It's a boy!

joecubed · February 2013

My third child and second son was born this evening at 11:56pm, just in time to share my birthday. 8lbs, 11oz. The hospital staff was fantastic. They asked if I wanted a natural childbirth, I told them yes, and from there they were wonderful. No one offered me pain meds, they were silent when they came into the room to do necessary matters, and they listened and trusted my doula on my progress.

Same hospital, but completely different experience than with my last birth there almost 2 years ago.

I arrived with painless but uncomfortable contractions every 7 minutes on the advice of my doula because I have a history of suddenly hitting transition and birthing a baby. I was 6cms, but very stretchy, when I was admitted tonight around 8. We walked the halls and tried nipple stimulation, but the contractions were not progressing. I agreed to AROM because I was very favorable and have actually ended up with that on both of my two prior labors for various reasons. Once my water was broken, they left me to labor as I wished, with no cervical checks or other interference or pressure. Baby boy was born 45 minutes later with no directed pushing.

I was fearing the experience a little because I'm still close enough to my daughter's birth to remember the pain and I had a much more difficult time with the hospital trying to control my labor. This time was so much easier on both fronts... My contractions never did double peaks like they did with DD, I had at least minute long breaks between even the worst of the transition contractions, and the hospital was so hands off. The only part that seemed more difficult was pushing. I remembered pushing to be fairly painless with DD, but I felt the ring of fire with this baby. His shoulder was also stuck under my pelvis briefly, so we had to work through that. Something is a bit off in my tailbone area, so we'll see what happened there tomorrow. No tearing, but earned a stitch for a skid mark.

Most important? I now remember so well one of the many reasons why I love natural childbirth... The immediate recovery. Nothing like hopping out of bed into a bath and then walking yourself down to the postpartum suite! Good luck to everyone waiting on an outside baby, and thank you for the answered questions and encouragement for my past two deliveries.