Indie Birth Community

Dec 3, 2011

The Homebirth Story of Benjamin

December 3, 2011 By Indie Birth Community Leave a Comment

It was by accident that my husband and I discovered natural child birth. We had tried for a couple of years to get pregnant and were at the point where we thought it was just not going to happen for us. Just as we were coming to terms with the idea that it was just going to be the two of us we found out we were having a baby! We were overjoyed! I quickly called my insurance provider to inquire about what would be covered during my pregnancy and was informed that I did not have any maternity coverage. After calling a local hospital as well as an OB doctor and finding out that we were looking at a minimum of $8,000.00 out of our pockets it seemed we needed to look into other options for having this baby. It was suggested to us that we look into having a homebirth with a midwife. After doing some research we found our absolutely wonderful midwife, April Kermani and Doula/Hypnobirthing coach, Marcie Webb and became very excited about having a homebirth.

My first pregnancy went very smooth from the moment I found out until the moment little Jack arrived. I was lucky enough not to have had any morning sickness and felt amazing throughout the entire pregnancy. Jack Robert Barton was born two weeks before his due date at our home on September 11, 2008. My labor lasted for 12 hours from the time I had my very first contraction to the moment he was born. It was truly an amazing experience. There were no complications; it was a “perfect” birth.

My second pregnancy however, was not an easy one. In fact it was the polar opposite of my first pregnancy. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I was tired, had low energy, felt nauseated, was irritable, and had intense muscle pain. Most of the symptoms lasted throughout my pregnancy. I got through it with the help of a supportive birth team and the relaxation techniques I had learned from my Hypnobirthing classes.

Baby number two was due around the fifth of October but I had begun having intense Braxton Hicks contractions in the first week of September. My belly had dropped considerably and all at once it seemed things were progressing quite quickly. I was thinking we might have this baby early as well! There would be long periods of consistent intense contractions, but then all at once they would stop. At my 37 week appointment my midwife and I were sure things were a go. I called my mother and my sister-in-law and said you need to get on a plane and get here now. The family arrived and everything halted once again. It was very frustrating. I was trying everything under the sun from herbs, to sex, to walking. I tried everything short of castor oil! Nothing was working.

By the time week 40 came around I was so uncomfortable and very anxious to meet this little one growing inside of me, it seemed as if I were going to be pregnant forever! My midwife April suggested we try sweeping my membranes. We went to her office at 1:30pm on October 5th and had the procedure done. My midwife said that it would take at least a few hours before any contractions would begin and to just go about my day as planned. I had an appointment with my chiropractor at 3:00pm and then a massage appointment with my doula Marcie after that. At 2:45pm I kissed my two year old on the forehead, put him in for a nap, said goodbye to my mom and headed out the door to my appointments. While driving to my appointments I had one or two sharp pains but I was able to breathe through them. I thought that was a good sign that we would be having this baby within 24 hours. Yay! I called my husband and told him the good news and that I would see him when he got home from work.

I had my chiropractic adjustment and then headed in for my massage. During the massage my doula hit a few trigger points to intensify the contractions. She confirmed that I was in early labor and that we could expect to have a baby by the early morning. Marcie instructed me to go home and take a nap. She was teaching a Hypnobirthing class that evening and said she would plan to come over afterwards.
By the time I left her office a little after 4:00pm the pain had intensified considerably and contractions were about one minute apart and thirty seconds long. It was a difficult 15 minute drive but I made it home and walked in the door in tears from the pain. By the time I got into the bathtub it was almost 5:00 pm and the contractions were coming fast and hard. I wasn’t getting much of a break. As soon as one contraction ended another was just a moment behind. It was quite intense. I held my mother’s hand, focused on two little birds sitting on the wall outside the bathroom window, set my mind on one affirmation, “I can do this, I will do this” and began to breathe the baby down.

My husband came home just a few moments after I got into the tub and took over the hand holding as he offered amazing support. At this point there was virtually no break between contractions, maybe 30 seconds. At about 5:45 pm I told my husband to call my doula and tell her to come now, I was pretty sure the baby was not going to wait until the morning to arrive.

Within minutes of him hanging up the phone I felt a drastic change in the position of the baby, it felt like the baby dropped down into my pelvis. The contractions were almost continuous and I was feeling intense pressure and the urge to push. My husband said it was probably just my water breaking and helped me to focus on my breathing. I again tried to focus on the two little birds dancing on the ledge outside my window but before I could I felt the most intense surge and said to my husband, “the baby is coming!” He said, “No, it can’t be coming already!” Another intense surge came and I felt the urge to push. My husband realized there was no time to call midwives or doulas and jumped into the tub. At that moment my mother came in to see how we were doing and was amazed to find my husband was about to deliver our baby! I pushed through the contraction and felt the baby’s head come through the birth canal. My body and my baby were now in control and both knew exactly what to do. The contractions stopped as the baby slowly turned. I waited for the next surge and with one last push Benjamin Louis was born into his daddy’s arms at 6:08 pm on October 5, 2010 so unbelievably fast yet so peacefully and with ease. My husband had just delivered our beautiful baby boy! He placed the baby on my chest and it took him a moment to take his first breath and let out a little cry, then lay happily in my arms. His big brother Jack came in to see what all the commotion was about, took a peak and went back to playing, all was right in the world.

Moments later my wonderfully supportive and diligent birth team arrived, amazed at the speed and ease of Benjamin’s birth. Ben was a healthy baby boy, I was healthy, intact, and felt amazing! I felt such a sense of accomplishment and pride for trusting nature to bring my baby into this world.

