I wanted to share the story of the two most important days of my life: the births of my children. I am so very blessed to have been given the privilege to be the mom to Conner and Kara! If you are pregnant and researching your labor/delivery options now, please feel free to ask me any questions. Especially if you are considering an unmedicated, natural birth. I spent alot of time looking into my options and rights; I remember how hard it was to find information from people who have actually experienced it. Below are the short versions of my all natural birth experiences with my two children.
On July 1, 2011 my son was born at 7:19pm just 2 days before his due date. I knew from the moment I started trying to get pregnant that I wanted to attempt natural child birth (true natural labor and delivery means no medicine intervention of any kind). Once we discovered we were pregnant, I researched all the options and side effects from any medications used in birthing these days. After my research, I was whole heartedly committed to taking the non-medicated, non-assisted labor & delivery route.
I admit, I was extremely nervous with the idea. And anyone I talked to about it gave me responses varying from laughing out loud to nods of disbelief that I will really do it to some actually telling me straight up that it is stupid to attempt. But I blew it all off because I knew what I wanted and I was not going to let anyone with no first hand experience at it sway my opinion. The handful of woman that I was able to talk to who did successfully and intentionally deliver without medicine all had great things to say about their experience. I wish I had gotten to talk to even more women, I know they gotta be out there somewhere.
I mentally and physically prepared for months. I even wrote motivational cards for my husband to read to me during the tough, strong contractions. After all, most things in life are mind over matter. Labor is definitely one of those things.
So the morning of July 1st, it started out as another normal day. I woke up at 7:00, ate breakfast and got ready to go to the gym. As my husband and I were getting into the car I felt something strange and went to the bathroom to check. My mucus plug came out in full! I was NOT anticipating that at all. Since I was in no pain and no water leaking, I didn’t think I was in labor. After some convincing from my husband, I called the doctor. She told me to come into her office to be checked. I will never forget her comment when she checked my cervix: ”You need to go check into Labor and Delivery now because you are having a baby today.” I was dilated to 4.5 and 100 effaced. By the time I got a room in labor and delivery it was about 11:00 am. I was having some light contractions but nothing memorable.
I chose to labor on the birthing ball the entire time. Around 2:30pm the contractions had become much longer with less resting time in between with increased intensity. I had dilated to 6 by now. But around 4pm the pain was extremely intense every few contractions with some less intense ones in between which I welcomed because they helped me recover from the crazy strong ones. When my doctor checked me around this hour she said it wouldn’t be too long now, so that gave me a gush of hope! And I asked how will I know? Her response was that I will have an intense feeling to need to take a “poop.” Ok, that seemed strange to me but I took it as an answer.
7:05 pm I indeed felt the need to do something. So I told the nurse I felt that I had to push like I was trying to make a bowel movement. So she checked my cervix and had a panic look. ”Let me call your doctor, you are ready to push but try to hold the urge.” she said. That is not as easy to do as one may think. I was fully dilated and she could see his head crowning. I got off the ball and got on the table in position to push and my doctor walks in just in time. I pushed twice, which took about 6 minutes. And Conner was here! There was the fire burning moment that you may read about but it was the most temporary pain of the entire process.
I want to be honest in informing you that delivering the placenta was the most painful part. I guess it was because my adrenaline was gone after holding my precious baby. Plus, I was not fully anticipating that I needed to push out the placenta in the same way that I did my son. I guess this important piece of information is often left out because the majority of women do not feel it due to the medication and those who do remember it choose to block it out of memory because they had their baby which is where the story usually ends. My sons head was rather large, so I did tear quite a bit and needed to be sewn up, again unmedicated. It took about 10 minutes for the doctor to do while my son was being cleaned an checkout out.
People always asked me if I would do it naturally again with no medicine. And my answer is “Of course, now I know what to expect. The fear is in the unknown and insecurity of not knowing whether it can be done.” I know what it is like and that I can do it. Plus it is an incredible feeling of accomplishment to have fully experienced every moment of the miracle if birth.
So, when I found out I was expecting our second child, I knew I would do a natural unmedicated birth again. This time I was hoping to labor some at home to lower the time in the hospital. I was anticipating that she would come earlier since it is my second pregnancy. But at 39 weeks and 2 days, on January 7, 2014, my water broke at 5am while I was still asleep. It was not a huge gush of water so I was uncertain if it completely broke., But about an hour later it broke completely while I was brushing my teeth. It was neat to have that water breaking moment that you see on TV.
But no contractions at this time. It was about another hour before consistent contractions set in. When they started they were very mild and about 7 minutes apart. So Josh and I started preparing for the hospital but we wanted to try to hold out leaving as long as possible. I labored on an exercise ball at home until about 10:30am when the contractions started to get a bit stronger and were 4-5 minutes apart. By the time we got checked into the hospital labor & delivery room I had dilated to 6 cm. My OBGYN was not on call but the Midwife in the same practice was and she was fabulous. She fully supported my desires and encouraged my progress. I was in active labor for about 2 hours when the contractions became extremely intense and I felt that need to push. I got up on the bed and she gently coached me as I pushed through 3 massively strong but quick contractions before she arrived at 2:09pm. The placenta deliver was much easier this time, probably because I was expecting it.
It was a quick birth and I fully believe that since I had no medical interventions at all my body quickly took over and did what it was designed to do. This time I had no tears, so no stitches to endure! And we got to leave the hospital 24 hours after her birth! If I were going to have a 3rd child, I would hope it goes just like this one.
Labor and deliver is a very personal experience. If you are thinking about your option to deliver with no medicine and you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask! I wish at the time of my birth planning I had more people to talk to about it. And to all the moms reading this, congratulations on your blessings! No matter how old they are now, I know it feels good to think about that moment that changed your life changed forever!
How was your labor? Long, short, dramatic, simple???