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Previous Birth Stories

1K views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  LilyTiger 
#1 ·
Hi friends!

I thought I would make a place to link to / share all of our previous birth stories! I think it would be fun to read through!

Anyone want to start us off?

I'll link to my VBAC and home birth little videos that I made:
https://vimeo.com/user10917509
 
#2 ·
I will have to dig deep to find my first three birth stories, but I have my July 2012 birth written out with pictures.
Hmm, I'm having difficulty attaching a word document with pictures. I will keep trying.
 
#3 ·
#4 · (Edited)
(I will edit this later to add the pictures that would not paste, if I can)

Baby Girl's Birth Story

June 30, 2012 - my due date - without power all day - 100+temp outside/inside - miserable day, felt like I was ill and feverish (but Istill posed for a picture, my last pregnancy photo J).

July 1, 2012

Still no power in the morning, we decided to go to the pool and spend time in the a/c away from home - the power came back on around noon just before we were leaving for the pool. So we still went to our pool to meet up with friends and enjoyed lunch inside the air conditioning at the health club's cafe - we had a nice lunch. We spent 2 hours at the pool - I felt as big as I ever have - my belly was tightening and felt hard and baby was poking way out. But it was nice to be in the cool water. After the pool, we spent time cleaning up the house from the mess of having no power. Rich was going to run out to the store around 6 or 7pm to get something for dinner (most of the fridge contents were no longer good). I told him to take a shower and forget the store - I was feeling crampy.

7:30ish pm - I was feeling menstrual-like cramps about 5 minutes apart

7:50pm - I called my midwife, Nancy, but her husband answered and said she was at a birth. He told me I could call her cell - so I did but I had to leave a message.

Nancy called back at 8:00pm - she said she was with someone but thought she would be free around 12am - she told me to drink wine and just sit or I could do polar bear pose to keep baby off the cervix (I never did feel the need to do that)

My mother called at 8:40, but I did not tell her that I thought I was in labor. They were still without power and they were miserable -I didn't want them to worry about me.

So I laid on the bed and drank about 2 glasses of wine. Soon the contractions slowed down to about15-20 minutes apart and they remained pretty mild. I had never started labor this slowly, so I was feeling pretty calm and relaxed and not worried about when Nancy would be free to come. My oldest son came in and played two songs for me on his guitar - he told me he was scared and I tried to reassure him that everything was okay.

Before 10pm - I thought to tell Rich that he could probably call our friend and doula, Therese if he'd like to get some words of encouragement, but that she was still out of state facilitating a doula training. He left a message and then she called back a few minutes later - he said he was happy just to hear her voice and she talked with both of us and gave us long distance words of wisdom as only Therese can do.

Nancy called back around 10pm and said the other mama had her baby and should be done in a few more hours. I told her that things had slowed down. She said keep drinking wine. We had finished off an almost empty bottle, so Rich had the next door neighbor run to the store to get more. The neighbor didn't want to bother us, so he left it on the front porch - and when Rich went to get it, he saw a very large copperhead snake two feet from the bottle of wine! It totally freaked him out. Rich got a big stick and encouraged the snake to leave. Then, I had one more glass of wine while listening to music (Jack Johnson) in our bedroom.

Since telling Rich that I was crampy, he worked non-stop readying our birth space and picking up around the house. Around 11pm (after our three kids were in bed) we sat out on the deck for a short time and enjoyed the almost full moon. My contractions were still like menstrual cramps which is something I've never experienced before. My previous two labors were very short (1 and 2 hours) and it felt like I went straight into transition - painful contractions that I needed to moan through. I was able to breathe through these contractions.

We went back to bed and I dozed on an off. Between 1:30 and 2am, I was awakened by a stronger contraction. I wasn't sure if Nancy planned to come or she was expecting me to call her. I went to the bathroom and had a BM and saw bloody show. I decided to call Nancy with an update. She asked me if I needed her to come - I said I didn't know, it didn't feel imminent like my last two births, but I had a fear that I could go very fast anyway. We decided that she would come.

2:00ish am - Nancy is here - She checks me and said I was still only 2cm or so. As she checked me I had a contraction - she noted the baby was facing up and she helped her turn in a better position. Nancy said I should get up and walk around and see what happens with the contractions. After she checked me, my contractions immediately hurt more and increase to 5 minutes apart.

