Neila's Natural Birth Story (long)

Neila (pronounced Knee-lah) was born on 15 November, two days before her due date, after 10 hours of labor.

DH and I went into our pregnancy journey having researched the benefits of natural childbirth and having a "you can do it" mindset from the beginning. Pregnancy was uneventful. I continued to work at my fairly physical job. I was a little grouchy on November 14. I worked all day and then came home and told DH he was going to have sex with me.

Afterward we went out for dinner and I started having contractions around 6:30 pm. When we got home, they were somewhat regular about 5 minutes apart. That is also the time I started having to work through them. I labored on my knees leaning on an exercise ball or on all fours on the floor. I started a humming vocalization (don't know where that came from). Around 11:30 they had progressed to three minutes apart. We decided to go to the hospital at that point.

 We got there at midnight. Thankfully we had pre-registered, but the initial intake process still took about an hour. At my 39 week appointment, I was already 3 cm and 80% effaced. The on-call OB said I was a 5 or 6. I told everyone I wanted a natural birth and asked for only a hep-lock. I got moved to a delivery suite and we found out my personal OB was on-call that night!

I knew in advance that I didn't want DH to touch or coach me. For some reason, I don't respond well to that from him, but there was a nurse that was helping me with my breathing. At first I found it annoying, but as the pain intensified I gave in and tried to do what she said. Mainly breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. My personal OB had told me I could do intermittent monitoring, but by the time it came to that I didn't want to leave the room. However the monitor kept slipping, so the nurse spent a lot of time holding it in place.

I had an exercise ball in the room and I used that for quite awhile. There was also a squat bar, which I didn't like as much. They raised the back of the hospital bed and I was on my knees facing backward and that worked fairly well. I kept humming/moaning the entire time and only said "I need to push." Around 3am I was finally complete. They said the baby was facing sideways. I had to lie on my side and push a few times to get her in the correct position.

The delivery team set up around 4am. My OB asked if I wanted her to break my water. I said yes, anything to get rid of the pressure. Then she asked if I wanted an episiotomy. I told her I didn't think so, but whatever she thought was best. She said she'd just give me some lidocaine injections in case it came to that, but before she could actually snip me I pushed the baby out at 4:34am... and felt my labia tear.

They put her on my chest and DH cut the cord. My first words to her were "You're real!" They took her away fairly quickly because the OB had a lot of stitching to do. My legs had to remain in the stirrups and it was pretty uncomfortable. She didn't even count the number of stitches she gave me!

Neila was 7 lbs 9 oz, 21 inches long and scored 9/9 on her apgars. The nurses were apparently impressed by my natural birth, especially the fact that I didn't do any screaming

So looking back on it, I'm very proud of myself for how well I handled the pain. I do understand how a longer labor would make a person more inclined to get an epidural. I can't say I'm ready to go through it again for awhile.