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The Birth of Sadie Grace
I was having what shall henceforth be referred to as "contractions." We were rushing out the door to the hospital. We were all really anticipating a lot of "pain" in our planned natural labor. This shall henceforth be referred to as the "age of innocence" or "we had no idea the hot flaming hell into which we were haplessly marching." No, no, it wasn't that bad; I'm just being melodramatic because I enjoy it.
The Birth of Selah Solis
This
pregnancy was very unlike my first. I had so many aches and pains, and my groin
hurt throughout most of it! I had major swelling to the point that it would
hurt to walk; and I thought my feet were going to burst at any second!
Seriously! I did not, however, have anything close to high blood pressure,
so there was no worry about pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure always stayed at a
low 90/60. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I could no longer fit into ANY SHOES. This
becomes a problem when in the middle of November you're walking around in the snow
in either flip flops, or Crocks. This makes for very wet feet!At
35 weeks I was 75% effaced. The doctor put me on part time bed rest. I thought,
"Oh, this will be great! I'm gonna go early and all the misery will
stop!" Yeah, right, I'm not that lucky. For the next five weeks I continued
to make it to my weekly appointments. I was getting fatter and more depressed
by the day. At my 40 week appointment, the doctor stripped my membranes. This is very
uncomfortable. She actually stuck her hand in there and seperated the bag from
my cervix. Yowza!! Then we left the office and went walking around the mall
until my poor fat feet couldn't take it anymore. I was
having mild contractions, but nothing to get excited about.That
night I couldn't sleep. I was having some pretty good contractions, so I
decided to get up and walk around the house. It was about 4am, and I didn't want to wake
up my husband or my mother who was staying with us to help out when the baby
was born. So I walked around by myself until 6am. Then I decided that since
the contractions were coming about evey 3-5 minutes I'd wake up my mom. They
still weren't very strong, just very regular. My mom didn't like that they were
so regular and insisted that we go to the hospital. So, we woke up my husband and our other daughter. . . and drove to the hospital.We arrived at the hospital at 7am . . me, my husband, my daughter, my mother, my suitcase, my Boppy, and my husband's guitar. I walked up to the desk in the maternity ward and said very calmly, "My doctor said I should come in when my contractins were about five minutes apart, and they're about 3-5 minutes now. (I said this with a smile, and I actually took time to put on make-up and fix my hair before we went in!) The nurse replied, "Well, we'll check you and then decide if we're going to admit you or not. My, you brought a lot of stuff. . . hope you didn't jinx yourself!"
I was put in a room, and I started
reading my book. The nurse came in and checked me. I was dialated to 6cm!! She
said "Well, I guess I'll let you get back to your book like nothing's
wrong!"
An hour later at8am...and the contractions
still weren't strong, the doctor came in and checked me. I was now dialated to
8cm! She thought I should walk around the halls for a while. I walked, and
talked to other women who couldn't believe I was dialated to 8 and smiling. I walked until my swollen feet
started to hurt. Two hours later, at10am, I was still only dialated
to 8cm. I sat straight up in bed...because I heard that this position is great
and gravity will help bring baby out. By11:30am
I was still dialated to 8cm! The doctor told me that maybe I needed to change
positions. I decided to lie down on my left side. BAM! Just like that I
was ready to push! My contractions were still only about four minutes apart. I
would push, then wait four minutes, then push, then wait. I only had to do this four
times and my beautiful baby girl was out! She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and
was 19 inches long. She was born on her due date, December 8, 2005 at 12:02pm (Only 2% of babies are actually born on their due dates).
My husband was sick, (that's why
he's wearing the mask...) and ended up passing a kidney stone an hour later!
