofing around. So I lay the “Dexter sheets” on the
floor, wrapped the bed with plastic sheet, inflated the pool, and getting ready
for everything, but leave the pool emptied for the safety of our daughter,
Hannah.
19 Dec: exactly the moment the muazzin
reciting adzan (5:45AM), she woke me up and telling me she felt the
contractions. I asked her if it is strong and she said it’s bearable. So I
offer her the birth ball and ask her to hug it and start practicing hypnobirth.
She started with calm breathing, eyes closed, and swayed away on the ball. Then
I started my ‘half-marathon’ by boiling 2 medium-sized pots, 1 electric kettle,
and a 4 liters hot water dispenser; which will accumulated for a half pail of
hot water. To make the pool water warm, I need 2 full pail of hot water. I
boiled the first round then we went for subuh prayer afterwards.
6.00AM: Hannah awoken from sleep. She was a
bit fuzzy of what happened but she is in the positive mood. I asked my wife to
lay back and breastfeed Hannah. The moment Hannah happily had her breakfast,
the contractions kicked in strong. Which is good. She did the calm breathing
for a while, and I offered her to eat the dates. The water is boiling, and I’m
doing the second half-pail round for the pool. Then I played the recitation of
surah Maryam from youtube, the ambiance sound of calmness fill up the room
immediately. My wife’s friend had lent us a burning set of aromatherapy and
ylang ylang essential oil. The scented oil is said to provide a deep sense of
intimacy scent (the required hormone for birthing). So then we clocked in the
time she had contractions. It was 7 minutes apart with irregular contraction
length. So I went down and made a mug of hot raspberry leaf tea. She sipped it
in between her contractions. She
prostrated down on all four position, I started to hypnotize her by leading her
deep into the imaginary of the baby working his way thru the birth canal. The
wave is getting closer and intense. She managed the pain by focusing on
breathing. Then she barfed.
6.40AM: I’ve completed round 3 of hot water,
and she went into the pool. Alhamdulillah it wasn’t cold, neither it was warm.
Just nice, yep that’s the word. She let herself rest freely into the pool, and
the pain was literally more bearable. Our little munchkin, Hannah saw it and
happily went by the ridge of the pool and having so much fun slapping and splashing the water. Her act made my wife
smile and forgot that she was in pain. Hannah is getting eager to get into the
pool. Instead of intense moment, we enjoyed her presence and the cheering voice
of her.
7.00AM: the contractions were now regular
5:1:1. She closed her eyes and
hypnotized herself. I asked her to always remember Allah by chanting His name
all the time. She moved from a position to another positions every now and
then. The frequent move helps the mother and the labor, trust me. I offered her
dates but she refused, I know at this moment we are getting really near.
8:00AM: the contraction becoming stronger and
stronger, controlled breathing does not help her anymore. I passed the leftover
of the raspberry leaf tea to ‘induce’ more stronger contractions. I asked her
to change the breathing technique, the J breathing. The contraction is getting
closer that we didn’t bother to clock it anymore. The environment is so calm,
in fact very calm. Hannah is in her world of splashing pool.
8:30AM: it was back to back surges. the
contractions were strong and super close together. She screamed for affirmation
“say something nice baby!” I was stunned, at first. We don’t really practice
affirmation, and there’s literally nothing nice to say to a screaming mother in
labor. And I asked “like what?”. If you saw her eyes at that time, you’d run
screaming for your momma. The eyes of Sauron. “I don’t know! anything! Oh
please please please” she screamed, again. I remembered a scene in Finding Nemo
“there..there..there..don’t worry you’re gonna be fine” while scooping the
water and let it slowly flow over her waving belly. Yep, it does helped.
8:45AM: what I saw was a thing that is
otherworldly. The membrane burst and sprayed white particles into the water.
Like, like, like a male squid bursting out their sperms deep in the sea (I saw
in in geography channel!). the contractions were back to back. The canal bulged
with pressure. And I tell her that we are really really nearing, remember
Allah. She did J breathing all the time, and instead of pushing she breath the
baby out.
8:55AM: the head was out entirely, and she
kept breathing the baby out. The baby twisted in the water and let his palm
out. Another surge made the baby move further into the pool. Alhamdulillah the
cord wasn’t tangled at all. At 9:00AM, the baby was out entirely and I hold him
and take him out of the water and put him on his mother’s chest. It happened
briefly. She hold the baby sideway and let the mucus flow out of the baby’s
mouth. He caught his first breath and cried. The baby was fine. The mother
cried and kept chanting Alhamdulilah. However, she had cramps! Her fingers
folded hard against each fingers, and she was panicking. So I read a verse
while slowly massage her hands. Eventually, she calmed down and she regained
the movement of her fingers. “awh cute penis”. Yep, that’s what she said.Then I
adzan the baby and leave the mother to rest. Oh, and Hannah was crying, so I
picked her up and hold her all the time.
9:05AM: She rested against the wall of the pool
while waiting for surges to birth out the placenta. Mostly during this moment,
in a hospital environment, the nurse will add pitocin to ‘induce’ the
contraction again. What we did was, we let the baby latching on her nipple and
feed the baby. The effect is the same, the contraction begins, which is
stronger than ever. But the placenta was not out yet.
9:15AM: I put a very cleaned bowl into the
toilet bowl, and brought my wife to the toilet and let her sit on it while the
baby is feeding on. During a strong surge, the placenta was coming out slowly
but steady into the bowl. It was intact, alhamdulillah. No tear or weird blood
on it. She was shivering a bit as the blood started to flow out. I give her a
drink and let she rest on the toilet for a little while.
The end of the story is my journey of running
the show from 9.30AM till 7PM. Starting by wrapping the baby, wrapping my wife,
feeding Hannah, send her to babysitter, cutting and clamping cord, cleaning the scene, sending both to hospital for post natal checkup, buying clothes
for wife, calling our parents, taking pictures, bury down the placenta; which
is not as interesting as the birth story.
And kudos to my wife, she had her perineum
intact, for a second time!
Everything happened is in control of Allah
SWT, and we could never did this if it’s not of Him who allowed this to
happened. La haula wala quwwata illa billah…alhamdulillah.
p/s: We never advocate homebirth, neither do
our certified birth educators. It’s a huge risk to take it lightly. But we
advice you to learn to know your body, know your role as husband and wife, know
the basic obstetrician, and read and read and read.
The father of Muhammad Zayd Harith
31 Dec 2014
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