My birth stories

[Seattle_mom]

Sorry these are terribly long. I LOVE birth stories.

[Seattle_mom]

Just before 6 am on April 14th(four days after my edd) I woke up to a contraction. It was the first of my many contractions that actually roused me from sleep, so I knew that this was the change I had been waiting for. I slept between contractions (about 8 minutes apart) for the next hour and a half before getting up to face the big day that I'd anticipated for so long.

I called my mom upon waking and she said she'd be over soon. Our plan was for her to be my doula. I called the midwives to inform them I was in early labor - they were already at a birth (that was transferring to a hospital), and said they'd check in later if they hadn't heard from me. I walked a mile to the grocery store and back, and waited for my mom to come. My husband had a meeting at one that afternoon so I sent him on his way. My mother and I walked to the video store and got some funny movies to watch, and my contractions grew stronger with our walk. My husband was home by the time we got back, and I laid down to try to take a nap.

I couldn't sleep, the contractions were three minutes apart, but lasting only about 30 seconds. The midwives called around 5 and I told them where things were, so they came over to check me. I was only 4 cms and 100%, so they decided to go get some dinner and return in a couple hours, with instructions to go for a walk to get my contractions lasting longer. Well, the walk sure worked - They started lasting about 90 secs, and were still three minutes apart - needless to say we didn't get very far, just around a couple blocks. When we got back to my house, about 8 pm, the contractions were getting painful in my back, so I got in the shower for some relief while my support ate some dinner. I labored in the shower until the hot water ran out, and then labored on the couch until the midwives returned just before ten.

They checked and I was at 7cm, and the next few hours became a blur. I labored on my couch, in my bed, and on my nursing stool. I hit transition about 130a, but things stalled, and I was at 9 cm forever. The midwife broke my water around 345a, but there was still one part of the cervix that just wouldn't dialate. She tried pushing back on the cervix while I pushed through some contractions - which was really hard because I didn't yet have an urge to push, so I didn't know what to do (she told me to push like I was pooping). We got the cervix to finaly release that baby, but her head wasn't molded at all because the water hadn't broken. I started pushing shortly after four am, and I pushed and pushed and pushed until that baby finally came out at 8:17. It was really hard, and I was so exhausted throughout the pushing. When her head came out we realized what took so long - her elbow was up next to her face, so as I pushed her out, the elbow was pulling her back in.

But, I did it! And with no drugs what so ever. It did hurt, but it was so worth it. Leila weighed 8 lbs, 13 ounces, and was 22 inches long. I had a second degree tear, and I think getting stitched up afterwards was worse than the birth (maybe because the birth pain resulted in a nice little baby?). I never thought I'd have such a big baby or long labor - I was only 115lbs pre-pregnancy, 5'6".

[Seattle_mom]

Thursday March 1st: Throughout the night I was having contractions. Nothing terribly strong, but stronger than Braxton-Hicks contractions. They were coming often and in a timeable pattern, so I got out of bed around 5:30 am and started timing them. They were coming every two to three minutes, and lasting 30-45 seconds. They weren’t terribly intense, so after timing them for a while I decided to try to go back to sleep, since I’d been up for a while, and didn’t want to go into labor sleep deprived. I figured if it was getting too close, the contractions would keep me up. They didn’t, so I slept about an hour and a half, then got up and paged the midwife, around 7:30am. The midwives had warned me that labor patterns in second- (or more) time mothers doesn’t always follow the pattern they look for in first time mothers (i.e.: contractions coming every 5 minutes, lasting one minute, for at least an hour). And, it so happened we’d had a "snowstorm" in the night, and accumulated 4 inches out at our house, so I decided to call the midwife after a little while. So, given the frequency of the contractions, the snow, and the distance they’d need to travel (about an hour in mid-traffic, longer in morning traffic, and add snow to that…) the midwife on call and the student midwife, Molly and Kat, decided to come out and check me. Of course, as the morning wore on, the contractions let up in intensity (they’d done so the previous day, but they were only every 20 minutes).