The Flipflopmamma is 28 years old with two beautiful daughter's ages 10
years and 8 months. She's a stay-at-home mom with too much time on her hands. She is
married to a pastor and loving it. Her blog is about her family, her faith, her everyday life and the joys that
come with it. She's a mommy blogger, a Christian blogger, a journal blogger...she doesn't fit into any one category, and she's learning how great that is. She's a little flip, a little flop, and a whole lot of mamma!The Birth of Maya Amrita
Maya was due on March 17, 2006. But I was two weeks
overdue, and extremely impatient, hoping to go into
labor. Ted and I had decided that we wanted it to be
just us in the delivery room, no other family. On the
other hand, I had NO experience with babies; and I
wanted my mom to be there to help with her when Ted
went back to work. So, we decided she would fly the
almost 4,000 miles from Juneau to Philly one week
after the due date, so she would be there to help us
as much as possible.Since she was 2 weeks late, our plans were obviously
not working out as we had hoped. My mom was there,
ready to help. But no help was needed for a week before
Maya’s birth, which was fine actually. It was nice
to have that time together. I couldn’t tell you the
last time we had spent a whole week together, no work,
no school – probably never. Certainly not since the
last time we had gone on vacation together when I was
a kid.On March 27th, I had my last exam. The midwife told
me that if I didn’t go into labor on Thursday, I
should check into the hospital Thursday evening, after
a light dinner. Um…what? Spend the night in the
hospital? I hadn’t really gotten that far in my
thinking, and I wasn’t happy about it. But I wasn’t
effaced at all, and they would apply some goop to my
cervix, which would help efface it, and it might even
start some contractions.I couldn’t see any sense in
Ted and/or my mom staying at the hospital with me.
There was nowhere for them to sleep, and it seemed to
me that we were in for a long day on Friday. The
more rested we all were, the better. So I was
admitted, put into a fashionable robe, had the goop
applied, a device strapped to my belly so they could
monitor the baby’s heartbeat, and that was that. The
midwife said they would hook me up to the pitocin at
9am, and that usually it takes a while to get going, so
we decided that Ted and my mom should come back at 10
the next morning. They went home, and I stayed
behind. The goop did start some very minor
contractions, like bad menstrual cramps, which came
about every 10 minutes. I dozed throughout the night,
waking with each contraction, trying to get
comfortable while hooked up to the fetal heart monitor
and listening to hospital sounds.At 7AM, my water broke. I buzzed the nurse and told
her.
"Are you sure you didn’t pee in your bed?" she asked.
"Huh? Does that happen often?" I asked.
"You’d be surprised," she said.The indignities of motherhood were just becoming
apparent to me.
It was my water breaking, however, not pee. At 8AM,
they started the IV of pitocin, a whole hour early. I
settled in to wait. OUCH! the pain, amazing, scary,
what-was-I-thinking PAIN started pretty much right
away.A couple of words about pain. I don’t like it.
However, I like needles even less than I like pain,
and the sight of the needle at childbirth classes had
made me rethink the epidural, and try for a natural
childbirth. And part of natural childbirth is pain
(any childbirth, actually…I have yet to hear of one
that is painless, natural or not.) My midwife had
told me that one way to look at it was that the pain
of childbirth was a natural pain, as opposed to
breaking a leg or rupturing an appendix, and that
usually what determines whether a woman needs an
epidural is the duration of the labor. My family
tends to have embarrassingly short labors, so I was
hopeful that I could get through without seeing that
dreaded needle.The midwife kept asking me if I wanted to call Ted and
tell him that contractions had started in earnest. But
my addled brain was afraid; afraid that in his
panicked state, he would get in a car accident on the
way over to the hospital, and then he and my mom would
be dead while I gave birth, left alone in a strange
city to raise my baby. Too many Hans Christian
Anderson stories in my youth, perhaps.At 10:00, I was standing next to the bed, trying not
to murder the resident who kept trying to take my
blood pressure. She couldn’t get an accurate reading,
because my contractions were too close together, and
the cuff tightening around my arm made me homicidal.
I think I was in the beginning of ‘transitional
labor’. I could hear my mom talking loudly as she
walked down the hallway. Ted said he heard someone
yelling, and he thought, "I hope that’s not Julie."