[Background: Nancy tells you to write about your "fantasy" birth to address your fears and dreams. She told me to consider a different location in the house for the birth than my previous water birth with River - I mentioned that it was probably crazy but I thought an outdoor water birth would be cool - Nancy thought it wasa great idea, so we rolled with it! We created a fantasy of an outdoor water birth on our "birth deck". The deck built with love by my awesome husband, Rich on Mother's Day - is uniquely crafted with curvy boards - on the deck we had a rocking chair, the birth tub (the same one we used for River's birth), birth ball, soft rug, music playing, a tapestry on one side to block the neighbor's view, a string of lights around deck, and pictures of my previous three births with the boys]

Nancy said she had noticed lightning in the distance, so we needed to check the weather on the Internet. We looked at the radar to make sure an outside birth was feasible and decided it was okay. Nancy said the temperature outdoors was perfect for birth.

I went out to the birth deck and got on all fours leaning on the birth ball with a fan blowing on me. Rich starts filling the tub, and Nancy readies things inside and outside. I started to shiver as I only had on a tank top and underwear and I asked for a blanket. Rich sat near me and spoke softly words ofl ove and positive affirmations. Between contractions I was moving my hips in circles to the music.

I'm not sure when,but at some point Nancy said I could get in the tub any time. When I get in the tub, I asked if I could stay on all fours and she said yes, whatever I liked to do. I sat on my knees and leaned forward on the side of the tub and moaned during contractions.

Nancy could tell from my sounds that I was moving the baby down and getting close to pushing. At one point I said I thought I would throw up. Nancy suggested I change positions to get the pressure off my stomach - so I lay back with one leg up as she suggested.

The contractions started to feel more like pushing and I started to curse and I might have said, "I want to stop" and "I can't do it". Nancy tells me to spread my legs further apart and she tapes a flashlight to the side of the tub to see better.

We observed the beauty of the night sky between contractionsa nd Rich and I kissed. We listened to the labor CD that my son made for me with songs that had special meaning to us.

Pushing was more challenging than I remember with River's birth. I didn't want to do it, but Nancy looked straight at me and said I was going to meet my daughter on the next contraction. It might have been two contractions later, but the baby's head and body came out with the same push -Nancy had to release a neck cord. She had me reach down and grab the baby from under the water and pull her to my chest. Nancy told me to gently blow in her face while she rubbed her feet and within a few seconds she started to cry- a beautiful sound!

Skyla Kay was born at 4:07 am on July 2, 2012. She weighed exactly 8 pounds and is 20 inches long. Her brothers slept through the birth but they were all very excited to meet their sister a couple hours later. We are all in love!
 

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#5 ·
Here's a link to my blog that I haven't posted in since 2012! I guess I've been a little busy...lol! But my birth story for my second little one is here. Later I will try to pipe back in and share my birth story of my first DS. It was a completely different experience!

Oliver's Hypnobabies Home Waterbirth
 
#7 · (Edited)
Joining this thread late!!!! :)

At just over 41 weeks I was starting to get concerned about being induced. At my 41 week appointment on Wednesday, April 25th, I allowed me obgyn to strip my membranes, but he still scheduled an induction for the following Tuesday, just in case. When I called and told my mom, she was pretty disappointed. She was schedules to arrive the next morning and was leaving on Wednesday- if I were to be induced it would mean she would have less than a day to spend with her first grandchild.

My day was fairly uneventful, I felt a bit of cramping after having my membranes stripped but I didn’t really feel like anything was happening. I had bought a bottle of castor oil the day before so I took a little bit… not even a full dose though. Despite not feeling much, I did decide I should make sure the guest bedroom was ready for my mom, just in case.

That night DH and I went to bed and watched some TV. I could feel my BH contractions were becoming more intense and painful and I knew it was the real deal. When our last episode ended I told him that it was no big deal, but that I was having contractions and that he should be ready. At this point they were already pretty painful but I was doing a pretty good job of meditating through them.

DH fell asleep right away and I couldn’t handle squirming around in bed next to him anymore. I ran myself a bath and while it was soothing, I was pretty uncomfortable in our tiny bathtub, so after about an hour I moved into the guest bedroom, where I calmly comforted myself through contractions in the dark. I’m pretty proud of these moments because of how well I felt that I dealt with labour on my own for the very first time. I texted my mom at about 3am to let her know she might have to meet us at the hospital.

