My birth story

Last night I sent in my application to register for the Bradley Method teacher training.  Becoming a Bradley instructor and Doula has been on my mind for sometime and last night I finally took the leap.  Since it was my own birth experience that was the impetus for doing this, I thought I would share with you my story.  Getting the word out about the actualities of natural childbirth has become very near and dear to my heart.  Women have spent too long being lied to about what birth is or should be like, when the truth of the matter is that everyone is different, so it is important that we share our stories.  

First, I want to preface this story by saying that I am a wimp!  I have no tolerance for pain and still have a terrible, uncontrollable fear of needles, yet I decided to do a drug free birth to give my daughter the best start I knew how.  I recommend for any one wanting to do an all natural birth 3 things: 1) Education:  read as much as you can about natural child birth and about you options, this where Bradley Method classes come in handy, because they give you very detailed information about the birthing process.  2) A supportive Doctor/Midwife and hospital who will encourage you to have the birth experience you want and 3) A good Coach.  Bradley classes helped me learn more about birth than I ever knew and taught Ryan to be a supportive coach so that when the time came he could be my greatest source of support and encouragement, which is a necessity.  A strong support system is crucial because inevitably you will cry out “I can’t do this anymore!” and you need someone to say, “YES YOU CAN!”

On May 6, 2011, we went to see Kim, our midwife.  Aurora was a week late and I was getting worried that she wouldn’t make it before Grandma Dawn had to leave.  Kim said it could be a couple more days before she arrived, but we were hoping it would be sooner.  That day I tried to relax a lot: we ate lunch at Chili’s (I had a lot of very spicy buffalo wings), we went for a walk around Ikea and watched some TV and then Ryan and I went for a walk at home.  We stayed up late that night, at 1 am on May 7, 2011, Ryan and I finally decided to go to sleep.  I had had some strange stomach pains while walking earlier and I was very tired. 

 However, while we were getting ready I went to the bathroom and noticed that there was some blood in my urine.  I had passed the mucous plug, one of the signs that Aurora would be coming soon.  Immediately after I went to the bathroom, I started having strong pains in my back and stomach.  We weren’t sure this was real labor because I had been having a lot of contractions the last couple of months of my pregnancy; but these were different.  We called Kim and she said to just go to bed and see what happened.  So we did.

The contractions continued fairly irregularly while I tried to sleep.  I would wake up when they came and then fall back asleep between them.  Finally, at about 4 am, I couldn’t handle the pain by myself any more, I needed some support.  I work up Ryan so he could help me.

     

 I had very bad back pain during my contractions and Ryan had to press very hard on my back to help me with the pain.  We still managed to sleep in between contractions for a couple more hours, but then finally at about 6 am the contractions were too strong and coming too frequently to sleep.

         

 We were timing the contractions, but they were very irregular and so we didn’t know when to call Kim for her to come.  The rule was 411, when the contractions were 4minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute and had been doing so for 1 hour.  My contractions were very irregular:  bouncing from 7 to 5 to 6 to 3 to 4 minutes and lasting for sometimes 2 minutes.  At one point my contractions went from 6 minutes to 3 minutes apart, so we decided to call Kim.  She arrived around 9 am as we went into full labor.  I continued laboring mostly in bed with occasional trips to the bathroom.  I didn’t want to get up and walk or eat or drink or do anything, my back hurt very bad and when I walked the contractions got more intense and closer together, good for making the baby come faster, but bad for the back pain.

      

Ryan, my husband, was AMAZING, he stayed by my side almost the whole time and helped me relax through each contraction.  He gave me encouraging words and made sure that I got the support I needed.  Grandma Dawn was there and she helped Ryan so he wouldn’t have to leave my side.  The only time he left me was to get me food, and once to try and fill the birthing tub. 

         

 My contractions were very irregular so I was a little afraid that I was going to be in labor forever, but things progressed nicely.  Our midwife, during 2 contractions helped stretch me a little more, which made things move a little faster. (This is not a comfortable procedure, but it helped!)

     

 Finally about 2:30 pm I had a contraction where I felt ready to push.  She was almost here!  I got in the birthing tub, and the water helped me relax and helped the pain go away instantly.  My water broke on my first contraction in the pool.  I wasn’t in the tub very long before I really wanted to push and knew she was coming.  Ryan got in the tub with me to support me.  He held me so I could float in the water and relax between the contractions.  It was awesome to be able to really relax every muscle in my body between pushes!

     

 Pushing was very hard, but she was very ready to be born because I didn’t have to do it for very long, only 45 minutes, which is very short.  After a couple of pushes I was very tired, but my body took over and did the work by itself so I didn’t have much time to think about it.  Our midwife helped me through the contractions, coaching me to do short, controlled pushes so that I would slowly rock her out; this prevented me from tearing (which I didn’t!).  Suddenly Kim and Grandma Dawn were saying that they could see her head.  After a couple more pushes she was out.  Aurora cried immediately and was very, very loud, but it was the best sound I had ever heard because it meant she was alive.

     

 They gave her to me and I held her in my arms as she cried.  She was so beautiful and alert.  Right away she opened her eyes, lifted her head (so strong!) and looked right at me.  Ryan kept saying how wonderful and beautiful she was.  It was the most wonderful moment of our lives.

Now, almost 2 years later, I want to say thank you again to Kim Verbarg of Sweet Child O'Mine, Charlie Rae Young and Dr. Alexa Valdez-Fagan of Totally Chiropractic for being there to support us during our birth.

If you would like to share your story about attempting natural childbirth (I say attempting because I know that isn't always the outcome), put it in a comment on this post so we can bring all of our stories together.  Share it with your friends and family and spread the word to help empower women so that we can take back control of our bodies and birth experiences.