They opened the door, and yeah, it was me.Ted said I was making "animal noises", like an animal
that was trapped and in pain. That pretty much sums
up how I felt, too. I looked at my mom’s face, and I
was sure she needed to be in the waiting area. I
wanted this to be me and Ted, and if she were there, I
would want mother’s comfort, which wasn’t going to
help me right then. So I told her to go. I think her
feelings were hurt; and she had been hoping to watch
Maya come into the world.I think mine was a "back labor," meaning the pain was
low down my spine, and laying down on the bed was
excruciating. What helped the most was for Ted to
rub my lower back while I rocked back and forth on my
feet, and for him to remind me to relax my shoulders,
that they shouldn’t be up by my ears.
Eventually, that scary needle wasn’t seeming quite so
scary, and the idea of relief was sounding pretty good
to me. So I asked for an epidural. The
anesthesiologist was at lunch, but they told me he was
busy with another patient, probably because I would
have lost my mind if I knew he was grabbing his only
chance at a sandwich while I was crazy with pain.
They said he would be there soon, and that they needed
to examine me to make sure I was far enough along
before he came anyway. Up on the table, and
oops…time to push. I had been told that I would be
moved from the "labor" room to the "delivery" room,
but thankfully the midwife left that decision up to
me, because the thought of being pushed down the
hallway in nothing but that gown, looking like crap,
screaming and scaring the other moms didn’t appeal to
me at all.
So I pushed. I had been told what a relief that was,
how good it felt to finally push. Nope, it hurt like
hell, and I was SO scared. I remember wondering if
there was a way to sneak out of there, grab a taxi, go
home, and pretend the whole thing had never happened.
My fear came from knowing that they weren’t going to
let me out of there. So I pushed.After about 15
minutes of pushing, out she came. Ted said, "Honey,
LOOK!" But I didn’t want to – I was afraid to see
myself all gross and bloody down there – so I said,
"No! It’s GROSS!" He said, "No, it’s our baby!" So I
opened my eyes, and I can tell you, I don’t know what
I THOUGHT was going to come out of me, but nothing
prepared me for it being a real, live, BEAUTIFUL baby.
Her lips were all stretched out, and I remember
thinking, "Uh Oh, here comes a supermodel," but
luckily they didn’t stay that way, and her resemblance
to Mick Jaggar was fleeting.Ted got to cut the umbilical cord, and we got to hold
her. That amazing rush of endorphins, relief, and joy
overcame me. I was on top of the world. No one had
told me that the pain stops the second the baby is
out…I guess I had thought it would wane. THANK
GOD the pain just…stopped.
After we had a few minutes with her, they brought my
mom in. Her jaw dropped to the floor, too. They had
just told her that I wanted her, not that Maya had
been born already.
Overall, I know that I had a very "easy" labor: Four
hours from when the serious contractions began to the
end. It sure didn’t feel easy, though. It was the
hardest, scariest, most wonderful thing I had ever
done. After that day, whenever something seems
difficult or scary, I just think to myself, "I can do
this…I’ve given birth.""J" is a work-at-home mother in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works
as a tax compliance analyst, and finds more fulfillment in writing her
blog, "Thinking About", which can be found here. Her daughter,
Maya, is 10 years old.The Birth of “Baby Bug”
To My Dear Baby Girl:
December 29, 2005
Daddy and Mommy went into the hospital at 8:00 am for a scheduled inducement. We decided to go that route since your older sister’s labor was only 6 hours long. We were afraid that if my water bag broke in public, I wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time.
They started at about 8:45 am and you were born 3 1/2 hours later at 6 pounds, 2.9 ounces and 19 inches long.
I didn’t feel any contractions (even though I was getting them) for the first 3 hours. Daddy and I were actually watching television and laughing at the talk shows. The nurses couldn’t believe that I couldn’t feel any pain.
At about 11:45 they decided to break my water bag since I was about 5 cm dialated. The doctor had just finished her office hours and was on her way to the hospital. Once they broke the water bag, boy did I start to feel the contractions! I immediately asked for the epidural.
At about 12:00 pm, the contractions started getting worse. The doctor stopped by and said she would check on me in about half hour to see how far along I was.
