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Natural Birth
Transition Phase
For those of you who have had a natural birth, how did you get through the transition phase? Did you reach an "I don't think I can do it anymore" point? Did you get sick? Please share your experiences and tips... I'm due August 4th and we have been preparing for a natural childbirth for our second child but I am still concerned about this phase of labor.
TIA!
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Re: Transition Phase
Transition lasted 4 hours for me. Honestly, I could not tell a difference in the pain/contractions during this time as opposed to the rest of labor. In fact, I thought for sure I was in transition several times before I actually was; and when I finally was in transition, I thought for sure when the midwife checked me again I would have made no progress b/c I didn't feel anything above and beyond what i had already been feeling.
I reached a "I don't think I can do this anymore" point several times throughout my labor - but that's because it lasted 40 friggin hours, and had nothing to do with transition. I agreed to get water papules done on my back when I was about 8 cm. It was so effective that I felt no pain for the next 2 hours and was able to get about an hour's worth of sleep before getting to 10cm and being ready to push.
I have very quick labors (1-2 hours) so transition is a pretty short, but very intense stage for me.
With both kids, I hit a point where I threw up. I have a wimpy stomach, and am on my third Hyperemesis diagnosis, so take that with a grain of salt. I puke for 9 months regardless. I also did feel overwhelmed, the contractions came one right after another, they were intense, and I felt like I couldn't do it. With my son I lay there in bed (where the nurse told me to stay) and I would flap my hands during every contraction because I didn't know what else to do. With my daughter, I was better educated and had a doula. I bounced on the labor ball, dozed off between contractions, and made a lot of noise. With both kids I said (several times) that I couldn't do it. But I could, and I did.
I don't like to sugar coat things. It's intense and overwhelming, but you can do it. Educate yourself and your partners; make sure you, and they, know that it's normal to say you can't, to feel like you can't, and yet with support you can keep going. It reminds me very much of running a marathon; you have to prepare yourself for hitting the wall, because the odds are, it's going to happen. If you have run through things to do ahead of time, you can get through it, and you will be do glad you did.
I did have a fleeting thought of "I can't do this, WTF was I thinking, I am not cut out for natural birth!" I got in the shower at that point, which helped just enough for me to focus again. Not long after that I started feeling the urge to push. I knew I was in the home stretch then and pushing felt so much better than not pushing.
Transition sounds scary, I know, but it's nothing you can't handle. GL!
Transition with DD#1 only lasted about 20 minutes. It was over so fast I didn't have time time to hit a wall. With DD#2 it was a different story.
DD#2 was not presenting correctly (she was facing my hip instead of my back) and transition lasted over 2 and a half hours. I am not gonna lie, for a while I thought I was going to die. I was hyperventilating and couldn't control it. No matter how hard I tried to breathe calmly I just couldn't. I think that the hyperventilating completely freaked out my husband because it was the nurse (who was a godsend) that got me through it. She helped me into the tub and it relaxed me enough that I could breathe. It was definitely the scariest thing I have ever experienced. But even though it was scary I made it through and never even asked for drugs. You will be fine and you can do it!
With DD, transition just felt like the rest of labor. I could not say exactly when it started or ended.
I very clearly remember when I knew I was in transition with DS. I had just walked into our bedroom when a contraction hit. DH walked up behind me and realized I was having a contraction, so he put his arms around me and I leaned into him and we swayed back and forth a bit. It was just the two of us in the room and I could just feel his love for me and for our baby. The contraction let up and I looked at the clock, and as I did, the contraction started right back up again. Again, DH and I swayed together. I looked at the clock again when the contraction let up again and it had been two minutes from the start of the second "wave." So I knew that the entire contraction had to be 4-5 minutes long -- a hallmark of transition.
But that was it. No feelings of "I can't do it anymore," no getting sick. Just peace, comfort, love. That moment (or, to be accurate, that five minutes
) is one of my favorite memories of labor.