At about 4am I tried to wake DH to go to the hospital but he was still out like a light. I made him a pot of coffee anyway and continued to work through my contractions on my own. At this point my contractions were probably about a minute long and coming every 5 minutes or so. At 6am I finally woke DH and told him he should be ready to go when my mom arrived and I texted her to let her know she could meet us at home but that she too should be ready to go right away. I think DH was shocked to watch me work through a few contractions and finally realized I was in labour and this baby was coming! My water broke at 7am, about 10 minutes before my mom arrived.

We left right away for the hospital but had to turn back when I realized I forgot my file… oops! My contractions slowed down a bit on the way to the hospital but since my water had broken they became much more intense. When we were halfway to the hospital I emphatically stated that if I was 3cm dilated or less, I wanted an epidural IMMEDIATELY! Who gives a crap about natural birth, anyway?

Fortunately we were admitted into a labour room right away and I was disappointed to be put down on a bed and attached to external fetal monitors right away, especially since the elastic they used to attach the monitor seemed to only make my contractions more intense. I was introduced to my nurse, Mary-Maude a soft yet authoritative Haitian women whom I hated and loved. She was so so good at putting me in my place, which was pretty much exactly what I needed. She told me to stop moaning as I was wasting my breath, I needed to just breathe and concentrate through my contractions and I would be able to get through them more easily. They checked my cervix and I was dilated to 2. I hated myself for it, but I think I must have been having some back labour because although I was feeling pain and pressure in my abdomen, the radial burning pain I had in my lower back was what really left me screeching for relief. After maybe an hour of labour at the hospital, I asked for the anesthesiologist. I talked to her about my options a bit and decided I still didn’t want the epidural, but I did want to try the IV of some unspecified painkiller, which she said would take the edge off my labour pain. My husband was supportive but told me he was a little surprised that I was opting for painkillers after I had so adamantly insisted over the last 8 months that I wanted to have a drug-free childbirth experience. I pretty much told him he could stuff it and to let me know how it went if HE ever made it through a drug free labour. I was pretty annoyed with everybody at this point and was having more success working through my contractions alone anyway, so my DH left to go get a few things from home that we had forgotten when we left that morning. After all, I was only a 2 and would probably be laboring until at least later that evening. At some point right around this time, Mary-Maude came in and got tough with me; she told me that I still had a long way to go and that I couldn’t have a shot and decide to go for the epidural later. She also suggested that my labour was going to get more intense, so I’d be better off waiting until my pain was really unmanageable before resorting to drugs for pain relief. I told her that I thought that labour already was unmanageable because of the intensity of my back pain, but she told me that she could see I was strong and she was confident that I could make it through this stage of labour be concentrating on my breathing. Even though I still wanted relief from the pain, I relented and she told the anesthesiologist to come back in a few hours.

After DH left and the anesthesiologist was sent packing, things quieted down quite a bit and my mom fell asleep. I was working through my contractions as they became more and more painful but surprisingly was able to sleep between contractions. I think this was the only way I could manage the pain on my own, and my meditation through this stage of labour was to imagine myself in a small dark room alone. I got up to pee and had a contraction on the toilet which was a nice change from the ones I had been having on the bed (I had imagined myself feeling comfort by walking through contractions but that was actually the worst for me, I also hated being on my hands and knees. Fetal position or on my back were the best for me.) What surprised me most about my contraction on the toilet, though, was that my body all of a sudden started to push. Since I had only been at the hospital at this point for about three or four hours, I was a little bit scared that something might be wrong. I was about to call for the nurse when she and the other staff came in to check me again. It was about noon.

The first doctor ob-gyn, an intern, checked me but wasn’t super confident and called in another doctor to double check me. The second doctor came in and told everybody: she’s ready to go and this baby is small, she’s going to squeeze it right out! I was thrilled to know that I was already fully dilated (!!!) and my mom was in shock as she had just slept through the last two or three hours of my labour but my DH was still gone! In the mean time I was really fighting my body to stop pushing through contractions and keep the baby inside me until DH got back. Finally about 15 minutes later after a mad dash through mid-day traffic, DH arrived and I was finally allowed to start pushing FOR REAL. Only thing was, my contractions had slowed right down (I think because of my fighting against them for the past half hour or so.) The doctors made me push anyway and our beautiful daughter was born after about a half an hour of pushing (which felt sooooo good) at 12:46pm. I had a small episiotomy (which I hadn’t wanted but didn’t give a damn to fight against in that moment) that resulted in a minor 2nd degree tear but was otherwise in great shape and shocked when I realized that I had given my birth to my baby girl without any drugs, lucid and completely present for the entire experience. I am still soo proud! She looked just like a little rosebud to me from the minute she was born, and after a day with no name DH and I decided to go with my first instinct and call he what she was… our little rosebud. We call her Rosie for short and it suits her so well. She’s sweet but very feisty… she was screaming before she was fully delivered, but her father puts it best when he says “she came out singing!”