10 minutes later, more contractions and still no epidural guy. I started to feel like I had to push so the nurse had the doctor paged. By the time the doctor got to my room I was fully dialated and starting to crown. She kept saying "Don’t push!" because they weren’t prepared for me to deliver yet. She had to still put on her booties, gloves and gown. The nurses still had to set up the equipment. The bed wasn’t even in the delivery position. Everyone was running around like chickens without heads! They didn’t expect me to deliver so quickly. I had my eyes closed the whole time but I could hear the chaos around me. All I could think about was the pain and pushing through it. I felt like I pushed for 5 minutes straight and the next thing I knew, you were born.
Daddy said that when the doctor finally did get in front of me, your head was already coming out. You came out so fast that the nurse had to catch you by your feet like she was holding a fish by it’s tail.
Of course, when it was all over, the epidural guy came in. He was surprised to see me already holding you. Everyone was kind of laughing and shaking their heads in disbelief at how fast the delivery went.
I guess you were just ready to be born!
Kailani is a full-time mommy to
Girlie Girl (4 years) & Baby Bug (6 months). They live in Hawaii
where she works as a flight attendant. She can be found at The Pink Diaries or hosting her own carnival blog The Carnival of Family Life. She
loves visitors and making new blogging friends!The Birth of Lil C
July 18, 2006 by Black Belt Mama · 3 Comments
Filed under: Au Naturale, Gestational Diabetes, Induction-The Lease is Up
It was the evening of October 2, 2005, the night before my due date. I had finally given up hope of going into labor on my own. After a pregnancy of finger sticks, a strict diet, and oral medication to control gestational diabetes, it was now time to face the fact that I was going to be induced with this pregnancy too. I had envisioned a birth center birth: no needles, no hospitals, no interference. Just me, my husband, my midwife and eventually a healthy baby. The gestational diabetes brought with it all kinds of unwelcome intervention in the form of twice weekly non-stress tests, ultrasounds, and a ton more appointments than just my visits to the midwife, all resulting in a scheduled induction on my due date. "At least I know when I’m having this baby so I can have plans for my older daughter," I told myself. I went to bed for the night, knowing full well that I would not get much sleep.
I checked into the hospital at 8 a.m. on Monday, October 3rd with all intentions of having this baby by lunch time. I had made plans with my Mom to bring my other daughter to the hospital in the afternoon. After being hooked up to the monitors, it was clear that there was no labor going on by itself. Instead of pitocin (which I had with my first labor), my midwife opted for miso (misoprostol). After the nurses inserted a port into my arm (no I.V. though, thankfully), and everything was ready to go, my midwife arrived. At 9:45 a.m., my midwife inserted the miso which goes "where the sun don’t shine," if you know what I mean. I started contracting once an hour. I was 1.5 cm dilated, 60% effaced and the baby was at -1 station. Not bad, I thought. After four hours of continuous monitoring which only allowed me to get up to go to the bathroom, I was finally able to get up and move around. (With miso they require several hours of monitoring because labor can progress extremely fast. They need to make sure that the baby is not under any stress.)
The reprieve from the bed was a welcome one and my husband and I began to walk the halls. There were only a handful of women in labor at the time so the halls were empty. All the other Mom’s had drugs and were therefore confined to their rooms. We did laps for 45 minutes, with me trying to retain my modesty as much as one can while wearing a hospital gown, and with cords from the monitor straps around my belly wrapped around my neck. After 45 minutes of walking, I was required to be hooked up to the monitors for 15 minutes of fetal monitoring. My contractions were now coming every 3-5 minutes. They weren’t a big deal though. They were a tightening that wasn’t painful; and I did not have to breathe through them. I remembered from childbirth classes five years before that you shouldn’t start with the breathing until you absolutely have to in order to keep from getting too exhausted. We went on like that: 45 minutes of walking, 15 minutes of monitoring for several hours, until about 3 or 4 p.m.
A resident came in to check me at this point. During my first birth, it felt like even the janitor was getting some action, because they were checking me constantly. My midwife made sure that unnecessary checks were eliminated. But, my midwife was at the birth center and needed to know where I was. By this point, my husband and I had probably walked miles up and down the hospital halls. The resident said I was 3 cm, 80% effaced, and the baby was at -1 station. I would by lying if I didn’t say that I was EXTREMELY disappointed with this news. I was hoping for a big jump. This labor was progressing like my first and it was frustrating. My midwife was going to start pitocin, but she was happy with the progress I made and content to let me keep walking and laboring on my own. For that, I was thankful.
