Alethea's Birth
Alethea was born September 17, 2007 at 3:15 pm PST, at 8lbs 10oz and
21 inches long. We're all doing great! The birth story is below…I
wrote the story for all friends/family, so I don't use the
Hypnobabies terminology but I do talk about how I used the tools. I
also do talk about some p**n, but I definitely considered it a
Hypnobabies success story.
Alethea's official "due" date was Oct. 1. I woke up on Sunday, Sept.
16 feeling more crampy than usual, and continued to have a lot of
BH's throughout the day. At that point, nothing had happened to
indicate that labor was starting (she was still high, no sign of a
mucous plug, no energy burst, no diarrhea, etc.) At about 5:00pm my
membranes ruptured. At first there was very little fluid coming out,
so I thought maybe it was just urine, but after I moved around it
started to gush and I knew it was the real thing. My husband, Dave,
and I decided to go to the hospital to make sure this was it,
thinking they would check me out and send us home to labor.
The doctors and attending midwife said I was not yet dilated at all,
and although contractions were showing up on the monitor they were
irregular and mild. However, they said that since the membranes had
ruptured so completely, they really wanted the baby to come within 24
hours to avoid infection. So they told me to come back in 12 hours
to assess progress and potentially to begin induction. Just as I was
getting dressed to go home, however, the midwife came in and said she
was concerned about my blood pressure. She wanted to keep me for
tests because she was afraid I had pre-ecclampsia. I was pretty
convinced the high blood pressure was a result of adrenaline, but I'm
also aware of how dangerous pre-ecclampsia can be, so I didn't want
to risk anything. I agreed to stay at the hospital while the midwife
agreed that no one would disturb me until the 12 hours had passed
unless my tests showed something scary from the blood pressure. I was
able to listen to the Hypnobabies CDS (mostly Deepening and Easy
First Stage) and get into a very good mental space while my husband
slept for about 5 hours. My tests came back with slightly elevated
levels of things I can't remember now, so they kept watching me very
closely throughout the labor but nothing ever elevated to a
threatening level.
Throughout the night my contractions remained irregular, although
they were getting slightly closer together and stronger on average.
When the doctors came in after 12 hours had passed to discuss next
steps, I was feeling very calm and in control. We agreed to try
Misoprostol to start induction, because they said it was milder than
Pitocin and would not cause me to progress as fast as Pitocin would.
Within about an hour, my contractions were very regular and much
stronger. In the beginning I used the Lightswitch quite a lot,
staying mostly in Center and repeating Peace and Relax and focusing
on breathing anesthesia (all Hypnobabies techniques). I stayed on my
side in bed for a long time in the beginning. As things progressed,
I labored in the tub for a while. While in the tub, the contractions
became strong enough that Dave began to read me the Hypnobabies
scripts he had. Hearing his voice was SO calming to me, and helped
me focus so much on staying relaxed. Eventually, I wanted to get
out of the tub. I wouldn't describe the contractions to this point
as painful, but they were intense. It was about 3 hours after I
took the Misoprostol, and my contractions were really close
together. We weren't timing them, but I remember saying to Dave that
they were only getting harder because I didn't have enough of a break
in between (I think there was about 30 seconds of rest between
them). I told Dave that I needed some help, that I thought I might
want to try nitrous, just to have a little break. Unfortunately, the
anesthesiologists were both busy with other women who were pushing,
so it took them 1.5 hours to get to me! About a half hour after I
first mentioned wanting medication, I really had lost my focus, and
the contractions started to feel painful. I was vocalizing quite a
lot, which helped a lot, but I think kind of freaked Dave out. I
thought I was still really far away from being finished and didn't
think the doctors were ever going to come. Turns out that I was 7cm
at that point, and dilating more very quickly (I was at 10 less than
an hour later). Soon I began involuntarily pushing a little with
each contraction. That really took me by surprise, actually, because
I remember women talking about "feeling pushy" and somehow thought it
would be a little more conscious – like I would notice how I felt and
have a strong desire to push. But for me there was no conscious
thought or desire or decision to push or not to push – at the peak of
the contractions I just was pushing. The nurse and Dave were both
doing a fantastic job of supporting me, helping me stay focused on my
breath and Dave's eyes during the most intense parts of each
contraction. I'm sorry to say that by this point the Hypnobabies
techniques kind of went out the window. Dave kept saying the cues,
but the nurse wasn't trained in Hypnobabies so her support style
wasn't related to hypnosis at all. There were no breaks between
contractions for me at all by now, just moments when it was less
intense. Finally the anesthesiologists arrived and began to do the
epidural. I remember thinking that if they tried to make me push I
might not be able to do it because I was so tired. I was so
exhausted by then that when the epidural took effect I actually
immediately started to fall asleep! I ended up resting for about 1.5
hours before starting to push again.
Finally I started to feel some pressure, and we began pushing. I was
breathing the baby out at the start, then actually started doing
purple pushing because that felt better to me, and ended up
alternating between the two. I pushed for some time in many
positions – on my back, on each side, and on all fours. I liked
being on all fours the best, but my legs got tired and shaky there
and I ultimately pushed her out on my back. After almost two hours
of pushing, the doctors began to get concerned that something was
wrong with the baby's position because she had been crowning for a
long time with no progress. So they brought in the ultrasound
machine and determined that while her body was facing down and
forward, she was turning her neck to look back over her shoulder (so
her body was OA and her face was OP). They attempted at first to
manually turn her head between pushes, but she kept turning it back
as soon as I would start to push. In the end, I pushed her most of
the way out with the OB turning her head during each push. To
motivate me the midwife held up a mirror, and I saw the baby's head!
It was so incredible! I didn't want to see it at first because I was
afraid that the reality of the size of the baby's head would actually
scare me more than motivate me. I couldn't have been more wrong. I
reached down at one point and felt her head, and I was sobbing and so
much more motivated to keep going despite how tired I was. Suddenly
they were saying stop pushing, and I could see them pulling her up,
and she was on my chest, and her big brown eyes were wide open and I
was crying and she was looking at me and we just stared at each
other. I didn't care about any other parts of her – I always hear
the stories of people counting the fingers and toes right away, but I
didn't care about that at all in those first moments. We just looked
at each other, we were finally meeting each other, and I knew she
knew who I was and it was incredible. Turns out I had a second
degree tear, delivered the placenta and got the stitches without
incident (I didn't even realize I was delivering the placenta,
actually, because I was so absorbed with watching Alethea).
While the labor and delivery weren't exactly what I hoped for since I
did end up with an epidural at the end, I was still very happy with
how it went. Dave couldn't have done a better job supporting me, I
loved the medical staff, and my nurse was incredible. I thought the
Hypnobabies was fantastic – it got me all the way to transition
feeling calm and pretty comfortable. I think if I had been able to
progress at my own speed that I may not have needed pain meds at
all. It was also so helpful during the third trimester of the
pregnancy, too, especially helping me to feel calm and confident
about the pregnancy and birth and to sleep at night. I definitely
plan to use it again for my next baby, and am recommending it to
anyone who will listen:)
I also wanted to say THANKS to everyone on this site! I didn't write
much, but I read every post very regularly and it was so helpful for
me to be part of this electronic community:)
Tiffany