Birth Stories
NADA-H
member
My Farida's Birth Story (Very Long but with side tips in the second post) updated
NADA-H
member
Hello everyone,
I'm the proud mama of Farida, my first born healthy beautiful baby girl who arrived last Saturday, the 19th of July at 5:11 am. This is the short sweet version of the story.
Here is the very long version! (not an exaggeration)
I was 40 weeks 6 days on Thursday the 17th of July and was getting anxious that my baby hasn't made an appearance yet and pretty much done being pregnant and so tired of everyone asking me if the baby was there yet. I got checked that night and I was fingertip dilated but not effaced at all, my doc checked the fluids and the baby and all seemed fine, she told me that I can wait up to the 25th with no issues if I'm monitored and we agreed that if I do go into labor before the 21st, she would deliver me as that was her last day of duty before her vacation. I went home and unfortunately staid up until 2:30am (big mistake).
(a little back story: this OB was my initial OB who first confirmed my pregnancy and was my doctor during my first T and I loved her approach. She however resigned then and took a long time to move to a new practice that I had to find a different doctor and choose a hospital during that time. My then second OB was adamant to deliver me by induction or C-section by Tuesday the 15th of July when I was 40W 4D with no medical reason but that she just wouldn't wait longer than that. I decided to seek a second opinion and go with my gut feeling that my baby would come on her own terms when she is ready. So on that Thursday I went to see my initial OB to see if there was hope for her to deliver me and to know if she thought my baby was ok. The answer to both these questions was yes)
The second morning, Friday the 18th of July at 8am, very sleepy, I woke up to mild menstrual cramps pain that would come and go. I kept going back and forth to the bathroom and changing my position in bed but I couldn't manage to sleep. Feeling that I will be pregnant forever at that point I wasn't sure that I was in labor, I even posted about that here. The pain wasn't going away when I changed my position and the time in between the waves of cramps was some what stable at about 30-20 minutes. I told my husband i might be going into labor and got up and ate breakfast, wholegrain cereals and a banana and got on my birthing ball; bouncing, doing hips tilts, and hips circles. A couple of hours later the pain got just a little more intense and closer together and I started timing the contractions with an app that I had on my phone and sometimes I wasn't able to because it wasn't very clear when one contraction started and when it ended. At that point I called my mom and let her know and she was at my house in no time. My mom made me cinnamon tea and cinnamon and walnut stuffed dates to give me energy and to make my contraction stronger and I was drinking plenty of water. I practiced my breathing every time I felt a contraction and I was very excited that it's finally time. We called the doctor telling her my contractions were 30-45 secs long and coming every 10 mins. but then they calmed down after a while so she asked us to wait.
The contractions, still very tolerable, were coming every 5 minutes but varied in length between 25secs-50 secs by 5:30pm and that's when the doctor told me to meet her at the delivery room for a check up. I was 0.5 cm dilated but fully effaced. My contractions calmed down at the hospital though so the doctor told me to go home and keep her posted. We went home and had dinner at about 7pm (again, another HUGE mistake but I was hungry) and everyone was convincing me to try and sleep because I was exhausted. An hour later my contractions were about 1 minute long and coming every 3 minutes so we called the doctor, got the rest of my stuff and jumped into the car and to the hospital. At that point I had to stop and really focus on my breathing every time I had a contraction. I got checked at 9 pm and I was already 3-4 cm dilated with very regular strong contractions, my husband hooked up my relaxation hypno birthing recordings (I should have practiced it more before) and I was getting intermittent monitoring and checking but getting up every now and then to walk around and use the bathroom (which I did a million times that day at home and the hospital, passed so much stool and urine which was a good thing)
I dialated to 6-7cm in the following two hours and I was so tired and exhausted that I begged for an epidural because of the length of my labor, lack of sleep, and fear of pain getting more intense (MAJOR mistake) my OB tried to convince me to not take it, which was my initial plan to go med free, but I was falling apart at that point. She said my contractions were strong and so good that I could deliver in 2-3 hours but I insisted. They gave me a half a doze at 11pm which in turn only worked on me by 50% And it affected my left half more than my right, it did make my feet slightly numb but I was moving them around. Internally however it did make my contractions feel mild for a while and then it made them drop in intensity and number that my doctor had to give me augmentation and that's when I got in that vicious cycle. I threw up all that I had eaten earlier for dinner violently while contracting and that was horrible. I continued to throw up every time I dilated at that point.
My epidural wore off in an hour and the augmentation was on and I started begging for a top off which my OB was against she said that I was already an 8 but I couldn't take it. silly me was doing the first labor stage breathing at that point- deep breathing- still instead of switching to the fast second stage breathing (in and out through the nose almost like gasping) they topped it up and it slowed my contractions further more and made them weaker but the pain I was feeling was so much (my baby was pushing so hard on my pelvis and although the contraction was not so strong and not effective it was still worse being a pitocin contraction than those strong natural ones and I had before. I asked for another top off at 9cm against my OB's advice, I was mainly asking for them because they really weren't working. At that point I didn't even have tingling or numbness in my legs, my OB would ask me to move and open my legs so she check me and I'd do it. I got my last top off and it was a final one at 9cm. And then my contractions were starting to die off once I got fully dilated and my baby started reversing and going up the canal after she was starting to descend because of the epidural so my augmentation had to go through the roof with absolutely 0 pain killing, I was doing the gasping breathing at that point which helped with the pain but I almost fainted a few times because my BP was dropping.
For 2 hours afterwards I was fully dilated and contracting on super high pitocin to help my baby get low enough for me to push her out. Once I slightly started to feel the urge to push, she was still high, I pushed and my OB started guiding me to push through the contractions only. I pushed for what seemed forever, I think I pushed for an hour through 6 long contractions per 10 minutes. Once I started seeing the head come out I pushed with all my strength that my OB was telling me to stop and slow down so I did for a few seconds but went back to pushing so strongly because pushing numbed the pain, the ring of fire had nothing on the pitocin pain, and that's when my little 7.6 lbs baby girl was born and placed on my chest.
We waited until the cord stopped pulsating, my OB was massaging the blood back into my baby, and then my husband cut it. He instantly fell in love with her and knew what being a dad feels like. To me I was relieved she was out and the pain had stopped and I kept asking if she was ok, she was SUPER swollen and her eyes looked like they were about to pop out. I was in shock, bleeding and shaking so strongly which I did throughout my labor, everyone asked if I was cold but I wasn't. My OB gave me a shot to stop the bleeding so she can stitch me, I had a first degree tear, not so bad for how long and hard I pushed.
Once I held her afterwards my heart melted. I now know what it means when my parents say they love us. Your heart suddenly get so big that it hurts.
This is when she was born
And this is the second day, the swollen went down so much she looks like a different person
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Re: My Farida's Birth Story (Very Long but with side tips in the second post) updated
BFP 2: 11/16/13 EDD: 8/3/14
Baby Brody born 8/1/14!!!
And it sounds like you had a great OB.
God Bless You my Little One
Farida, our first child, born on the 19th of July 2014
Farida, at 8 weeks
God Bless You my Little One
Farida, our first child, born on the 19th of July 2014
Farida, at 8 weeks