I always tell parents to stay home as long as possible during early labor. You are more comfortable in your own home space, and no one is going to be pressuring you for interventions, or trying to check your cervix- never mind the lack of fluorescent lights at home. Those don’t make anyone feel sexy!
Occasionally the suggestion to stay home as long as possible meets with the questions of “What if we wait too long?” or “What if the baby comes while we’re on the way to the hospital?” This is usually from first time parents, and I have to remind them that first time babies don’t usually fall out of their mother’s body. That you have some warning that they are coming, and usually that warning is soon enough that you will be able to arrive at your birthing facility in plenty of time to receive your baby.
(I should note that for second time parents that timeline can be much accelerated- but this doesn’t mean you should be rushing to the hospital early just in case- you still need to tune into your body)
But of course there are those exceptions where things move quickly, or mom just feels supported and comfortable enough that the body doesn’t slow the labor process while in the car (yes that can happen), and I do always remind expecting parents that in the overwhelming majority of those situations, everyone is fine. Baby can be placed directly on mom’s skin. Don’t touch the umbilical cord. Cover both of you with a blanket/towel/your coat, and call emergency services to give you a nice smooth, fast ride to the nearest facility (or they can help with the placenta and then transport you) But nearly every time, there is no medical emergency.
I was reminded of this when a recent HypnoBirthing student sent me her birth story.
She writes:
I must say I got every single one of my birth preferences (including no IV/heplock & 18 minutes of delayed cord clamping!!!) because I gave birth to our angel in the car 5 minutes out from the hospital!!!!!!
When I say the writing was on the wall from the beginning that I was having our baby that night, my subconscious was clued into something my conscious mind simply was not. I have to give you the play by play because you will be one of the few people that really appreciate why I was in such disbelief and understand/empathize with why we didn’t make it to the hospital.
So late Monday night , I noticed some tightening in my uterus but it also felt very fleeting and irregular so I chalked those up to warm-up practice surges (in hindsight, definitely the start of early labor).
We had sex that night (and I can assure you that this was the labor accelerator for suuuure!)
At ~5 am I was woken up by this intense pressure in my pelvis but not necessarily a consistent pattern so I chalked this up to "lightning crotch" - which I agreed is an indication something is happening like the warm-up surges the night before, but not any indication how close I was to labor (could be hours, days or weeks in my mind).
Around ~10:30am, I experienced a noticeable tightening of my uterus when I was sitting on the birth ball and instinctually, since I was mid conversation with my wife, I noticed I started just getting up from the birth ball during these mild tightening sensations and pacing a bit and going to sit back down when they seemed to melt away.
At ~11, I lost my mucus plug but when l told my wife I put a lot of emphasis on the fact we know my cervix is preparing for labor but losing your mucus plug is not indication of when labor will begin.
We had an appointment with our lawyers to sign our Health Care Proxy & Power of Attorney forms in Manhattan (~50 mins each way) for 12:30pm and I had agreed to drive the night before because (wife) was still working and her leave wasn't supposed to start until Friday 8/26 (baby was due 8/29). On the way there, I was glancing at the clock whenever I felt this tightening and they seemed to last a short-ish period of time but were like 20 mins apart because I only experienced a few on the way to Manhattan. However, on the way back, I ask my wife if she's gotten a surge timing app yet because they seemed to be more frequent than the ride in, but I still wasn't convinced they were consistent and wanted some data. I assured her though that I was completely ok to drive and wouldn't endanger our lives if I had any doubts I wasn't.
Ride back my wife was timing the surges but not telling me anything about them and it wasn't til we were 45 mins through the drive she admits they are 5 mins apart lasting for between 45 seconds and 1 min and 15 seconds. I immediately start rationalizing that no, I really don’t think I am in active labor yet because while I was sure I felt when the surge began, I wasn't really able to tell the end of surge -- it sort of just melted away, so maybe when I said "stop" that wasn't accurate. And I had one surge that was 8 mins apart so maybe they are still not consistent. (In hindsight I had probably 7 surges 5 mins apart and only 1 that was 8 min apart hahah).
At 3pm, we get home and agree to inform the midwifery clinic, our doula, and our parents. When my wife calls our doula and simply states what the surge timer counted, I scold her saying “you’re going to make it seem like I’m in active labor”. And when she texts our parents, I tell her to make sure to emphasize that I could be in early labor for hours or even days.
At ~4:30pm, I am still pacing around the house trying to pack our hospital bag (which very off brand for us was not packed yet) but am getting too distracted re-reading the list many times over during surges. I then also puke once but tell my wife I feel so much better and can go back to packing the hospital bag.
