Here is Sawyer William's€™s birth story.  

During the birth, practically
nothing went as I'd hoped or visualized in fact, afterwards I observed
 to my nurse-midwife that short of having a C-section, you could have
practically taken my birth plan and written an opposites version of
it, and thats what I would have had.  However, the end result a
healthy mom and baby, was just what I wanted, and I feel blessed to
have had that.  I also had an amazing pregnancy I slept well the whole
time (other than a few bathroom breaks) and had no back pain (or any
other kind of pain) the last two months.  Not bad for baby #5!

After a NST that indicated lower amniotic fluid and since I was 13
days overdue, my nurse-midwife, Julie, recommended that I be induced
May 15.  I was really conflicted about it, and almost angry because I
felt like I had done everything right  to prepare myself for this
birth.  I had studied Hypnobabies religiously, taken care of myself in
terms of diet and exercise, I had paid attention to my
posture/positioning to help my baby remain anterior, I had taken an
herbal formula for six weeks before my due date to help my uterus tone
up for the big event.  For a few hours, I just felt like, "Well, screw
it"all my work is for nothing.   But through some serious thought,
prayer and talking with my husband, I realized that despite being
angry about being induced that I felt like it was the right thing to
do.  I always take my intuition more seriously when it tells me to do
something I didn't really want to do and so we psyched ourselves up
for the induction.

I went to sleep at about 11 p.m. and slept for about 5 hours.  I had
to wake up and go to the bathroom and had a hard time going back to
sleep after that, so I listened to a couple scripts (birthing day
affirmations and fear release) until I had to get up.  We arrived at
the hospital at 7:30 a.m.  My midwife arrived at about 9:15 and
checked me, just to see where we were starting out.  I was 3 cm
dilated and 90% effaced.  She said she could rupture my membranes and
wait a few hours to see if anything started or to start me on pitocin
right then.  I decided to have her rupture my membranes, hoping that
it would kick-start my labor and allow me to have a more natural
induction experience.  So she did.

After she ruptured my membranes, we did some things to help nudge me
into starting labor.  My husband and I walked around and around the
hospital.  I did some nipple stimulation.  I bounced on the birthing
ball.  Nothing.  We decided to start the pitocin at noon.  I had my
husband go get some lunch for himself so that he wouldn't be hungry
when things started picking up after the pitocin.  I also snuck some
Jell-O, Gatorade and fruit leather so I wouldn't be hungry, either :).

Julie started the pitocin at 2 ml, and it helped me get a nice pattern
going.  After about ½ hour, we turned it up to 4 ml and I got in the
tub.  The waves were totally fine.  I listened to my birth guide the
whole time and used my light switch.  The birth guide was amazing it
always felt like it was exactly on cue for what I was experiencing at
the time.  The peace cue was also amazing whenever I started saying
peace, it was like that wave only lasted a few breaths and then it was
over.  I know they lasted longer than that I could see it on the
monitor, but it was my hypnosis that helped me feel it was much
quicker and easier than that.

I got out of the tub after a couple of hours and got on the birth ball
or walked/stood.  By about four thirty, we had turned the pitocin up
to 10 ml.  Shortly afterward, Sawyer's heart rate started to show some
serious decelerations during pressure waves.  The nurses had me lay on
my left side and his heart rate returned to normal the only problem
was that lying down was way less comfortable for me.  My midwife
thought that his cord must be situated in such a way that it was being
compressed more when I was upright.  At this point, it was about 6
p.m. and I was 7 cm dilated.  I was really glad because in all my
previous births I had gone from a 7 to a 10 in less than fifteen
minutes.  I kept saying open open open and using my peace cue.

I was also starting to notice the waves much more in my back, unless I
was upright.  I told Julie "I think he might be posterior."  She said
that she was wondering the same thing because of the relatively slow
progress, but said that due to his heart decelerations that she was
worried about making him turn at this point in my birthing time.

Knowing that I wanted to be upright in order to be comfortable, Julie
turned down the pitocin and had me put on an oxygen mask to see if
that would be enough to help Sawyers heart rate stabilize while
allowing me to remain upright.  It helped, but not enough to get his
heart rate where they wanted it to be, so she said I really needed to
get either on my side or my back so that we could help his heart rate
stabilize.  They also said that with continued heart monitor strips
like the ones he was showing, a C-section was a very real possibility.