Less than an hour later, I was holding my baby.
Like so many other things labor-related, I think transition sometimes gets built up to be more than it is. It's just... labor. You'll get through it
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
I distinctly remember thinking with my first "why can't they just cut this baby out of me" and "this is why people get epidurals" when I was in transition
I had done a lot of reading on the Bradley method and knew that when I got the point where I thought I couldn't do it anymore, I would be near the end so those thoughts actually kept me going 
With my second, I don't remember a pain transition because it was all pretty intense, but I did start throwing up at one point. Not much came up, but it was unpleasant.
So while transition isn't the best time ever, I looked forward to it as a signal that my baby was close to joining us. It didn't last long either time so there was a silver lining there too.
I don't remember much of my transition with DD. I was lying on a bed with DH behind me, kind of spooning, and I was just rocking my body and pressing into him. I don't know how long it lasted. DH thinks it took about an hour, but we're not sure. It was one unending contraction and I was pretty miserable. BUT, it ended and I got to push DD out and I remember saying, "Oh, this is SO much better!"
I didn't get sick and I didn't ask for meds. I just surrendered. And then I had a daughter in my arms! So even though it's the roughest part, it's just a piece of it. You'll get through it and before you know it, you'll be pushing. I'm actually looking forward to that phase of labor now b/c I can't wait for DH to say, "You're so close to meeting our baby!"
My labor flowed pretty well, which is to say it gradually got more intense and so even in hindsight I can't really say when transition started. I do remember having one 'double contraction' where the contraction started to go down and then went back up and I didn't get a break between the two. I remember kind of having a moment of panic where I thought what if it keeps going like this and never ends! I also remember thinking that I could understand why women got epis, but I was never tempted to get one myself. I never had that moment when I thought I couldn't do it, but I remember towards the end just thinking I wanted to be done. I never threw up, or thought that I was going to.
What helped me the most was being in a warm bath and humming during my contractions. I would say the best thing to do is research different forms of natural pain relief. Keep trying different things until you find something that works. Just take it one contraction at a time and don't worry about the next one until it's there. Remember that you will always get a break. You can do this!
I did transition in the car on the way to the hospital.
I never got sick. I had a pretty quick labour - the rough part only really lasted from 9 pm to 11 pm, then I pushed to 1 am when LO was born.
Honestly, I just did what I could to find the position my body wanted to be in and took it one contraction at a time. I never thought I couldn't do it. I did think I didn't want to do it any more, but I arrived at the hospital fully dilated so they didn't really give me any options.
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I had my son at home, and honestly I'm not sure when transition was. I had a few hours (10 am - 1 pm) of super easy labor I could walk and talk and do laundry and shop through. It started to get rough and the contractions were very close together and I asked to be checked. I was 4 cm. My water broke. I got in the birth pool. 15 minutes later, I was pushing. That time between 4 cm and pushing was pretty intense, but as someone said, it's just a part of labor. If you can handle the rest of labor, you can handle transition. Every woman is different, but for me there were not thoughts of it being too hard or me not being able to do it, I never wished for drugs, and I never really even gave what was happening enough thought to realize it was transition. As another mama said, I just surrendered to it, made some noise and rocked, and then pushed.
You CAN DO IT!!
Quick funny story about the "I can't do this!" thoughts that a lot of us get:
With DD, I was at 9 cm (or "10 with a lip" as my doc said) when I announced that I couldn't do this anymore, that I was going home, and I would come back and finish tomorrow! For some reason I thought that if I could just get out of the room, it would all stop. My doc (family prac. doc, he was beyond awesome... more like a midwife than a doc) just laughed, and told me that if I could make it to the door he would let me go home.
I tried. It worked just the way my doc thought it would: as soon as I stood up, the last little bit of my cervix opened up and I was hit with a huge urge to push. He laughed again, and said "Ok, now get back over here and have your baby for crying out loud!"
