Carrie's Birth

I wanted to take a second and let you know that my hypnobaby, Carrie Elise has arrived. She made her debut this past Friday, February 29, at 8:40 a.m. Although it got intense at the end, I credit Hypnobabies with making the achievement of my goal of an all-natural childbirth possible.

I had my 41 week appointment on Thursday, February 28, at 11:30 a.m. My midwife, Melanie, checked me and noticed a lot of fluid. She put some under a microscope and said it was definitely amniotic fluid because "I almost never see ferning this good." She wasn't kidding--it looked like a plant nursery on that slide! So, because now it appeared my water had broken and I had been GBS positive, she issued an eviction notice for Carrie and did a membrane sweep. Then, she sent Brian and I to lunch and told us we weren't leaving Montgomery County until Carrie was born (we live 2 counties--90 minutes--away).

After a lovely time at the local Chinese buffet, we came back to the birthing center and unloaded our suitcase and things in the room I preferred. Brian drove back to our house to pick up a few little things we weren't carrying with us--the suitcase had been in the car  for weeks, but obviously we just thought we were coming for a checkup that day. I sat in the rocking chair, started my antibiotics, and called some people. (I had been given the option to decline the  antibiotics--we were with such a wonderful birth center--but we both decided that since the water had probably broken somewhere overnight,  it was far better to be safe than sorry. After a few hours, though, labor had not really kicked in with just the membrane sweep.

So, on to castor oil. I was given a good dose and told to go to the mall down the street and walk around, then to come back in about 2 hours when it kicked in. Ha. It kicked in 10 minutes later. I became very well-acquainted with every bathroom in the mall. Multiple times. Full-blown waves were coming regularly within 30 minutes. After 2 hours at the mall, I was ready to go back. It was 8:30 p.m.,  and we were formally admitted to the birth center.

The one depressing thing is that our doula used to work at the center, but had recently taken another job. Everyone said she still wanted to doula for us, though. I called her, and she never called back. I'd even bought the HB doula guide for her and met with her several times  to go over the importance of HB to us. Instead, Melanie called Megan, our backup doula. She had taught our childbirth class, so we were comfortable with her. However, she had no exposure to HB (although she had done a few Hypnobirthing births.)

I went through early labor just laying on the bed and using my peace cue with very little discomfort. I got dehydrated from the castor oil, so the waves started coming back to back. That was the only difficult thing. At 3 a.m., the other midwife, Katherine, came in and  checked me and discovered my bag of waters was still intact. As it turns out, I had two, and it was the outside bag that was leaking. So, we agreed to break the bag, and that's when everything started moving quickly.

A little bit later, I wanted to switch from Easy First Stage to Deepening. My doula suggested that I hold off on that for a little bit and do some other techniques to prepare myself. Inside my head, I was saying no, but I had a hard time voicing that, and knew it would be okay because I'd get Brian to put it back on in a few minutes. Oops. That didn't happen!

At about 5 am, I got in the birthing tub. It was bliss. Everything was intensifying, so I was so glad for the comfort of the tub. I continued to ride the pressure waves with my peace cue, and even  though I didn't have my CDs on, the only words I heard in my head were Kerry's coaching from various scripts.

At about 6 am, I started feeling pushy. Katherine discovered I was fully dilated in the back, but only an 8 in the front. So they had me try hands and knees and squatting positions in the tub...with no  pushing. This hurt, I'll be honest, and took every ounce of control I had to be in a position I didn't like, doing the exact opposite of  what I wanted to do. I kept using my peace cue--louder and louder--and added a Bible verse: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." That was all I said for an hour. This whole time, Brian has been so fantastic in support of me. He hates blood  and hospitals and the whole thing, so I was just in complete awe of how he got out of his fears and was totally my rock. And we couldn't have done it without Megan's reassurance, also.

Around 7:30, I told Katherine I HAD to push. She checked me and said it was okay. I began pushing in the tub. Later, they moved me to the birthing stool to push there and to use it for support to do squats  for pushing. When Carrie began to crown, they moved me back to the tub. Here, I laughed. I'm wearing nothing but a tube top, with a  aby's head between my legs, and they want me to waddle 10 steps away, climb two steps and get myself over the side of a Jacuzzi tub? Ha. But somehow, I did it. I love that peace cue. :)

They had me control the pushing so I didn't tear, but by then it was becoming even more intense. I HAD to get her out. While I'd been pushing, I'd been very vocal (to put it nicely). Somewhere in my head, I knew I'd never get permission to be this loud again and it felt  good. The four-year-old in me who was always told to "keep it down" was loving this, I think.

At one point, she was almost there and I said I had to get her out Katherine said to take it in 3-4 pushes so I didn't tear. I quite loudly said "I DON'T CARE!" and gave one mighty push. Head, shoulders and body all shot out at once. Carrie did have the cord loosely wrapped once around her neck, but it didn't have any negative impact. It took 55 minutes total to push her out. From admitting to birth, it took 12 hours and there were 5 hours of active labor. I thought those were all good numbers for a first-time mom and was very happy with that.

They put her on my chest and she was just beautiful. Seven pounds, 4 ounces, 19 inches long. She's got red hair (go figure!) and blue eyes and is just adorable. Love at first sight. She scored a 10 on BOTH APGARS. Carrie is the first baby Katherine has ever given two 10s to (and this morning, my pediatrician said she was glad Katherine wrote "no, really" after the scores on the birth sheet because she  wouldn't have believed it.) Another thing is that during the entire birth,  ven through pushing, Carrie's heart rate never budged from a healthy 130. Everyone in the room was amazed at how well she was handling  things. I truly credit the calm environment HB created for these two.

They started us breastfeeding (which we're still learning, but it's  getting better), gave Carrie and I an herbal bath (our first mother- aughter spa experience) and stitched up my tears (I did wind up with 4 small first-degree tears, but hey, I loudly made that choice...maybe if I'd known she had a 14" head, I would have chosen differently--probably not at that point.) They took great care of us. We were discharged at 2 pm and home by 4 pm. Carrie has done very well ever since, except for some day/night confusion.

When Melanie came yesterday to do our home visit, we were discussing the delivery and how I dilated differently. She said that no doubt I would have had a Caesarean in the hospital, because I would have been induced with Pitocin, then had an epidural and been unable to change positions to get fully dilated and I would have been unable to NOT push because of the epidural, as well, which would have swollen everything up and led me straight to the OR. What a blessing to have been in a place that values the power of a woman's body in childbirth, knows what to do to take full advantage of it and empowers women to give birth safely. And HB is part of that because I had the courage going in to know I didn't need to be in a place that would offer me drugs. (Although I did have 3 different times where I consciously thought to myself "I know why women get epidurals--if someone offered one to me now, I'd be powerless to say no. I am glad I am here where no one's going to offer it to me and I can keep using my HB tools like I planned.")

No, it wasn't a cake walk. There were two hours when it downright hurt. But I was never out of control. And I was always able to use my tools, even when I couldn't coherently think of anything else. And I am loving telling all my friends who thought I was crazy that yes, I did it! My hope is that all the moms currently studying the course get that kind of satisfaction out of it.

~Kristen