Abraham's Birth
On Oct 23 we headed into the hospital after I’d been having crampy feeling pressure waves for almost 24 hours, but I was sent home at a 3 and after a couple more days and nights (when the waves were especially strong and consistent), they finally stopped and I had to readjust my thinking because I’d really thought he was on his way. I did several fear releases during the next week and a half because the discomfort with this prodormol labor made me worried about whether I was going to be able to handle this.
Nov. 2, 2006—Thursday
Because Dh had such a busy week at school this week, with 3 tests, we’d decided the new “best” time for our little boy to join us would be Thursday night or Friday—we’d get a weekend together as a family, and Dh could finish his last test Thursday afternoon.
I woke up Thursday morning, still feeling great. However, after breakfast, I started to feel a little crampy again. It was about 9:15 and I drank a big glass of water and went to take a shower to see if I could make them stop so I could finish the things I’d planned for that day (I really wanted to get the garage cleaned out so we could start parking the car in there before the snow started, but that didn’t end up happening).
After several waves of crampiness in the shower, I just wanted to lay down when I got out. I tried that for a few minutes, and still was having them come pretty regularly. By 10 a.m., I told my mom that I thought this might actually be it, but really wasn’t sure since I’d thought that last time I felt like this as well.
I spent the next 30 min. laying on the couch, doing finger drops with each wave as Dd watched cartoons next to me. I had to go to the bathroom a couple times, which also made me think this might be the real thing since the same happened when I had Dd.
By 10:30, I was getting a little anxious to have Dh home with me. I wanted him to be able to take his test later that day, especially since I knew there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be ready to go into the hospital for hours anyway, but I didn’t want to keep doing my hypnosis on my own. I’d felt so much more relaxed when I’d had Dh and my doula with me before, so I wanted them back. I managed to wait until 10:50 when Dh got out of class, but then called him and told him to head home.
By 11:45, he and my doula, were with me. I was pretty uncomfortable with all the crampiness in my back, but still able to relax through each wave and could talk and joke between waves, even though my back never let up. It did help once they started applying counter pressure on my back and pushing my leg into my hip during each wave. I also put a hot corn bag on my back, which helped the cramps between waves quite a bit.
At this point, I was really hesitant to go to the hospital because I didn’t want to be turned away again and the waves felt so similar to what I’d gone through 10 days before, so we continued to work through the waves at home. My doula and Dh started to time some of them and they were coming about every 4-5 minutes, lasting from 45-75 seconds, but my doula encouraged me to stay home for a few more, and then a few more. She kept reassuring me that I would know when it was time to go. She had me try moving into a couple different positions, but the most relaxing for me was on my left side hugging my body pillow, probably because that was how I did most of my practice sessions.
Finally, at about 1:15, I started thinking maybe we should go. Especially since I knew I wasn’t going to have the physical support during the 30 min. car ride and didn’t really want to be any farther along at that point.
So we got loaded into the car, which took a few minutes. I had a couple waves come while getting out there and into the car—every time I moved set one off, although those often didn’t last as long as the waves that were coming “on schedule”.
By the time we were pulling out of the driveway at 1:30, the waves suddenly felt much more intense. I had to start using my peace cue throughout the whole wave, which actually kept my breathing really steady because I’d say it as slow as I could and by the end of the word, I felt much more relaxed each time, although the pressure was still pretty intense.
We hit every red light on the way to the freeway and I seemed to have a wave at every single light. Dh would grab my shoulder and use the relax cue which helped some, just having him touch me, but I was feeling pretty anxious at this point. A couple times I almost started to cry and was having a hard time keeping calm and not shaking. And I was burning up at this point. Poor Dh told me later that he had to keep blowing on his hands to stay warm because I wanted the a/c blasting the whole car ride. Despite all the signs that I was in transition, I still didn’t believe it and kept thinking to myself that there was no way I was going to make it through this without drugs if I already felt like this. At one point I said something like this out loud, but Dh was great and told me I was doing awesome and to just keep breathing and relaxing during the waves, reassuring me that we were almost to the hospital.
Finally, we pulled into the parking lot and he waited through a wave until he could ask me if I wanted to be dropped off at the front door. I didn’t want to be alone, even for a minute, so I told him to park (the parking lot was right there, so it wasn’t really much further to walk.) and while he got the things out of the car, I leaned on the car, pretty much shouting “peace” into my pillow through another wave.
I had another just as we entered the hospital and immediately dropped onto the nearest couch and once again moaned “Peace” through the wave into my pillow. I thought for a second how silly I probably looked, but really didn’t care. By the end of that wave, a nurse had come over and asked if I wanted a wheelchair. I couldn’t see how sitting down was really going to make the waves any more comfortable so I refused. A little bit of it was pride, because I was determined to walk in there, even if I did end up asking for drugs, which was definitely in the back of my mind at this point. It had taken me 12 hours to go from a 5 to baby with dd and I just didn’t think I could do 12 hours feeling like I was right then.
