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Jessica's
story
I
was nearly 43 weeks pregnant and anticipating some
struggle with maintaining my birth center birth if I had
to go to the hospital for a BPP (biophysical profile). So,
we decided to get a little interventive.
So, Sat morning, we drove the hour and forty minutes
to the birth center. We got there, had an "unrealistically
active" NST (non-stress test), stripped my membranes,
and drank some castor oil. (honestly, tasted kind of good).
I had strapped on, that morning, a belly binding brace
thing to try to get better direct pressure on my cervix,
as he has kind of been hanging out.
At this point, about 11am, I was 2cm, 50%
effaced, and quite firm. She said she was being
generous to give me a -1 station.
Then, we went out to find a movie theater and lunch.
By the time we found the threater, I was thinking we
should eat first and go to the later of two movie
options. We found a great little vegetarian
resturant (we're not vegetarian, but different stuff is fun
for us) and sat down to eat. At one point I went to the
bathroom and had one surprising contraction, but was
disappointed not to have a repeat.
By the time we finished eating, I felt like the
castor oil might be kicking in and wanted a private
bathroom, so we headed back to the center.
This was about 2pm. Since the castor oil was not, in
fact, kicking in (never really did), she went ahead
and checked me. I was 5cm, 80% effaced, and 0
station!
We called my family and they decided to head on up
at that point (their drive was also 2 hours). Then we
commenced waiting. After a while, we took a walk because
nothing was happening. At that point I started
having regular contractions, but they really just felt like
Braxton Hicks.
My family got there about 6 and I really hadn't
progressed much, so we went out to the mall for
walking and dinner. While walking around the mall
and eating dinner, I began to have to concentrate on my
contractions.
Back from dinner, about 8:30, and I was 6-7.
We hung out through the night. My contractions were
comming about 5 minutes apart and very managable. We
have video from this time of me belly dancing. At
one point the midwife glanced over at us, sitting in the
livingroom while Anthony napped, and teased, "Is
this a birth or a slumber party?"
About midnight things slowed down and eased up and I
was given orders to rest. I dozed on and off for a
few hours, only having contractions strong enough to
wake me up about every 20 minutes. About 4am the midwife
came in and said that if things weren't going in
another hour or so, she'd want to try more castor
oil.
Within the hour my contractions were back to every 5
minutes and I was really having to focus, but still
feeling great between them. And I was starving.
Ravenous!
I was about 8cm as the sun was comming up and was
told to get into the tub to relax and try to let things "open up".
I got in the tub for an hour and a half and was really focusing and
visualizing, but snacking
between contractions and managing to stay on top of
them.
At 6:30ish I was about 9cm. At this point, I'd had a
bulging bag of water for hours.
I got out of the tub and the midwife had me sit on
the toilet and give little pushes. My bag of waters was
bulging so far down that I felt some pressure and we
were hoping that following that urge would get my
water to break fairly naturally. I think I was
starting to get a little vocal as the contractions
peaked.
We moved to the bed and decided to go ahead and
break my water. It really wasn't doing anything for either
of us at that point. She did shine a flashlight in
there and check that it was clear first. It was
bulging THAT far!
I was really struggling at this point, vocalizing
and starting to fight contractions a little. I think
this is because I was fearful about having my water
break. I knew things would get more intense when they did
and I knew this meant the birth was approaching.
Crowning was the thing I still had a lot of fear
about and it was showing in how I handled the
contractions. It was also hard to focus while they tried to put in
a hep lock (I'd been quite anemic and we felt it was a
good idea if I were going to be in the water).
Finally, the midwife gave me the option of trying to
put in the IV a fourth time or giving me a shot of
pitocin in the leg at the time of birth. I chose the
pit. My hands are STILL sore from the IV attempts!
I got back in the tub about 9:30 with just a lip of
cervix left. I felt INCREDIBLE urge to push, but
they wouldn't "let" me. It's always bugged me when
someone who feels the urge to push is told not to. I believe
strongly in listening to your body when in labor!
Well, I learned the hard way that they were right. I
tried to fight it a few contractions, doing little
pushes that gave no relief. Then I gave in and gave
one good push. It hurt like heck! I could feel a
sharp pain up high, conceivably the head catching on my
cervix, and knew it wasn't right to be pushing.
For over an hour I struggled terribly not to push,
as they checked often to see if the lip was still
there. Finally, during a contraction, they pushed back the
lip on my cervix and then we waited through a few
contractions to be sure it would stay back.
Hey, I'd waited long enough to push. When they
finally let me, it felt SO good. I don't know that
anything has ever felt so good! Well, then he
crowned and it didn't feel so good, but it was too late to
stop by then! They let me start pushing about 10:40 and five
minutes later, at 10:45, Orion was born!
Thanks to the water, I needed only one stitch, despite
his chubby arm being next to his 14.25 inch head.
Don't know that I'll ever forget that feeling
though! Mac came in as they were putting a blue little Orion on my chest
and -with Daddy's help- cut the cord.
After I "birthed" the placenta (we've got pics of
that too!) we let Ori do self attachment.
That's
the story, in way too much detail.
Please
send your birth story to Lara@ABetterChildbirth.com.
I look forward to hearing from you!
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