Instead of a dinner time visit from my family so they could greet the new baby, my dad arrived with sandwiches for later in the night. I was able to eat only things like jello and broth, just in case of problems, so I knew I was going to be hungry. I didn’t want to have the baby in the middle of the night and be stuck without something good. I was a gestational diabetic and I was ready for a good meal that involved no carb counting.
A little after 5 p.m., my midwife arrived back at the hospital and checked me. Apparently I had a generous resident, because my midwife said I was only 2.5 cm. and 75% effaced. She said it was either break my water or start pitocin. I chose to have my water broken. I wanted NOTHING to do with pitocin.
Instantly, my contractions went from minor annoyances to hurting bad enough that I had no choice but to breathe through them. My husband and I started walking again. The contractions were now coming every 2-5 minutes and they hurt and badly. I had to stop walking and hold on to the hallway railing for each one. I felt like my stomach was being twisted. During one particular contraction as I leaned against the railing with both hands, head down, I was having issues with too much saliva and I actually drooled onto the floor. My husband and I got hysterical. Try hysterically laughing while trying to breathe through a wicked contraction. . . not easy at all.
By 7:30 p.m. I could no longer walk through the contractions and opted to sit straight up in bed instead. I could not get comfortable. I tried several different positions and all of them were miserable. I knew if I stayed upright, I’d have this baby faster. I needed the pain to stop so I stayed upright despite the pain. I wanted to get it over with. My midwife checked me and I was 5 cm, 80% effaced and the baby was at 0 station. It was around 9 p.m. It would be the last time that I was checked. I knew I still had a long way to go.
During each contraction, I went to Nags Head in my mind and sat deep breathing on the beach. In between contractions I dozed off as much as I could. I was in such a zone. I did not want any distractions and the midwife made sure I didn’t have any. The room was kept quiet; the lights were kept dim. My midwife and nurse were wonderful through the next few hours. They kept checking on me to make sure I was o.k. They would bring me hot water bottles that I would use for 30 seconds and then throw to the end of the bed because I was too hot. Two seconds later, I’d be telling them to position it behind my back again. They did whatever I needed. They were continually encouraging.
My midwife would sit quietly on the end of the bed, place her hand on my leg and speak so softly, telling me I was doing great, keep breathing. I think she was very calming for my husband as well.
Around 12:30 a.m., my midwife asked me if I had been to the bathroom lately and if I felt like pushing. I told her that I felt pressure, but not the urge to push. I told my husband later that at this point, (and I know this sounds silly) I only felt like getting up and running away from the pain. The contractions barely gave me a break and they were intense. Even though I said I didn’t have to go, my midwife, husband and nurse helped me out of bed and sent me off towards the bathroom. I toughed out a wicked contraction while holding onto the sink. When I came out of the bathroom, my midwife suggested I lie down to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling. I was discouraged when she said this and thought she was telling me to lie down because the baby was still hours away from making her appearance. I figured I had better listen to her and lie down to conserve energy. I didn’t know then that my midwife had been reading all the signs and knew that the final phase of labor was just around the corner.
It only took one contraction and it was very clear I had to push. My midwife, without checking me, without turning on any lights, without making a big ordeal of it, simply told me to go ahead and push. So, lying on my right side, with my nurse and husband barely holding up my left leg that felt to me like it was about 5000 lbs, I pushed. My midwife checked and the baby’s head was already coming down. The lights were kept low and the nurses getting the room ready for the baby were quiet. I, on the other hand, was not.
I remember reading something somewhere about childbirth and that making noise actually helps with the pushing. It releases tension and helps the baby come down, or something like that. It wasn’t like I made a conscious decision to be loud; it just happened and at one point I heard one of the nurses tell another one to close the door.
