My contractions were coming hard and fast. I had only been in the birthing pool for about ten minutes when I had the incredible urge to push. While maintaining my breathing, I started to push. At first I pushed very cautiously with short gentle pressure, but the urge to push was not subsiding. I moved into a squatting position, my husband, our midwife, and her nurse were around the birthing pool, but I was not really aware of their presence because I was focusing on my contractions, my breath, and pushing. The period of transition was not what I remember from my son’s birth (I do not remember any pain or discomfort during the pushing phase with my son). As I transitioned, I felt the ring of fire that I read about in books. I felt my daughter moving down and through the birth canal. I know that at one point the midwife put a mirror in the water so that we could see the baby emerging, but I did not want to look because I was focusing on pushing. I was hoping that this time around I would want to watch my baby slowly emerge from my body, but similar to my son’s birth, the very idea of seeing the baby’s head crown was distracting to my ability to push. I also found feeling for the baby’s head rather distracting and after trying once and not being able to recognize my daughter’s head by touch, I refused to feel for her. Instead, I focused on my pushing. I do not remember being told to push at any point either. I do remember my midwife telling me that her ears were out. We had talked about gently pushing her head out and pausing a minute before birthing her shoulder and body. Since I was not looking, I did not know when her head was out. No one told me to stop pushing so I kept pushing. Then I saw my daughter in the water and the midwife lifted her up to my chest. After only fifteen minutes of pushing she was born! She was beautiful and covered in thick vernix! Meeting my daughter for the first time was almost surreal, it was like there was no one else in the room, just the two of us. It was an amazing experience and I was so relieved that she was finally in my arms!