They arrived at our house around 11am and checked me. I was at a 2-3, and on the Tuesday prior I’d only been dilated a fingertip when they checked me at the appointment. So the contractions were doing something. I didn’t have an intuition that birth was imminent, and given that the contractions were petering out, the midwives decided to return to the city, and would check in with me in the afternoon. I took a nap with Leila and then a long walk in the afternoon. The contractions didn’t increase in intensity, so I called Dr. Molly and told her that I didn’t think things were happening that night. Friday was more of the same. I went to the chiropractor to get my pelvis aligned one last time, and to attempt to turn the baby, as he was presenting occiput posterior. The chiropractor tried the Webster technique, and I felt some wiggles, but no major babe movement, not in the pelvis, where the head was locked in. Later I continued to feel kicks in the upper left quadrant and front of my belly, so I was pretty sure that baby was still occiput posterior with his back to the right of my spine. Not too surprising that he was preferring that position, since my placenta was attached to the anterior wall of the uterus, just to the right of my belly button.

Saturday, March 3rd, was my official “due date”. Babe was still enjoying the warmth of the womb, real contractions were few and far between. In the afternoon my mom and I went to the mall for a nice long walk, then we rented a campy comedy to try to get things going (Scary Movie 4. It did have it’s funny parts). I started having some contractions, same as Thursday morning, every 3 minutes, lasting 30-45 seconds. I tried nipple stimulation and they got more intense, but not longer. So after the movie I went to bed, hoping the full moon would work it’s magic. When I went to the bathroom before getting in bed, I noticed I was having bloody show. I woke up around 2 am to a strong contraction. They were coming every 10 minutes or so, with less intense contractions in between. I tried for about an hour and half to get back to sleep, or rest between them at least. At 3:30 am I started having some intestinal distress and my body worked for a while to clear itself out. Leila woke up and cried for me, so I went back to bed and laid with her until she fell back to sleep, but I was too restless to lay in bed between contractions, so I got up and went to the computer to time my contractions. It was about 430 at this point. The contractions were getting stronger and closer together. Some of them I had to breathe through. I was about to go downstairs and eat something when Leila woke again at 500 am and called for me, so I went to get her back to sleep. The contractions got really intense while I was laying down, so I told Ali that I was going to get up and page Dr. Molly again, but that he and Leila should sleep as long as possible.

I went downstairs, and sat on my birth ball, called the answering service and waited for Molly to call me back. The contractions were intense, every 4 -6 minutes, but short, only about 30 seconds. I hated to have her come out too early, because I was still feeling fine between contractions (though I knew it was “it”, but figured it’d be a while); but every time a contraction would hit, I was using more of my coping resources and the thought “call the midwife NOW” would strike me. So I told her the situation: contractions every 4-6, lasting 30 seconds, bloody show all night, and couldn’t talk or walk through the contractions. She said she’d rally the troops (that is, Dr Tracy, the other midwife, and Kat, the student midwife) and head over.

They arrived just before 7 am, and we waited for Leila to wake up so we could go up and check my cervix on the bed. I sat around leaning on to my birth ball when a contraction would hit, and joking and chatting in between them. Leila woke at 730 and we went up to check progress. Molly said I was dilated to 8 centimeters! I told her I didn’t believe her, but she insisted it was true, I was at an 8, 100%. So we went back down to the living room where my mom was stoking up a fire. I wanted to lean back on my birth ball for a while longer. Things intensified around 8:15am, I started “om” through my contractions (and Leila would say “are you singing Mama?”), and my back was really starting to hurt (occiput posterior babies usually cause a lot of back pain). They were coming harder and more frequently. The next hour and half seemed to blur for me. I kept waiting for my water to break: I knew it would eventually, but didn’t know when. The midwives had ruptured it at 9.5cm when I was in labor with Leila.