I pushed when I wanted and as hard as I wanted. I really concentrated on trying to go slowly, and no one told me to push, or pant or gave me any instructions. There was no counting or holding my breathe. It was very relaxed and very much at my own pace. After a couple pushes, my midwife told me to reach down and feel my baby’s head. Her head felt wet and I was shocked to feel hair on her head. The first inch of her head was out and I held her there with a steady push, not wanting her to slip back. Three more pushes and her head was out completely. I did it on my own and gradually, without an episiotomy like with my first.
The midwife suctioned her nose and mouth and I was relieved to be rid of the ring of fire. It did burn, but not as bad as I had thought it would. I pushed a tiny bit and her shoulders came out. My baby was born with a fist clenched underneath her chin (she had probably been sucking on her fingers like in all the ultrasound pictures, right up until the big squeeze). My midwife told me to reach down and grab my baby. I reached down with one arm and the midwife giggled a bit and told me I’d need two. I was just so tired. I reached down with both arms and grabbed her under her arms and pulled her the rest of the way out onto my stomach. It was 1:05 a.m. on October 4th and my sweet baby girl was born. She had held out one day past her due date. No baby of mine would ever choose to be on time.
She was just so amazing, so bright-eyed and just staring right up at me. It was an absolutely amazing experience to pull her out on my own. The midwife left her on my belly for a while, and didn’t cut the cord right away. She was just beautiful, with a ton of dark hair (so shocking as my first was a baldy). Unlike my first, she was covered in vernix. I knew right away that she was a tiny baby, compared to her sister. My first words when I saw her were, "Oh My God, she’s so tiny."
Eventually, the nurse took her and weighed her. They did let me hold her while they put the drops in her eyes. The entire time, she stared at me. We had an instant connection, me and this baby that had taken 14 months to conceive. Me and this baby that had put me through four finger sticks a day, twice weekly non-stress tests, and side effects from the glyburide that I was prescribed. When they hit the conversion button on the scale, I couldn’t believe it. Despite the fact that a growth scan had said she would be 9-10 lbs., my baby was only 7 lbs. 10 oz., a mere 3 oz. less than the weight I had guessed she would be and had told my midwife as she had broken my water.
My midwife checked out the damage while they swaddled my daughter and tried to clean her up a bit. I had only three minor tears, none requiring stitches. My midwife assured me they would heal within a day or two and she was right.
Despite the gestational diabetes and having my birth plan turned upside down, this birth experience was amazingly relaxed. I did not have to have an I.V.; I had no drugs beside the initial miso to get labor going, and my daughter came out with a perfectly shaped head. She was just beautiful.
Despite being exhausted from a 15 hour labor and 20 minutes of pushing, I could not sleep. I sat in bed, cradling my baby daughter and just taking in everything about her. I peeled back her hat to stare at the unbelievable head of hair; I stroked her cheek that felt like warm velvet. I stared at her and felt so blessed that she was finally here and healthy.
My labor and delivery nurse moved me to my post-partum room in a wheelchair, but I felt more like a rock star arriving at a concert. The post-partum nurses were waiting in the room, and my l & d nurse delivered me amid a wave of praise for laboring without any drugs. It was the first labor and delivery she had been a part of that didn’t involve pain-relieving drugs and she was "psyched" to have been a part of it, she said. She thanked me for the experience of it all; and I had to agree that the experience had been pretty amazing. After settling in my post-partum room, my husband fell fast asleep but I simply couldn’t. When they took my baby to give her a bath, I ate my entire italian sandwich instead of sleeping. I waited until around 8 a.m. to start calling everyone and giving them the good news (Of course, my parents and daughter got the call at 1:15 a.m.). Later in the day, my mom brought my older daughter in to meet her new baby sister. The meeting went very well.
My midwife came to check on me and said I could go home right away. At 5 p.m. on the same day I gave birth, I took my new baby home. From start to finish, it was one amazing birth day.
"J", also known as "Black Belt Mama" lives in the northeast and is a stay-at-home/work-at-home mother to her two daughters, "Big I" who is 5 and "Lil C" who is now 9 months old. She writes on her blog, Black Belt Mama, and also for a syndicated (more tame) version of her original blog for her hometown newspaper’s website. She is also the editor of the Birth Story blog.
A blog is born