I had one more wave right as Dh was buzzing into the labor and delivery floor. By the time that one was over, I looked up and my midwife (who is a Hypnobirthing instructor) was standing right there because the nurses had called her over, saying they thought I was probably one of hers. They took me straight into a room and told me to put on the gown. I was so hot at that point, I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. At this point, it was 2 p.m.
I laid down and thought about asking them to fill the tub because I’d been wanting to try that for relaxing, thinking maybe the pressure wouldn’t be so great, but I didn’t say anything right away and knew they needed to monitor for a bit first anyway.
When the midwife went to check me about a minute later, My doula asked if I wanted to know how far I was because I had said before that I didn’t want to know unless I was at least at a 7—I didn’t think I could mentally handle it if I wasn’t that far along. Before I could even answer, the midwife said, “oh, yeah, you want to know. You’re at an 8.5—wait, a 9”. At that point, I almost started to cry from relief. I knew I could make it through it if it was going that fast. The waves were incredibly strong and the pressure was so intense, I asked if maybe we broke my water, the pressure would lessen a little bit, but the midwife told me that it wasn’t my waters—it was the baby’s head that was making me feel like that. Within a few minutes, I was feeling an even more intense pressure to push and the midwife told me to go for it—I was fully dilated. My waters broke right as I started to push.
I had really wanted to peacefully breath my baby down, but that wasn’t what my body wanted at that point. I just wanted to push him out and so they helped me flip to my side and lift my upper leg and I began bearing down pretty hard. The midwife kept telling me to rest between waves, but I honestly didn’t feel waves anymore—just steady pressure that wasn’t letting up at all. My doula told me after, that she thinks I breathed him down a lot more than I realized. It was all happening so fast and was so intense, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was doing, but that it was working because I could feel him moving down.
I still had a moment of panic at this point because I just wasn’t sure I could keep doing this with so much pressure for very long. But once again, the Hypnobabies affirmations really helped. Just as I didn’t think I could do it anymore, my midwife told me that if I really focused, I could have him out with the next wave. I was shocked that it had all gone so fast. So I went ahead and just pushed immediately and suddenly the pressure let up some and they told me to stop while they unwrapped his umbilical cord from his neck. A couple seconds later, the midwife managed to help him turn as I pushed out the shoulders and she immediately lifted him up onto my stomach.
I couldn’t believe how great it felt to have all of that pressure gone! And to be holding my sweet little baby boy. And just to know that I had actually done it! I couldn’t stop saying, “I did it! I actually did it!” LOL. It was 2:18, only 18 minutes after we got to the labor and delivery floor—I can’t believe how close we cut it, but it was a great feeling to have it all over so quickly—I had been sure I was in for at least a couple hours more in the hospital.
Abraham cried, and took awhile to open his eyes (kind of funny to me because I know everyone talks about how much more alert babies are who don’t have the drugs in their system, but Dd came out way more alert and attentive than Abe did). I think he was just pretty relaxed and comfy in there and didn’t really want to wake up to the new place he was in yet, although he did latch on right away and has had no problems breastfeeding—my milk came in full force within a couple days. He weighed 8 lbs, 3 oz, 20 inches long and his Apgars were 8 and 9.
I did have a 2nd degree tear because he had an elbow up by his face, and the anesthesia shots and the stitching were the hardest part for me to deal with—the tissue down there just felt incredibly sensitive afterwards so every little tug was driving me crazy, but I made it through that part and the recovery has been so much faster than with Dd. I was up and showering within 3 hours, only had a couple days that it was somewhat uncomfortable to sit down, never needed more than ibuprofen (and that was mostly for the cramping while I was nursing).
Even though I can’t say this was a painfree birth, and the intensity was almost scary the last 45 minutes, the fact that it all went so fast made it completely bearable. It really was only the last 45 minutes that I started to have trouble and was doubting myself, and I think if I’d already been at the hospital, I would have been more comfortable and felt more supported by Dh and my doula which would have made that all much more comfortable as well.
Hypnobabies helped me so much—I’m not good at relaxing, but the last half of this pregnancy has been much more calm than I would have expected, especially since during that time, we moved and Dh started school and I had to switch insurances, dr’s, hospitals. But just handling every day issues seemed easier and then, when our birthing time started, I was able to relax my body, even if I wasn’t really comfortable. I know that let my body do what it needed so I could have a fast and easy birthing. And even with the discomfort, it was nothing compared to the amount and time of discomfort I had with my first, despite (or because of) 2 epidurals.