At ~5pm, I speak to our doula and during our 10 min call I have two surges which she encourages me to not try to rush speaking thru but rather take my time surge breathing but between surges, I pick my convo/ thought right back up and continue to have an otherwise normal conversation. (In hindsight, this is ultimately what fooled the doula into thinking I probably would be giving birth way late that night or even early Wednesday morning so she could take her time coming to me)
At ~5:30pm, it’s clear to both my wife and I things have intensified so my wife encourages me to lie down on the downstairs couch and finally turn on Rainbow Relaxation as we both admit I’m definitely in active labor. This is when I finally admit we probably won’t make it to our front row seats for the WNBA playoff game at 9pm that night and we should sell our tickets to our friends.
From between 5:30-7pm, I am oscillating between being passed out under hypnosis and screaming my wife’s name to come over from wherever she is in the house trying to resume packing the hospital bag to caresses me, light touch, affirm me etc. And then in random intervals, sprinting to our downstairs bathroom to puke. I end up vomiting/dry heaving ~4ish times. I didn’t know this then but surges were 3 min apart so my wife barely had time to throw one thing in the bag before I screamed her name again.
At ~7pm is when I start vocalizing during the surges. Deep, very loud groans lasting the whole surge. my wife calls our doula being like you need to get here asap and she was still 1 hr away. She encourages my wife to try to get me upstairs into the shower as another option for comfort and there’s also a bed for me too.
At 8:10pm, doula arrives and takes over as comfort person for me to give my wife a chance to just get the last few things together. In that hour waiting for our doula, the shower didn’t work out for me longer than 10 mins because I was afraid I was going to slip when I jolted up, but during breaks between surges I wanted to be seated. I took to the bed and that worked up until about ~8:30, where again oscillating between a deep, still, relaxed state and jumping out of bed during a surge to hang off my wife or roll around on knees and my hands hugging the birth ball.
At 8:30, I suddenly jump up from where I am on the birth ball and alarmingly tell our doula we should be in the hospital right now because I can feel this insane need to poop and a pressure on my rectum and it’s not going away between surges. It’s at this point our doula locks eyes with my wife and is like pull the car around we are leaving. Mind you my wife had been frantically trying to pack the hospital bag but couldn’t really make much progress until the doula got there. We checked out front door code record, and between 8:30 and 9pm when we left, my wife left the house 14 times!!
Now, the car ride, the best part. I couldn’t get comfortable at first and exclaimed "this is going to be f**king awful" when I first got in. I couldn’t sit because it felt like a bowling ball was between my legs. I finally figured out the hands and knees. I'm facing the rear driver side tire on my knees in the back at an angle because I am too tall to face directly back toward the trunk directly. At this point, I’m telling our doula I feel the need to push each surge but asking how do I not push. She’s encouraging me to pretend I’m blowing out a candle on each exhale which will relax my body and limit that pushing feeling. Of course, I tried that to the best of my ability but it was always at the end of an exhale my body felt like it was pushing on its own and I would scream out “oh no I pushed!” The irony here is I was wearing over the ear noise canceling headphones listening to Rainbow Relaxation on repeat so I couldn’t hear myself.
We got almost half way when I kept asking my wife for ETA updates. She wouldn’t tell me an exact number but kept saying I was doing a good job. When I saw a landmark I knew that indicated we were getting close I really thought I was going to make it but I also started feeling the baby crowning! I wasn’t in pain but simply narrating with a harried tone, “oh no, the baby is crowning! We’re close right? Oh! The baby is going back in! Oh the baby is crowning!” and just like that, when we were only 5 mins out, I simply declare right in succession, “oh the baby’s head is out, oh the shoulders, oh baby is here!! Baby is here!!” And the doula on instinct reaches into my underwear and shorts and just pulling a screaming Baby N out!! We were in utter disbelief and my wife safely pulls over and somehow remembers to snap a pic!!
Our doula then asked what time it was and announced she was going to run inside and let the hospital staff know we’re here! That was when my wife shared we were just pulled over on the side of the road and not at the hospital!!! Our doula went into action and pulled N to my chest, covered her with the towel I had been kneeling on, and told me to sit down hold N tight and asked my wife if she was good to drive. The best part of the story is immediately when she pulled us back on to the road, one of the first things I say is “oh that wasn’t so bad, I’d do that again” hahahahha
That last 5 mins of the drive was complete shock mixed with delight, disbelief and bliss. It’s funny now in retrospect how grateful I am for the car birth because had we arrived at the hospital 5 mins, 20 mins or even an hour earlier, the chaos and sterile nature of the hospital and its atmosphere would have made the birth at best much less intimate and at worse traumatic.
Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed reading this long rendition as much as I did. I delivered my placenta in the L&D room with the on call provider from my practice and had a short hospital stay before returning home.
Everyone was healthy, I’ve healed well and N is a growing growing girl!
Thank you Thank you Thank you for imparting such a valuable technique and philosophy. We’ve definitely embraced HypnoBirthing and N is such a calm, peaceful baby — likely as a result!
And thank you both for letting me share in your journey into parenthood, and for sharing this story with us all! Congratulations!