I have a baby! Positive story inside

triumphantreturnofplanningbug · November 2010

Thank you all so much for the suggestions, thoughts, and general wonderful vibe around here! It really made a difference to me to know I wasn't the only one out there with this sort of desire for my baby's birth!

My water broke at 8am Friday morning, with no contractions. I went to the chiropractor, picked up some groceries, and took a short walk in the morning. No contractions. Made roasted squash and apple soup, worked with the acupressure points my doula had taught me, ate, and tried nipple stimulation in the afternoon and early evening. No contractions. Talked with MH, and we decided to sleep one last night at home just the two of us and hope that the contractions would show up over night.

No contractions.

So we woke up, got everything packed, called our doulas to update them on what hadn't happened overnight, and then called the MW. Unsurprisingly, she wanted us to come in. I was really upset. This was not what I wanted, and in my head I couldn't stop hearing my overbearing ILs yammering on about "all that matters is a healthy baby" and "it's so much better for your vagina to just have a c-section, they're great..." and blah blah blah. That wasn't helpful. So I took off my "well, I'm just going to have to change anyway" clothes, put on clothes in which I felt good, some makeup, and my requisite heels, and then we got in the car. That made a HUGE difference. I'd moved back to being a participant in my birthing instead of a patient, and I will give that confidence boost and reminder of my self a lot of the credit for changing my mind about my ability to handle whatever happened next.

Of course, triage took me out of my real person clothes immediately, but that wasn't an issue by then. We also had the opportunity to have a student midwife present, and we decided that was a big "sure, the world needs more well-trained midwives!" for us, so we added another member to our birth team. An exam determined that my water had indeed broken, and that I was at fingertip dilation and only about 25% effaced. I was having contractions that I just wasn't noticing about every 5-8 minutes, but they weren't having the effect they needed. My MW recommend cervidil over pitocin, since my cervix was really the issue at that point. Lots of discussion later, we decided to go with it.

Holy sh!t that sucked. The biggest risk is dilating too quickly, right? And the biggest problem that since you can't move, you can't really deal well with the pain so you often request more meds, plus you need continuous monitoring for the first two hours...yep. They all sucked. I was at 9cm when they checked me 90 minutes later. It's really hard to do that while laying down and not being allowed to get up and do things. And getting that sucker out was the most excruciating pain I felt that day. The first thing I did was run to the bathroom, pee, and then rip off the monitors and leave them on the floor; they were confining, itchy, and I absolutely could not handle them on my stomach. We switched to intermittent after that, and it was infinitely better.

Then I walked. And squatted. And bounced on a ball, and finally wound up in a tub of really hot water. That was bliss. When I had to get out, I wound up laboring just sitting on the toilet moaning low with a stack of pillows behind my back, MH and one of our doulas holding down my shoulders so I'd stop tensing, our other doula using the rebozo on my legs and arms. And then I had to push.

I vaguely remember trying to debate with our midwife over whether it wasn't just that I had to poop, until she got in my face, looked me in the eyes, and said "you will feel that pressure until the baby is born. It means you need to push, not that you need to poop."

And ut of the bathroom we went. I squatted, I bounced, I tried being on all fours, and wound up squatting over the back of the hospital bed until I couldn't hold my own body weight because of the hormone shakes. So they shifted me so I was sitting/squatting on the bed, but able to lean back for support. I pushed for 90 minutes, stopped once after she'd already crowned to swear that I couldn't do it any longer and would just like someone to take her out already please, and then 6 pushes later baby girl Mariana Ruah came flying out, awake, alert, and amazing, 9 hours and 40 minutes after labor started!

Then I hemorrhaged. Then my body responded poorly and has decided to keep my pulse rate between 100-130 since then, so I'm on extremely limited activity (no more than 10 minutes of standing) until further notice in a few weeks. BUT they kept Mariana on my chest the entire time, she latched on less than two hours after being born, and she is simply amazing. I'm still mostly in shock--I can't believe that it happened like that, that we did it without medication, that I'm a parent! I couldn't have done it without my partner--he simply rocked it, and his support through that and open wonder at me doing it since baby was born have meant the world. And he changes a mean diaper, too

I feel like I should have some sort of wise observation, but I don't. I wish someone had told me that it's not uncommon to break blood vessels in your eyes and face while pushing, and I wish I'd realized that when people say "cramping after delivery" they really mean "more contractions until your ute shrinks, and they freaking hurt." But short of having my water break during labor instead of before, I wouldn't change a thing. Thanks again for the support!

missfire · November 2010

Congratulations, mama!!

mrs.larry · November 2010

so glad to hear you had a good experience! Thanks for sharing!!

robyn2201 · November 2010

Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your story!

jarobinson21 · November 2010

Congrats on you new baby and natural birth!

nosoup4u · November 2010

Excellent birth story and congrats! You also might want to consider home birth for the next one, considering how fast she came, hee hee. Rest up, and I hope the blood pressure stuff goes down fast for you!!