6lbs 7.5 ounces with a full head of dark hair that sticks straight up!

FOOTNOTE: I later found out from my mom that DH had pulled Mary-Maude aside in the hallway and told her about my birth plan and my goals of having a drug free birth. He basically told her that he knew I could do it; I just needed reaffirmation that he couldn’t give me… DH knows that I would have just told him to shove it, but I would respond well Mary-Maude’s gentle yet strict authority, he was right. In the days leading up to my labour I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to give me the assistance I thought I would need, coaching me through my labour and looking out for my best interests, but I was completely wrong… he stayed out of my way and stood up for me when I doubted myself and I love him more than ever for it.
 
#8 ·
I love these birth stories!

I woke up at 41 weeks, 1 day with a single big contraction at 10am. I knew that was it, so we excitedly made breakfast and waited for labor to kick in. In the bathroom I noticed part of my mucus plug and then about an hour later had bloody show. We sort of dinked around and called my mom. She came over and we watched movies and I sat on my yoga ball and we just hung out and listened to music. Around 1pm labor became intense and we called my doula and doctor just to let them know that labor had officially started.

Our doula came around 3pm and by then I was having back labor (didn't know it yet) and had to take the crest of every contraction leaning over the couch. Contractions continued in intensity, but stayed 6-7 minutes apart. Finally the pain became exhausting and my doula recommended I labor in the tub for a while. I think I was in there for a few hours. I began throwing up with particularly difficult contractions and even though they weren't spaced close together we decided it was best to head to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and I could barely stand triage and being on my back for the cervical check. It was excruciating. My doctor said I was only 2cm dilated at 7pm, which meant an entire day of labor had done almost nothing. I was so defeated. My doctor recommended some morphine and then I could go home and try to sleep. I had no idea how pain meds could touch this pain, but agreed.

By the time we got to the room to administer the drugs, I had shot to 5-6cm and my doctor said she didn't think meds were a good idea anymore. I remember just sort of desperately thinking "But she told me I could have pain meds!!!" I was so suggestable at that point that I just did whatever people told me though. I continued to labor on the ball and throw up with difficult contractions. Water was still not broken and my doctor didn't want to break it lest the contractions get out of control. We finally decided I needed IV fluids because by this time I had been throwing up for five or more hours. I hated every second of getting the IV lock in, but the fluids gave me more energy.

I got into the tub and with a lot of counter pressure hung out there for a while. The baby's heartrate was dangerously variable in some laboring positions, so I was pretty limited to hands and knees or side-lying (which felt awful for me). My doctor finally got me out of the tub because she thought it was slowing things down too much. I asked to sit on the toilet and she reluctantly agreed as long as I didn't start pushing. The pressure was INTENSE. I didn't know what to do, but I knew something needed to break. My husband was holding my hands while I sat there and then with a HUGE explosion, my water burst like a fire hydrant, soaking him from the waist down. Everyone laughed because they had never seen anything like it before, but then got quiet because there was meconium in the waters and baby's heartrate was struggling.

My doctor, calm and collected as always, checked me and suggested we get the baby out. We tried a variety of positions for pushing but the only one I could tolerate was flat on my back. So we pushed. My doctor later apologized that she didn't do any tear-prevention because she just needed to get the baby out. They had me push twice with each contraction and after 1.5 hours of pushing (felt like 15 minutes) my daughter was born with the cord wrapped twice around her neck. My husband cut the cord after a few minutes and I got to hold her immediately. It was incredible. The relief was astonishing. My uterus wouldn't clamp down, so I ended up with pitocin, but that didn't really matter. I had a second degree tear, but of course didn't notice.

Overall, it was a great labor experience. I got the med-free birth I wanted, though it was NOT the birth I was expecting. Much more painful and many more interventions (IV fluids) than I had wanted. My daughter was suctioned and a day later ended up in the special care nursery for 7 days on IV antibiotics for a possible infection, so that part was totally awful. I felt like I had failed her despite my best efforts. But we got to bring her home one week later and she has been perfect and healthy in every way since.
 
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