Birth Partner Story
Here is how I provided support to Gina during our home birth of our son in June 2020.
The day of labor, I woke up to find Gina walking up and down the stairs. It didn’t take long for me to get the today is the day signal. Gina was still moving around by herself and had started making calls to the extended support crew.
We were still in the early stages of labor, so I grabbed the Barron to-do list and got after it. We had prepared a list of things for me to focus on accomplishing the day of labor, so Gina didn’t need to give me guidance the day of when she was trying to focus on labor. This helped ease my own anxiety, and gave us both a clear understanding of what each of us could expect of the other.
First thing on the list was hitting the store to restock on all of the snacks and drinks that she wanted to have available. Mostly Gatorades and fresh fruit. We had collected non-perishables the weeks prior, such as beef jerky and protein bars, but Gina made a list of fresh foods she wanted available for labor.
After making a quick trip to the closest grocery store, I went into the birthing tub setup.
What I will recommend is setting the tub up in the area that you intend to use it as soon as you get it. I say this regardless of whether it’s new or used for two reasons. The first is, it gives you an opportunity to make sure that the pump is working, and the tub will hold air because the last thing you’ll have time to do on the day of labor is to blow a jacuzzi sized inflatable tub up by mouth or patch holes. If your tub doesn’t come with a plug in air pump I recommend hitting the sporting goods store or amazon and getting one from the camping section. Second, and probably equally as important, is making sure the hose/hose adapter fits and reaches from source to tub. Most sink faucets these days are random sizes compared to the standard fitting that the tub comes with. However, the good news is that your laundry room hook up has a hot water line that should be the standard hose thread. I’m glad that I did this ahead of time and set the wrenches and hoses aside in the laundry room, so that when it was time to get everything setup I could just hook up and run with it.
Gina was coherent for the first few hours and able to manage her texts and calls, but I made sure to pay attention to her demeanor and ability to concentrate on conversation as the contractions came and went. I bring this up, because there will inevitably come a time when your birth partner is in too much pain or concentration to carry out calls or text messages on her own.
That being said, it’s a good idea to have all of the applicable phone numbers such as doula, midwife, family, etc.. moved to your favorites or speed dial page. Making sure everyone else has your number too can be helpful, as well, so if you call them, they answer instead of screen this random number.
To help progress Gina’s labor, we were able to go for walks around the neighborhood. This was great in terms of getting some fresh air for her and I could also tell that the walking helped. Gina had an application on her phone that she used to track contraction intervals. I naturally took over the hitting the lap function on this and could pull data from it upon her request. If your birth partner has a similar application, I would just recommend getting familiar with it at some point before the big day.
Once the active labor picks up you will most likely be able to tell because your birth partner is likely to go from having conversation to just breathing and what you will perceive as being in pain. Gina describes this phase as sleepy drunk, where your partner isnt quite there anymore and really only able to focus on what’s happening in their own body.
Contractions will get closer together and they will not be able to concentrate on getting words out. Reading body language at this point becomes key, but more importantly knowing what the birth plan was ahead of time is critical.
You will be in a position where you must ask yes or no questions or even provide suggestions. At some point you might ask, would you like to change labor positions. If you are not getting a response, you might try suggesting something that had previously been discussed like taking a shower or trying out the birthing tub.
Same goes for monitoring energy and hydration levels. If she is not asking for snacks or drinks, do your best to keep it in the back of your head to offer them as much as you can remember.
All the things that I covered in the recent paragraphs were things that Gina and I had talked about ahead of our son’s birth. Having a good understanding of what needed to be done on the big day helped me to be more productive as a birth partner.
Gina developed the birth partner portion of her online childbirth education course based on how she prepared me for our son’s birth, and she also made me watch it all to prepare.
I found that I was confident in what I was doing and more prepared to provide support. Also, I got a solid 16-hour long chest workout in with the steady demand for hip squeezes… But in all seriousness I felt like an informed and involved birth partner which I believe gave Gina a great deal of comfort during and after the birth.
Do not be the birth partner who’s just sitting around on the phone and emotionally detached or disconnected while your doula does all of the work. You’ll regret it later.
Birth Partner
*Support story from the Birth Partner*