I'm a first time mom, but my Bradley instructors told us that about 1/3 of women have a very difficult transition, 1/3 have a transition that's like the rest of their labor, and 1/3 have a somewhat easy and smooth transition.
I'm preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best
Because of this, I know you can do it. You will be more determined than someone who isn't in your position. I was the same way, got an epi with my first that I never planned, and definitely had regrets over it. There was no way in hell I was going to do that again. Toward the end, I found myself saying, "Why did I DO this?", but I never once thought about getting an epi.
LOVE it!!
With my first I did transition in the car. Don't recommend that.
But it kept me from thinking I couldn't do it, because at that point I had no choice. I was thinking that if I got to the hospital and was only like 3cm I might need an epi though because I couldn't handle that much longer. Luckily I got to the hospital at 9cm and didn't have very much longer!
With my second I did transition in the birth tub. Way better! Right before I started pushing I did say "I can't do this." But then I changed my mantra to "I can do this, I can do this" every time I pushed.
I never got sick with either one. I hadn't really eaten too much before labor began (because it began before lunch the first time and at 4am the second time) either time and stuck to easy to digest stuff when labor started. Chicken noodle soup the first time and cinnamon toast the second time.
LOL! That's great!
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
Sometimes I think tv and the internet do a serious disservice to people. I realize that a natural, intervention-free birth is not going to make "good tv" but it's too bad that people don't get to hear more positive natural birth stories!
I swear my labor was very divisible into the 3 parts. It's almost comical. Transition was definitely difficult and by the time I was 8 or so cm, I admit, I begged for the drugs. I think my (awesome) nurse and (also awesome) doula "lied" and said "too late! You'll have a baby before the epi takes effect." and honestly I needed to hear that because after that I had a mental pep talk with myself which I remember vividly. It was like communicating with a coach and motivational speaker inside my head ; ) To paraphrase, I said "ok Hil, you can either get your $hit together and work WITH your body or you can fight this and make yourself miserable." Thankfully the former attitude won. I toughened up and got to 10 cm. I never did feel the "urge" to push though which is a littlestrange but I found when I did push,I felt 6 million x better. I only pushed ~15 minutes.
Labor is hard work but it's sooo rewarding. I have never done drugs but I imagine the way I felt right after I had my DD has to be a better high than any drug could ever possibly give me. And from what i understnad, you don't necessarily get that same high when you get some drugs during labor to help "ease the pain". The high I got is absolutely worth it for me to go natural again.
One thing I wish I had known/understood about transition before hand is that (this was at least true for me), you will feel out of your mind! It was almost an out of body experience for me. I think that's just your conscious mind turning down and letting the more primal parts of your brain take over. But I kept thinking something was wrong.
I think I maybe said "I can't do this" once- mostly I was saying, "I hate this" and "I don't want to". I was in the tub, which helped tremendously. I will also say that coping mechanisms from earlier in your labor may not be the same ones that help in transition. Listen to your body! I don't know why I was hesitant to do that once I was actually in transition, but for some reason I was. "Loose and limp" during contractions got me through most of labor, but during transition I wanted to push and pound and grab my poor husband. Once I let myself do that it was easier. Also, I felt the urge to push very early, because she was so low. I was kind of ignoring it and not forcing the issue because I knew I was only 7 cm. Well, when I decided I really really needed to, I was still only 8-9 cm, but my MW listened to me (and I listened to my body) and she actually just pushed the last bit of cervix out of the way.
Pushing is wonderful release. I turned to my doula when I started to push and said, "That felt GOOD!" So let that thought get you through transition, too
You can do it!!
I did finally say "I can't do this, i'll take the epi" It was so intense & I thought it was going to get worse, based on the horrific descriptions of child birth other women had offered *rolls eyes*
At that time they told me DS was crowning & if I gave a few good pushes he would be out. He was born 5-10 mins after.