Birth Story
I was impatient to get this up, so I haven’t proofed it well, sorry for mistakes. It was also ultra long and so I am picking up at a more interesting part of the story. Despite my cutting it, it’s still a little lengthy.
…The next 30 minutes or so were the worst. I had just realized I was in real labor but after only about 5 easy contractions I was hit by a mack truck of contractions, one on top of the other. I tried to figure out which position was least painful and
every time I tried something new it was just worse. I got hit with a wave of nausea and vomiting somewhere around 9:00pm and the though “transition” passed through my mind, but I thought it was way too early. At the same time I was afraid to ask the midwives how fast I was progressing because I did not want to be discouraged. (As it turns out I made it through my whole pregnancy and birth without a single vaginal exam.) At the same time I was worried because with the rate and intensity of the contractions I didn’t know how long I could last.
I ended up staying in a
hands and knees position, even though my muscles got very tired and shaky, it was the most comfortable. Once I got there I didn’t want to move. It
couldn’t have been far past 9:00pm, one hour after I realized I was in labor, when I felt my body pushing with contractions and I could feel the baby descending. THAT was a feeling I welcomed with and everything became more bearable. To me that felt like productive pain. I could feel my progress. I just let my body push with every contraction; I became amazon woman and made terrifically low moaning sounds through each wave. My doula was great with reminding me to keep it low. In hindsight it was a fabulous feeling. When the head came low enough I had the pleasure of involuntarily pooping everywhere, thanks to the castor oil. I still had my underwear on, and as humiliated as I was, I was “comfortable” on my hands and knees and told the midwives to just cut off my underwear! It was going to much cleaner that way anyway! They cleaned me up and I was well over my humiliation by the next contraction!
Then came the ring of fire. With my previous fast birth I had more laboring down and short pushing, never really had time to notice the ring of fire. With this birth I labored her down quickly but she hung out on my perineum, stretching and stretching….still I had not actively pushed, just let my body do it. The contractions were not lasting as long as I wanted them too, nor coming close enough together to make me happy. Sometimes I felt her sliding back up, it was horrible, I wanted MORE pain! Finally one of the midwives felt she had spent too much time on the perineum and asked for a good push, that was all the permission I needed! One push for the head, and a “long” (second I am sure) impatient wait for the next contraction, and the shoulder slid on their own, she landed right into her fathers hands.
Apparently she came with the cord around her neck once, so my husband handed her to the midwife who took care of it with one easy motion, and even though she hadn’t started crying yet she slid her down underneath me. I started to lay back to pick her up but the cord was short so the midwife had me stay put. I was able to squat and we stimulated her to get her crying. Of course no one was concerned with the cord still intact she was getting oxygenated blood still. And she was crying in no time.
We got her on my chest and covered her with a blanket; I still didn’t know whether she was a boy or girl, and no one had time to notice. I wasn’t ready to look yet though. I wanted to deliver the placenta first and finding out which it was, boy or girl, would be my reward! Besides, I had my baby; I didn’t care at the moment. The placenta took less than ten minutes. We didn’t cut the cord until it was delivered and she started nursing somewhere in-between the two. I tore a little, I thought I would because of the scar tissue from two pervious episiotomies, and had three stitches. And the glories of homebirth, she never left my chest until I was ready for her to, the only people who held her were related to her by blood, and
she never went farther then the spot on the bed next to me.
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She's very cute!!
Crashing your ddc to give my awesome IRL doula a 
and a big fat CONGRATULATIONS!
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