Eric's Birth Story

Well, my husband is now a Hypnobabies believer, even though this wasn't the "perfect" birth, and I did choose to accept an epidural at the end. But we were so pleased with the way things worked out. Eric Matthew was born on December 17 at 9:50 pm. He is an absolute delight.

First, the background. Eric is our second child. My first was born
two years and two months ago and we had taken a 12-week natural
childbirth course and vowed to follow all of it to a T. We went to
the very natural-childbirth friendly hospital after moving from
Canada to the US on my guess date and going through three days of
prodromal labor. After being in hard labor for 15 hours (most of
that stuck at 8 cm dilated), I had a seizure which was not related to
pre-eclampsia, but which was precipitated by the lack of sleep.
Luckily I had a midwife who kept her wits about her and five hours
later I was able to deliver vaginally. But preventing another
seizure has been a top priority for us.

One of the reasons that we really love Hypnobabies is that it has
provided us with so many tools, while allowing the flexibility to
make the decisions that we felt we needed to make for our health. My
husband loves Hypnobabies because there was such a feeling of calm
from the beginning to the end--much different from the first time.

My guess date was December 23, and I had many of the same concerns as
others on this message board about birthing at the "right" (ie
convenient) time. My mother was visiting from the 10th to the 24th,
my husband was off work from the 13th to January 2, and my sister is
getting married out of state (we are flying) on January 18. So for
me, the sooner the better. I had been visualizing the date as
December 17 for some time, and when I tried to change it, that was
the date that stuck in my mind. But I was hoping it would be
earlier, and afraid it wouldn't happen until sometime in January,
since my first was a week late. Once I was 38 weeks, I starting
listening to my Baby Come Out and Birthing Day Affirmations as often
as I could. The evening of the 16th, I said to my husband (but not
really believing it), well, tomorrow's the 17th. I'm going to start
having contractions around 8:00 am and we'll have a baby tomorrow.

And then I put on my Birthing Day Afirmations and fell asleep. About
12:30 am, I woke up because my water broke. This was in the middle
of the huge storm that covered the midwest. My midwife said to go in
because I needed an IV started (GBS+ and previous history). The
roads were covered with snow so it took a while. We went to an
amazing place--the Alternative Birth Center, at a hospital about an
hour away. (Anyone in the Detroit Metro area--if you don't know
about this, contact me if you're interested.) This place tries to
mimic a home birth setting, but in a hospital. They do not do
routine IVs, monitoring, inductions, etc. If you need any of that
(or have an emergency like I did the first time), they transfer you
down the hall to Labor and Delivery. They have queen-size beds so
after getting everything set, so my husband and I could both sleep.
A few minutes before 8:00 I started having mild pressure waves, so we
woke up, ordered breakfast (they let you order anything on the menu)
and had eggs and toast, and got ready. When the day nurse came in
and I told her I was using hypnosis, she said, "Yay!" and told us
about all the great experiences they had had, including with the
midwife who ended up delivering me. (She had used it and had a great
birth.)

My pressure waves were not progressing, so I tried different things
to get them going, but was pretty tired (only got about 4 hours of
sleep).

So around noon, we had some lunch and then tried a few more things,
but I knew time (for me) was running out because I didn't want to try
to go through another night. I was dilated to a 3 when we arrived,
and not much more than a 4 12 hours later. So I asked them to
transfer me to L&D and give me some pitocin.

Once at L&D, I realized why the ABC is so much better. I really was
tied to my bed. I got the pitocin at 3:00, and by 6:00 I still was
only at a 6. So I realized that I needed to get an epidural so that
either A) I could sleep or B) they could turn up the pitocin enough
to really get things going. At that point, the midwife on call
showed up and said that I had a forebag and that she was going to
break it. This surprised all of us because I had been leaking a lot
all night and all day. So maybe that's what the problem was all
along. Oh well. By that time, I was too exhausted to wrap my mind
around the hypnosis and relaxation. I was glad that I had those
tools, though, because the epidural only "took" on one side, so there
was still significant discomfort on the other.

They told me to call them when I felt like pushing, but I fell
asleep. Around 9:30 pm, I woke up and looked at the monitor for two
or three pressure waves and then the midwife rushed in because she
was concerned about the heart tones. She checked me and I was fully
dilated and effaced and +2 (?--or -2--whichever one is right there).
So they got my husband who had stepped out and told me to push. It
was pretty easy even though I didn't feel anything still. After
about 6 pushes, she said she was going to do an episiotomy. (Maybe
there was something to be concerned about but I think she overreacts
a bit.) I told her to give me one more push, which she did and I
pushed him out. Much better than with my first (10 minutes instead
of 2-1/2 hours) and no tearing.

The whole experience wasn't perfect, but it was wonderful and we are
so glad that it went as smoothly as it did.

He was born at 9:50 pm on the 17th. 7 pounds 1 ounce. 20 inches
long. Lots of dark hair. We named him Eric Matthew, because Matthew
means "gift of God"--the perfect name for a Christmas baby.