My hospital waterbirth

suzymarie · January 2009

All morning on the day W. was born I had been having contractions that were like bad menstrual cramps... I had to sort of stop what I was doing and take a deep breath, but really, not bad. I called my doula and she suggested trying to nap in case this was the real thing. I thought yah right- I can't nap through this! Well, I laid down and tryed to just really relax and breath and I did start napping between contrax, which actually made them stop! Boo! I wanted the baby out (even though I was only 37w0d).

That night at 7pm I got up to pee before we went to Target and when I stood up my water broke. IMMEADIATELY I started having BAD contractions every 3 minutes. Hello labor! We cancelled Target, I made DH vacuum the house, and I ran around and finished throwing last minute stuff in the hosp bag.

Here is my suggestion: Put a bucket and some towels in your car ahead of time! Here i was in active labor, trying to drive 30min to the hospital, thinking I was going to hurl, leaking water everywhere. That was awesome.

I held off on hurling til I got to the hosp. We pull into the ER drop-off and run into the ER. The security guard is all "sure, we'll take you up to the maternity ward" and I scream at him that we need to go up NOW! So a nurse grabs a wheelchair and sprints me up there. Fun times.

Ok, so we get up to the room, and my doula and midwife arrive too. The only thing I want to do is strip all my clothes off, I just want out of them. I am sitting in my room, getting my fetal monitoring strip done, barfing all over and trying to take off my clothes. Finally, they get the strip done and I can get in the tub.

I sort of thought in my head that the tub would make the pain go away. HAHAHA. not so much. But it helped me deal with it better. I could really easily change positions from kneeling to squatting to sitting, which on land I would not ahve been able to haul my giant whale self around like that.

I stared at this button on the wall through contractions and I yelled at a nurse when she got between me and my button. I kept telling everyone who would listen that labor was not supposed to hurt that much. DH and my doula rubbed my lower back in this amazing way and gave me sips of ice water and an ice pack on my neck (heaven). If I hadn't known my labor was moving so fast I totally would have caved and gotten the epi.

Anyway, after 3 hours of active labor, I started pushing at 10pm. I pushed in the squatting position which was really effective for me. But let me tell you, pushing DID NOT feel good! It was like all the pain + physical exercise. But I pushed really well because I wanted the baby OUT OF ME! In fact I probably pushed too well- if I would have slowed down I doubt I would have torn at all (it was a pretty small tear).

So W. came out and I held him in the water for about 20 min. We cut the cord and DH held W for about 30 minutes while I delivered the placenta on the bed and got stitched. I was scared to deliver the placenta because my hooha was not interested in anything else coming through it, but it passed through like a bag of pudding- no worries, no pain!

I still don't know where my bra went. In my fit of tearing my clothes off it got misplaced .