Little Saulih's Birth Story
Introduction
Before I get into the actual birthing day, let me give you some background.
My first child's birth was what would be considered a typical medicalized
birth in which I saw a OB/GYN during the pregnancy and gave birth in the
hospital with many medical interventions including fetal heart monitor, IV in
my arm, Antibiotics and Glucose drip, no food or drink allowed, demoral
(intravenous muscle relaxer), epidural, and catheter. I did have a tear and
stitches. Like many women, I came to believe that I could not give birth
naturally and wouldn't even want to try.
Subconsciously I came to think my body was somehow defective and
unable to birth a child on it's own without malfunctioning or having
some grave danger that required constant medical monitoring and
control. I also did not believe I was capable of handling the power
of birth without pain medication. I had decided that if I was to
have a second child, I would just go in and get the epidural right
away and be done with it.
Then my younger sister got pregnant with her first child and
began to hear story after story of women who wanted to have natural
births and even used hospital midwives but ended up with C-Sections
that seemed unnecessary. Research showed that hospital births were
resulting in an over 30% Cesarean Rate, even though midwives in
Tennessee had maintained a 2% C-section rate in over 2000 births. So
she began to research other options and found the growing option of
homebirthing. At first everyone, including myself, thought she was
unrealistic and endangering herself and her baby. But she opened our
eyes and had a very satisfying and successful homebirth. So when I
got pregnant with baby #2 I immediately began to educate myself and
explore my options.
I live in New Mexico, which is very holistic and natural compared to
other states. There are many homebirth midwives and birth centers.
I found a great midwife with her own birth center and after much
research and reading, decided I would birth at home in my natural
environment. I began to realize that a woman's body is truly made to
birth her baby without any intervention or control, that it is as
natural as going to the bathroom. Two great books which totally
changed my thinking are "Guide to Childbirth" by Ina May Gaskin
and "Reclaiming Our Health" by John Robbins.
What I learned was that the key to a successful natural birth is
preparation, education, and nutrition. And that means doing lots of
things during pregnancy that prepare you for your birthing time. So
during my pregnancy I read everything I could get my hands on and
changed to an almost completely organic, whole grains diet with
limited grease, sugar, and white flour products. I drank 2 cups of
red raspberry leaf tea every day to strengthen the muscles of my
uterus and cervix. This is an ancient herb used by women to make
contractions more productive, thereby decreasing birthing time. I
also did pre-natal yoga at least 3 times a week and went to an
acupuncturist and chiropractor during the last months of pregnancy to
naturally prepare my body for birth.
I completed a 6-week homestudy course called Hypnobabies which teaches you
self-hypnosis and relaxation techniques while also giving you daily positive
affirmations which reprogram your subconscious to believe that birth is
healthy, normal, natural, and safe and your body is totally capable of
welcoming and engaging in birth on its own without the
required torture normally portrayed by society's depictions. Even vocabulary
was reprogrammed so that instead of negative words like contractions and
labor, you think of them as powerful and productive pressure waves that occur
during your birthing time. So these will be what I use throughout my story.
Finally, we did perennial massage everyday for 4 weeks prior to the birth
to help with the crowning and stretching during the actual delivery. I had
always thought it was inevitable for women to tear or be cut in order to
deliver their baby but then I read that in one birth center over 40% of the
2000 births resulted in no tears or stitches. So my goal was to use the
perennial massage and a squatting position during the delivery to try for no
tears or stitches.
My Birthing Time
My baby's "guess date" was September 11, 2007. My mother was
supposed to come on Sept 1 and my sister was coming Sept 7. On
Friday, October 31 I saw my midwife without any noticeable signs of
something to come. I then went to my acupuncturist for a treatment
to deal with discomfort in my hips and back. I later learned that
some of the treatments she used were commonly used to naturally
induce labor.
We went to sleep that night expecting at least one more week of being
a 3 person family. At 1:30 am (the morning of Saturday Sept 1) I
began to have some cramping. I tried to sleep through them but was
uncomfortable and kept moving from the bed to the recliner. At about
2:30 am they began to feel like regular birthing waves coming every
15 to 20 minutes. These continued for 4 more hours, becoming more
powerful and closer together. Leaving my husband to sleep so he
would have energy to support me in the later stages, I handled the
waves with various yoga positions, rocking on my hands and knees,
belly dancing movements, and breathing awareness. I also used my
self hypnosis cues to relax my body and give in to the powerful waves
that were working to open my body up for my baby to descend.