I knew I didn't want a C-section, so I laid down on my side and
instantly the waves went from pressure and tightening to pain.  I
started exhaling an Ahhh  sound with each one which helped me to
relax my pelvis instead of tightening it, but the pressure in my back
was so overwhelming I found myself involuntarily sitting up even
leaping off the bed at one point--at the peak of the wave.  I
basically couldn't make myself stay down I was still using my
hypnosis, but not really turning off very often because I kept
involuntarily moving to make myself more comfortable.  Julie and
Aaron, my husband, were giving me counterpressure on my back, which
didn't seem to do anything except bother me.  I also had a really hard
time staying in deep hypnosis because of all the stress in the room
about Sawyer's heart rate.  I'm not sure I could have done things
differently because there were decisions that needed to be made by me
and my husband together, but I really regret not continuing to listen
to my birth guide.  I stopped it at this time so I could participate
in the decision-making process.  I didn't notice how amazingly helpful
it had been until I turned it off :).

I recognized that I needed help in order to be able to stay in the
right position for Sawyer's heart rate.  It had been about an hour
since they had last checked me, so I thought I would have them check
me before I decided what to do.  I was hoping that they would say I was
complete and that all the pressure I was feeling was just a new way of
experiencing the urge to push.  So they did and I was still just 7 cm
dilated.

I was really disappointed, but I quickly decided that the best thing
for me to do was to get a low dose epidural so that I could stand to
stay on my side I couldn't seem to relax enough on my own to lay down
otherwise.  The epidural was in within 3 minutes and it helped I still
needed to use my light switch during waves in order to be completely
comfortable, but it enabled me to lay on my side without moving, which
was the whole point.  Sawyer's heart rate stabilized within a few
contractions.  The epidural went in around 7:00.  About an hour and a
half later, I was at a stretchy nine, and Sawyer's heart rate was
starting to drop again.  Julie said that we needed to get him out.  So
she stretched my cervix during a contraction and I started to push out
my posterior baby.

Because of the whole upright/dropping heart rate problem, I had to
push in everyone's favorite position practically flat on my back, with
everyone coaching me like crazy :).  I was glad that I hadn't gone for
a full dose epidural, because unlike with my first baby, I could feel
when a contraction was coming and feel when to push.  After about 10
minutes, I had pushed him half-way down, but his heart rate was
starting to stay down between contractions, too, so we needed to get
him out quickly.  Julie tried turning his head with her hand.  She
couldn't get him to turn, so she called in her consulting OB (since he
has stronger hands).  He couldn't do it either, so he finally used
forceps to turn Sawyer and pull him down until he was crowning.  I
pushed him out the rest of the way.  Amazingly, despite the forceps, I
only had a first degree tear that required two stitches, and Sawyer
had a little red mark on his cheek that went away within a few days.
He was 8 lbs. 14 oz. and 21 inches, with bright, alert eyes and a head
full of dark eyes.  The nurses took him and started checking him over
right away, but Julie had them put him on my chest and do all their
examinations there.  So I got one thing from my birth plan, at least :).

When he was born, they found that the cord was around his neck twice,
and it was taut, which explains his heart decelerations and why he
didn't want to rotate into an anterior position.  I was actually glad
I had been monitored, because my plan (pre-induction) was to stay at
home for a long time and hopefully arrive at the hospital in
transition (or beyond).  If I had, I wouldn't have known about his
heart rate problems, and definitely wouldn't have chosen to labor on
my side, which could have been a problem.  I guess the moral of this
story is to educate yourself about interventions and then listen to
your intuition when you need to make decisions.

I was amazed and gratified to find how much my hypnosis helped me not
only relax during the birthing process, but also to accept the
problems that arose with grace and feel empowered to make my own
decisions about how to handle things.  Most importantly, I feel fairly
peaceful about this birth despite the fact that it wasn't the birth
experience I had wanted.  Pre-Hypnobabies, I would have felt like a
total failure.  I think all my preparation really helped me to feel a
sense of peace and personal control, even when things were stressful
and hectic.

The most important thing I learned was that hypnosis really works!
The last time I had pitocin I was reduced to tears within 45 minutes.
 This time, I was on pitocin in complete comfort for 7 hours, and
could have gone on indefinitely if I could have continued to labor in
an upright position.  Sawyer is our fifth and likely last baby, but if
I get brave enough to have a number six, I will definitely use
Hypnobabies again.

Sorry so long--thanks to everyone for their support throughout this
learning process.

Erin