Congratulations to Amber and Mitch who took my class in June! They had their baby a few weeks ago and everything went beautifully! Here is the story:
She came July 8th and we had her at Better Birth and it was a great experience! I had surges all day Sunday and that night around 6:30 they went from being 30 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart in one hour! So we called Better Birth and by the time we got there I was having surges 1 to 2 minutes apart. They checked me as soon as we got there and I was dilated 6 cm and 85% effaced. I wanted to jump in the tub right away but the midwife wouldn’t let me because the baby was partially posterior and the baby’s head wasn’t fully engaged in the birth canal so I had to rock on the birthing ball. The surges were pretty intense at this point and basically on top of each other. At this time I definitely had my doubts on whether I was going to be able to do this natural! I was in transition and didn’t realize I was so close to delivery! I decided to sit on the toilet because I felt a lot of pressure and felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. I sat down and pushed and my water broke (turns out the my water was bulging and in the way of the baby’s head, so once it broke the baby’s head slid right down into place where it needed to be). While this was happening the midwife asked if I wanted to get in the tub now and I said YES so she just started filling up the tub. After the water broke I felt a very strong need to push and the head midwife saw the baby was crowning and asked if I wanted to deliver in the tub or the bed, I said tub so she told me once I got in the tub I needed to get my hips down so the baby would be fully submerged in water. Those 5 steps to the bathtub were hard and I stopped twice to push, Mitch says I almost broke the student midwife’s hand because I was squeezing it so hard, lol. Once I got in the tub the water was only 1/3 full so I had to kneel and get down low. I felt a pushing surge so I pushed with my body and with the second push the head came out, with the next surge the shoulders and body came out. From the time my water broke to when the baby came out was probably only about 5-7 minutes! Mitch almost missed the baby being born because he had gone around the corner to get me some more water! Once she was out they put her directly on my chest and suctioned her mouth and nose out and left her there while they wrote down birth time, etc. We waited about 10 minutes for the cord to stop pulsing and then I cut the cord. She started nursing about 30 minutes after she was delivered which was a huge success for me because nursing was such a struggle with my two previous girls! It made having her naturally worth it right then and there! But the other huge pluses for me were the recovery (which was sooo easy even though I did tear a little bit) and feeling such a great sense of accomplishment for having a baby naturally! Who does that? I just did! I was so proud of myself!
The time from when we got to Better Birth to delivery was only 40 minutes! The only down side to how quickly everything went was that I never had the time to really focus on relaxing. By the time they had checked me (which did take forever it seemed like to have the student check me), got our stuff in the birthing suite, changed into comfortable clothes, set up the ipod station and read one-third of a script is when I went into the bathroom and my water broke. So one thing I would do differently next time would be to practice relaxation more with Mitch so I am used to him reading the scripts and so it is more second nature for when you need relaxation to come quickly!
Thank you Fiona for a great class and another successful birth story!
Amber and Mitch
Adelyn, 20.5 inches and 7 lbs 12 ounces
Speak Your Mind