Near 6 am they seemed about 8 – 10 minutes apart. I called my mother and
sister and asked them if they could get on earlier flights as I
thought this was it. My mother told me I had better wait for her as
she could not get an earlier flight for the day and I needed to wait
until 1 pm when she was scheduled to arrive. As soon as I hung up
the phone with her, the pressure waves stopped…it was amazing. As if
my body was listening to my mom! My sister was able to get a
flight out that day as well but would not arrive until 7 pm. So my
husband and I got up and went to the store to buy last minute items
and then picked my mother up from the airport.
Just before she arrived the pressure waves resumed with low intensity
every 20 minutes. We arrived at the house around 2:30 pm and I was
having these pressure waves irregularly but just ignoring them and
going about our day. We had a late lunch at 3:30 pm, during which
time my mother began to realize that the waves seemed to be more
regular and closer together. She began timing them at around 8-10
minutes apart. I decided during this early time I would get on my
hands and knees in the backyard and remove the multitude of rocks
that had buried themselves into our backyard. I needed a project to
engage my mind while at the same time be in a good position to handle
the waves. Whenever a wave would come, I would pause, rock back and
forth on my hands and knees, and breathe through them. They felt
very productive and gradual and I felt very on top of them. I was
able to talk and laugh with my mom and husband during them so I
figured we still had a while.
At about 4:45 pm the waves were 3-4 minutes apart and we called the
midwife. She said she would head out soon but take her time unless we called
and said it was progressing
rapidly. It had started to rain outside so I moved into the living
room and was bouncing on the birth ball and reciting Quran during the
waves. It was a wonderful feeling being in my home environment, my
mother in the kitchen cleaning up, my husband starting to set things
up for the birth, and my 3.5 year old daughter playing with her toys
and coming over periodically to kiss my belly and tell me everything
was okay.
We put in one of the Hypnobabies' CDs which helped to relax me and affirm
the positive and productive nature of the waves. Since I had been listening to
these CDs for over 6 weeks, they really worked to trigger my reprogrammed
thinking and calm me into accepting and surrendering to the experience. My
husband said he was purposely
leaving me to handle things on my own at that point so the focus
would not be on the waves and instead downplay them. It really
worked as my mind saw them as totally natural and endurable. It also
helped me to save my strength, concentration, and coping techniques
for the later period when things really got intense.
The midwives arrived around 6 pm and could tell I was in active
birthing time. We had decided to move up to my bedroom since that
was where my husband had set up the birthing pool and where I wanted
to birth the baby. My mother took responsibility for my daughter and
entertained her during the rest of the process. It seemed as though
as soon as I saw the midwives, my mind went into total birthing mode
and it was as if the pressure waves immediately intensified, yet were
still manageable. At that point I asked my midwife to check my
dilation. It is her policy that she only checks if I request it.
She checked and found that I was 5 cm. It was quite exciting as with
my first birth I had labored for 12 hours only to reach 3 cm. I
decided I would get into the water at that point. My husband got into
the birthing pool with me and we began a routine during each pressure
wave. Each time the wave would begin, I would lean over the side of
the pool in a semi-squat while he applied pressure to an acupressure
point on my lower back. I would use my self-hypnosis and relaxation
techniques from the Hypnobabies course to allow my body to become
completely limp and give in to the power of the wave. I concentrated
on my breathing and the affirmations of the Hypnobaby CD that played
in the background. My husband would try other acupressure points but
I would command him to return to the lower back as it really seemed
to half the intensity. Apparently I was so limp and calm that
neither my husband nor midwife could tell when I was having a wave.
This went on until about 7 pm, at which point my midwife seemed
worried that the pool water had slowed my progress. I knew that was
not the case as the waves were coming stronger and closer but she
simply could not see it. She kept gently suggesting I get out of the
pool so instead I asked her to check my dilation. She reported me at
8 cm. I was so excited! I had made it to 8 cm all by myself and had
dilated 3 cm in 1 hour.
