Natural Home Birth Story- Long!

sequoiasky · October 2013

On Saturday afternoon the midwife came over and check me, I was at 3.5cm and about 80% effaced after stop and go labor over the past few weeks. She did a big stretch and sweep and offered a Non Stress test that evening before we went into the hospital for an induction on Sunday. Shortly after she left I started to have contractions that felt more real and were about 6+ minutes apart. I had those on and off all day, but I didn't want to expect anything because of all of the false starts.

DS was visiting his Grandma and we spent the day walking, eating and even had a short visit from friends. When it came time for the NST my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and made me pause to get through them. We decided to go anyway to feel and safe and comfortable incase this was real labor.
During the NST things died down, but we got a great reading and once we got back home the contractions came back.
I took a nap with my hypnobabies tracks at about 9:30 and woke up with what felt like a huge and long contraction at 11. They kept coming so I got out of bed and I had the shakes. My body could not stop shaking and I felt really ungrounded and like a ton of energy was surging through me. It made me a bit nervous so I asked DH to call the midwife and doula. Once my feet were on the ground more and I had a drink, the shaking started to pass. DH covered me with blankets and was timing my contractions which had picked up to 4 minutes apart.
The midwife and doula both made their way over. My contractions were much more intense at this point and I had to breath in strange ways, hum or tap the couch with my hand to get through it. I was laying over top of the ball because we though that that baby was still slightly sunny side up. Our doula was absolutely amazing and from the minute she arrived was working to get the baby in a better position. She held my back and low tummy through contractions which made a huge difference. When the midwife arrived she check me and I was 5+ dilated and my cervix was paper thin. Having a midwife and doula that knew about baby position and made me change positions during every contraction was(in hindsight) the real key to success, they were absolutely amazing (both had attended over 1000 births and my doula had trained with Ina May)!
DH and the doula supported my contractions for the next while so the midwife could set up all of the equipment. It was pretty neat to see every thing that they bring to a home birth like oxygen and medications..etc. I was pretty out of it at this point and was relying heaving on DH and the birth team to feed me, keep me hydrated and lead me. We also had a student arrive to help and at some point a back up midwife as well.
Dealing with the contractions naturally was intense and in hindsight really amazing. I needed a lot of help and felt so much better with more hand on me, pressure and making sounds. I wasn't able to lay down since we needed to give the baby a lot of space, so I was asked to stand or sit on the ball- or to walk. It was a real challenge. The back labour was extreme and I remember crying and saying that back was on fire. For a few contractions all I could say was "my back"... about 100 times.
Because of the intensity my midwife said that we should break my water to move things along. She was worried that I would get to tired. I remember thinking that I didn't feel too tired, but I really trusted her. We went into the bedroom and I lay down on my back (which sucked). The student got ready to break my waters with the next contraction and she was successful. It was more of a slow leak at the point.
After that, things are a bit of a blur. The contractions came hard and strong. I remember hearing the doula say that she could feel the bones of my back moving as the baby started to descend. It was extremely intense, but I didn't even think that I wanted to go to the hospital and in a weird way I felt that I could manage it. I was still getting about a 2 minute break in between contractions and during that time I drank electrolytes or a smoothie (filled with bananas, fruit, hemp oil and straight coconut milk) and relaxed completely. I did however have moments of begging it to stop, crying and I think there was a wall punch and a student midwife hit (by accident!!) in there. Eventually I could feel that when I had a contraction that my body just started to push and I let them know.
We moved into the bedroom and they asked me to go on my side which I didn't want to do, but at that point I really just did whatever they said. I trusted them completely to guide me as they (and DH) had been absolutely incredible the entire time.
As soon as my next contraction hit my body just started to push on its own. It was so intense to feel my body just doing it (last time I had an epi and we pushed on more of a schedule). I could feel the baby descend fully and almost crown during the contraction. It was wild and very out of body, like an animal birth. At some point I realized that this was extremely painful and I would need to get in sync with my body to make this happen faster. I remember my hypnobabies and my friend's story of her birth (where she stopped pushing and was encouraged to keep going)- and just started to say open, open, out, out in my head and gave it everything that I had regardless of my very real fear/feeling that my vagina was about to rip in half. With the next contraction I pushed along with my body and I felt a lot of progress. I knew in my mind that I would not be able to maintain this level of pain for long and I seriously just had to get the baby out. After 2 more contractions DH was called down to help birth the baby, he was holding my hands and decided to stay with me. I can't sing DH's praises enough during this whole experience, it was like he knew everything I wanted/needed without having to ask, I could not have ever imagined a better husband and I think I fell in love with him 100 times over again during this entire experience. On the forth contraction I gave it everything I had and I felt the baby's head be born, intense! Within a second I realized my contraction was gone and I would need to wait to birth the body. I couldn't go through one more second of anything and just pushed as hard as I could without a contraction... the body came flying out and our baby was born at 4am! 10lbs 3oz with a 37.5cm head!!!
They put him right onto my chest and I was so relieved, but I was not ready! I asked anyone to keep a hand on him and I just needed 5 minutes to close my eyes and catch up. After a few minutes I reached down, pulled up and held baby for the first time. The placenta was born about 10 minutes later and then I stared to bleed. My uterus was really tired from the birth and would not contract. Luckily the midwives recognized it and I had a shot of pictocin in my leg. It didn't seem to be work though and some clots started to come out. The clots were forming in my cervix and the midwife had to reach inside of me and pull them out. I was trying to stay very calm and get baby to latch hoping that would help contract my uterus to get the bleeding to stop. The midwife and student had to massage my uterus and got some new medicine from the fridge. This one was more painful going into my leg and I was starting to get a little worried. Everyone was super calm and just watching the situation closely. My doula was pressing acupressure points and after another 30 minutes or so everything was under control. Unfortunately I had lost a lot of blood and was put on modified bed rest for the rest of the week.
The first day was really tough, more bleeding and I could't even walk to the bathroom. However, by the end of the day I was feeling better and it seems to be getting better and better each day. Little Hunter is doing really well, nursing is all from scratch again- but we are working on it and he is doing a great job.