Well, my first post on my new blog is not going to be that. That will have to come later. I have been waiting to start this blog for a while now. I had been waiting for my baby boy to be born before starting because I was blogging about my pregnancy and did not want to be working on two blogs at once.
Well, my baby boy finially made his appearance to the world last Wednesday and I figure his birth story is a great place to start this blog.
Wednesday, February 23rd 2011
I woke up at about 3 a.m. to go for my normal pee, however I knew I had to get out of bed urgently. I got up, took a couple of steps towards the bathroom and the flood gates opened. I quickly ran to the bathroom in hopes of not getting water all over. I managed to just make it to the bathroom as the stream running down my legs reached my feet. I sat on the toilet because I still had to pee and waited for the gushing to slow down. It never really did, so I grabbed a towel and headed to the bedroom to grab some fresh clothes and to wake my husband.
From this point I called the hospital to let them know my water had broke, but I wasn't having contractions yet so I didn't need a midwife yet. We then called our babysitter to let her know we were bringing our daughter over. We did this and by the time we got home I had a contraction or two. We got the bed ready, then my husband went back to bed and I decided to watch some TV on the couch and try and get some sleep.
I was having one contraction every 5 to 10 minutes. Irregular and not all that painful, but uncomfortable contractions. However they just didn't seem to want to get closer together. At 7:30 a.m. I woke my husband up because we had to go to the hospital at 8 a.m. just to make sure the baby was okay.
Once there it was determined that I was in early labor. I was having contractions but they were irregular in intensity and time. I did ask to be checked so I had some idea whether or not I was dialted at all. I was at a 2. For me this was a good sign, but overall it is pretty meaningless in the big scheme of things. I was told that I could go home, but if labor did not start by 3 p.m. then I would have to come to the hospital and be induced. This was not something I wanted to happen.
The rest of the morning went by fairly quickly. 3 p.m. seemed to be coming very quickly to me. I was having contractions and some of them hurt, but they would not get regular or more intense. By 1:30 p.m. I was getting very depressed at the thought of going to the hospital and being induced again. I thought for sure that this was what was going to happen.
Around 2 p.m. my contractions started coming one minute apart. There was not build-up to this point. It just happened. They were also now painful and long. I also started having the urge to have a bowel movement and tried to go to the washroom a couple of times. At 2:19 p.m. I decided it was time to call the midwife, however my husband was already looking up the number and called the hospital to get someone to come.
He started getting things ready, I had made my way to the couch. I was kneeling on the floor and leaning over a blanket on the couch. I felt the urge to push a could of times, but it wasn't too strong. I eventually made my way to the bed, because I knew that's where I needed to be.
It took about 30 to 40 minutes for the midwife and her student to arrive. Once here the set about setting up their stuff and began to check me. She told me I was 5 cm dialated, but could feel that there was some stuff in my bowels and suggested that I have an enema to clear it out. She said this would probably help with the pressure of the contractions. I agreed. This is definiatly not the most dignified thing thats for sure. After a few minutes I could feel a strong contraction coming and I knew I had to get to the toilet before this happened. I did, and did my thing in there. I tried to get up, made it to the sink to wash my hands and was hit with a huge contraction and the urge to push. I sat back down on the toilet for a couple more contractions, the urge to push getting much stronger.
Eventually I made it back to the bedroom, got on the bed and kneeled towards the headboard. All I could think about was that I still had to go through transition, and trasition is supposed to be the most painful part and I wasn't sure how much more pain I could take. I was in a lot of pain, but I could manage it where it was, but more.. I couldn't bare the thought of it.
The midwife offered me something called a bee sting to help with the pain. What they do is give you 4 injections of saline water under the skin in your back. The pain from this is supposed to distraction from the contractions and give relief for the next couple you have. I decided to give it a try. What a mistake. She got two done and I screamed for her to stop because it made the contraction I was having 1000 times worse and it gave me such an urge to push that my body complete took over.
The midwife decided that she needed to check me right away. She did. His head was in the birth canal, and I had flew through transition. She told me I could go a head and push if that was what my body wanted to do. She did however want me to get down on my side she she could monitor the baby better. She also felt that it would make my contractions a little less painful. I ended up needing both the help of my midwife and my husband to get off my hands a knees, I was just in so much pain I could no manage to move on my own.
Once on my side the pain went away, completely. I was now just left with urges to push. The midwife did however tell me that she wanted me to not push for two contractions to let the baby come down the last 2 cm. It was at this pointed I remembered about breathing down the baby from the hypnobirthing book. I did this, and by the time my next contraction came, the midwife said 'wow that was quick, you know what, go ahead and push'. From this point on I just followed my body. I told the midwife that I would only push if I had the urge to push, she said that as long as his heartwas good I could take my time. And I did. I worked with my body and only pushed when it wanted too. It felt like it took forever to get his head out. For the most part this was painless, except for the ring of fire. Once his head was out I had to give a really hard push to get his shoulders out. This hurt, only for a second, but boy did his shoulders coming out hurt. JJ was born at 4:18 p.m. only 2 hours after we called the hospital and 45 minutes after the arrival of the midwives.
After doing some paper work they came back into the bedroom to do a check over baby JJ. He had pooped all over the place so he needed some cleaning up first.
It was determined that JJ weighed 8 lbs 0.78 ounces and was 52cm long. One of the midwives noticed that his hips seemed a tad bit out of line, so we will need to have that followed up. Other than that, a perfect healthy baby boy.
After this the midwives thanked us for such a great home birth. It was the students first one and it had been over a year since the main midwife had attended one. They love doing home births. It was actually kind of funny. During the entire time the midwife was getting text messages from the other midwives at the hospital offering to relieve her and take over. She of course denied hehe.
Once the midwives where gone we settled down for a bit, JJ breastfed some more then took a nap. My husband went and go our daughter and we all settled down for the night.
In the end it was a great day and I am beyond happy that we decided to go for a home birth. There is nothing like being in your own bed after giving birth.
Here are a couple more pictures of JJ from the first couple of days.
Congratulations! I'm so happy you got the birth you wanted. Our boys were almost the same size! Mine was 8lbs 1oz and 20 inches long. You're a brave woman for pushing that boy out, unmedicated, at home. He's beautiful!
ReplyDeleteCongrats! Such a super cutie! And it is nice to hear a real birth story. Hopefully I won't have my own involving an international air plane flight. :D Heidi :)
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