I realized that I needed to get working on the final 2 cm and I began
to try to use my mind to will my body into action. I would talk to
myself, saying things like "Open, Open for your baby" and
supplicating, "Oh God, finish me off and let me meet my baby". There
were a few waves were I grew tired and lost my concentration and
freaked out, saying I had had enough. But then my midwife and
husband brought me back into focus with encouraging words, telling me
how fast things were progressing and how great I was handling
things. Throughout this time someone would offer me sips of water
and Powerade to keep up my strength, and I would periodically go to
the bathroom. My midwife would also periodically listen to the
baby's heartbeat with a hand Doppler in the water.
At around 7:40 pm my midwife suggested I sit on the toilet as that position
was very
good for aiding the pressure waves to open me the last little bit. I
did and asked her to check me again. She did and said I was fully
dilated except for a small cervical lip that needed to move before
the baby could descend. I focused all my mental energy on that lip
and begged my body to remove the final obstacle. I moved over to the
sink and leaned onto it as I began a series of yogic squats. My
midwife checked me again and said she would hold aside the lip while
I tried to push the baby through. My husband continued to apply
lower back pressure. Just as I began to push, around 8 pm, my sister
finally arrived from the airport. Her encouraging words and strong
hands on my shoulders re-invigorated me. My midwife declared that
the lip was gone.
At that point I had decided that the baby had to come out right then. I
became impatient and wanted to do anything to get my baby out. My sister
encouraged me to re-enter the water, which I did. I returned to my
semi-squatting position in the pool
while leaning over the side. The waves became very intense and
powerful and seemed to never end, one peak after another. I see that
this must have been the transformation, or second stage, but I was
ready to bypass that and just push that baby out.
I suddenly became overwhelmed and threw my body back in the water, wanting
to give up.
An orchestra of voices, including my husband, mother, sister, and midwives
willed me on, telling me the end was near and it would be any minute now. I
began to push with all my might, even though the urge to push was not really
there. I felt it would never end but
then my midwife checked me again and said she could feel the head. I
did not believe her so I reached in and there it was, a wonderful
soft squishy head. At that point I jumped up and got into a deep
squat in the water. I used low vocalization while pushing and felt
the head descend into the crowning position. I seemed to forget
about the pressure from the waves and only concentrated on how I
could push the proverbial bowling ball out of a garden hose. I
remembered how much I did not want to tear but I also really wanted
the baby out. I pushed 2 hard pushes and felt the head slip out. I
had a second of relief and then felt the rest of the body get stuck,
like a huge rock in my gut. I pushed again and the rest of the baby
slipped out with such ease.
Because it was so dark in the room and I was in the squat, no one knew the
baby had come out except my midwife, who had caught him in the water.
Everyone else kept
encouraging me to push until my midwife told them the baby was out.
I leaned backwards and she pulled the baby out of the water and
placed the baby on my chest. Everyone was referring to the baby
as "she" so I figured they had checked but when I asked, no one had
been able to really see and could not figure out why we thought it
was a girl. So my midwife flipped the baby over and we saw that I
had just given birth to my son. Within seconds of lifting his head
above the water, my son took his first breathes on his own, without a
cry or distress. He lay contently on my chest, breathing evenly and
calmly.
My midwife said she felt the placenta slipping out and asked me to push it
out. My husband helped me to stand and the placenta slid right out. We
waited until the cord stopped pulsing and then my husband cut the cord. My
son immediately began rooting and I helped him to nurse. He was born at 9:07
pm. The most amazing part was the
second his body had slipped out, the pressure waves ceased. The
human body is truly a marvel! I could not have been happier except
then I began to feel the stinging of my perineum and began to wonder
if I had achieved my goal of no tear. I asked my midwife to check
and she happily reported no tear, just a slight skid mark, and there
was no need for stitches. YEAH! Praise be to God, we had done it.
All of us, a team, mommy, baby, daddy, and support team, without
drugs, wires, machines, strangers, or traumatic memories. And the
best part is I can only smile with happiness and contentment whenever
I remember the blessing of my son, Saulih's, birth!