I really didn’t think things were progressing as quickly as they were. Leila’s birth was so prolonged that I was thinking that the baby would be born sometime in the early afternoon. Much to my shock, my body started pushing around 940am. The midwife wanted to check me to make sure I was complete (she’d asked before I started pushing, but I hadn’t been feeling the urge to push, so I thought I’d wait on that – I figured my body would let me know when, and it did). I still had a cervical lip (did with Leila too, I wonder if it was in the same spot), but at this point I couldn’t stop the pushing, so Molly pushed the lip out of the way while I pushed (and yelled at her to “get out”). My waters still hadn’t broken, and I asked her to break them, but the midwives agreed that they wanted to give the still posterior baby a chance to turn, and that was more likely while the waters were intact. In fact, Dr. Tracy strongly suggested that I walk the stairs to get the babe to turn. I insisted I was NOT walking the stairs, that I COULDN’T do it; she insisted she’d rather I do it then instead of in an hour when I was exhausted from pushing for that long. I agreed to try changing position from my floor squat/kneeling position, to a standing one. After pushing through a few contractions while standing, I broke the bag of waters with a giant push (almost got Dr Tracy on the head… threaten me with stair walking, will you!). This was right at 10 am. I was determined to push the baby out without walking the stairs. I sat down on the nursing stool (which, incidentally, Leila was born on), and started really pushing. My back was killing me so bad that I couldn’t really feel the contractions until they were peaking; some of my pushes had to be sans contraction, but I was so ready to push the babe out. Fifteen minutes later, our little boy was born, face-up, with no head molding at all! His little head popped out first, and he blew bubbles while the midwife freed him from the cord around his neck, then he turned to one side and slid out with another push. He was COVERED in vernix – his little back looked like someone had smeared cream cheese down it! He latched on right away and set to nursing.

Leila was in the room for the birth. She didn’t want to watch though, she looked out the window for about the last 5 minutes of pushing. She came over to see baby when he was born though. She’s absolutely in love with “baby brother”. Anyway, she didn’t seem too disturbed by the process, just didn’t want a front row seat for the birth.

I still can’t believe how fast it went! About 5 hours of active labor, 36 minutes of pushing, born 16 minutes after the waters broke. And sunny-side up! I swear, if my next baby comes out with an optimal position, that kid is just going to fall out!

The boy weighed in at 7 lbs, 11 ounces. He’s about 20.5 inches, still doesn’t want to stretch out for a measurement. And, he’s perfect and healthy! Yay! It took us 5 days to name him, when we agreed (I acquiesced) on Elyas, for my husband's uncle.

[cdavid]

Amazing, and no drugs at all? I don't meet many ladies willing to say that these days. My mother had me natural and swears if she did it again it would be with the drugs. Nice stories and thanks for sharing!!

[momx3angels]

Wow! I love reading birth stories. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks drugs aren't needed for such a natural and wonderful occasion. If I had any more, I'd do another drug free birth, without a second thought.

[jsrsolution]

Hi,
My name is Steve, live in Harrow and have been following Dore in newspapers and the web for about a year now. I have two daughters, the eldest (nearly 8) of which suffers from dyslexic problems, eye tracking, memory problems and related learning difficulties. I initially spoke to Dore in August 07 , advised she was a little young , to perhaps come back in a while.
Since then we have engaged the School and had a educational psycholgist give an evaluation, which was a long time coming. I am really coming to terms with how much of a problem this is for Jenny as somedays she is better than others, and it requires lots of help and commitment from us and her school which is now aware the level of attention needed. It has been a long time coming, no one put her issues in these terms until now, and i am uncertain quite how they are going to manage her on a day to day basis. It is apparent that everything will have to be fought for as budget and time limitations are against us. She only had time for literacy evaluations , not mathematical, so assesment is based on this. it took untill July from February to get this, so i feel half a year has been wasted.........i mentioned the Dore programme to the EP and thankfully she acknowledged and gave a positive repsonse, citing local kids who were involved at this time in the programme to good effect.
In march i went to a artistic world and was impressed by the level of commitment of the people involved and Pop Art. There was some discussion between my wife and myself, and we agreed to get the school evaluation before we went any further in this direction.
Sadly, I drop in to the Dore site last week to find things are not as they were, and that there is no immediate path available at this time to follow to help Jenny. I shall continue to watch and wait and hope that the opportunity will become available again for her and the many other people who might benefit from such work.
I would be interested to hear from anyone in a similar position, or who lives locally involved with or working for Dore or the programme..it seemed to good to be true when the centre opened in Wembley!.....( 15 minutes away for anyone not familiar with NW London) . I would like to find pointers of help in any way, particularly the eye tracking issue......
My best wishes for everyone involved

Steve