Filed Under: Birth Stories, Homebirth Stories

Jun 16, 2011

My Labour; Suspended in Potentiality

June 16, 2011 By Indie Birth Community Leave a Comment

I recently gave birth to a baby boy. Before this I could never be certain whether it was my imagination or my intuition picking up on a strange and dour stare I witnessed in the faces of new mothers. It was as though they were haunted by something. Now I am sure that I wear that same expression. As most parents will understand, lack of sleep could be the sole reason. Yet so savage and fierce was the experience of birth; the cruelty, the pain and the sheer impact of finally experiencing what I perceived to be natures way; I began to suspect there was more to it than sleeplessness. Now I am sure I knew nothing about this final admittance into womanhood.

There was an unknown force I had to muster from deep within in order to not only birth but to then take care of a new-born in a post-partum state, with all the soreness, exhaustion and scars thrown into the mix… my world flipped over and fried like a fragile pancake and I had a feeling…in fact I was sure that this ‘scarring’ was more than physical. If our bodies are seen to be connected to the psyche, psychic repercussions of this body shock were at work in me.

At times during labour, the pain was such that it felt like pushing through a dark abyss, being in a timeless tunnel of potential where one is unsure of the out-come. Although I took full responsibility for working to get the baby out, I knew that it was also, in part at least, up to serendipity. Perhaps that’s the explanation for that timeless suspended feeling, as though we were both, momentarily, sent back to Aristotle’s ‘world of Ideas’ while the fates decided what to do with us. It’s like that Pink Floyd epic Echoes, with the sounds of the whales searching through the dark, the popping noises, the lost cries of despair and the final orgasmic solo by David Gilmore giving the impression that they’ve been released or found their way home. That’s it, that’s the birth canal and the birth! Although not quite as visceral and distinctive, this wonderful, enchanting, 16-minute long music masterpiece really seemed to ‘echo’ all the internal and intangible feelings I experienced during the birth of my son.

The penny dropped and I came to understand all those knowing and sympathetic looks I received from other women during my pregnancy! That cruel card dealt to us… womanhood, had never been so clear. Yet this initiation, a taste of the savagery that men may experience on the battlefield or staring into the eye of an opponent, is, if all goes to natures plan, followed by elation. What can be a very dark or death-like ordeal is followed by a sort of re-birth in the women. Whether it’s hormones, the sheer feeling of achievement or creation itself working through us what follows is a feeling of a second lease of life and when the dust settles… a taste of what it means to be human.

I recently read a wonderful book by Andrew Harvey entitled ‘Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism’ in which he often refers to ‘The Dark Night’; an acknowledgement of the negation in the alchemical nature of life. In a chapter called The Death and the Birth he relays the words of an alluring old-man whom his friend met on her travels, recalling the impact of this memory on his life…

“My wife sent me out to buy some bread at about 5:00 one evening; I took the long way around the bakers shop stopping off here at the tomb. I came out and when I walked out of the front door I saw a young women lying on the pavement and screaming horrible screams that tore the air and made my blood curdle. I immediately imagined the worst. She must have been raped or stabbed. I ran to her, held her up and started to look for some telltale wound or bruise. She was too far gone to understand anything I was saying to her and her screams got worse and I got more desperate. Suddenly I noticed her spread her legs and then all of a sudden it struck me: she is screaming because she is giving birth! She wasn’t dying at all she was having a baby…!”

He continues, connecting the poignancy of the woman finding her way to the tomb of the philosopher and poet Rumi:

“I ran and found an old woman who new how to deliver children and the child, a healthy boy, was saved. The women had been shopping when her labour pangs had started and had made her way in a hallucination of pain to the entrance of Rumi’s tomb thinking that there she would be safe and find help.”

“The screams of the self being torn apart in annihilation, the screams that you here in Rumi’s poetry- all these are not the howls of death but of birth.”

The last line is a reference to the death of the false-self so that a person can be re-born. But the man speaking and Andrew Harvey himself understand that this analogy is closely paralleled in the physical act of birth! The words of Peter Russles “Crisis is the womb of creativity” in ‘Waking Up In Time’ are also resonant in that in birth a precipice/ a tipping point of absolute pain where one is certain they can no longer cope is experienced just before the baby appears to take its first breath. The woman is physically and psychically experiencing a crisis before creation. This is at the very least, a rite of passage.

It is possible then, that this sentiment of graduation for the new mother, is all but absent in the modern west. Certainly it goes uncelebrated in the society I know and am familiar with. That is not only unacknowledged by the medical world but by family, community and even the woman herself in many cases. To pass through that Darwinian tipping point, a woman must do something that barely seems possible in order to not only perpetuate her race but to avoid the ultimate horror, the unspeakable…the death of her foetus or herself! This is now the woman’s ordeal to swallow and imbibe. Perhaps the least we should expect then is some sort of ceremony or initiation amongst family members or community, an acknowledgement of this feat. By no means do I wish to undermine the love and support that women receive already. However, considering the enormity of what a woman has to face, initiation may not be too much to ask.

Even if these sentiments seem a little melodramatic to you or other mothers impressions in no way relate to mine; I believe that we all experience in birth, this mortal fear of death on some level. There are, however both healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with our fears. All too often fears are manifested or unnecessarily drawn out. Sometimes in birth we witness acute hysteria in the woman.

My own fears were almost eclipsed by a simple acknowledgement of the ferocity and unpredictability of nature and a need within me to face this black hole. This acknowledgement alone gave me strength because I wasn’t likely to take a moment of it for granted. The forethought that during my birth I had every intention of summoning courage and facing that abyss was good psychic medicine in itself.

Is it possible that if a woman doesn’t experience such insights, something can be amiss? A woman that does not or cannot intellectualise her experience could be left in some sort of shock or trauma, whether it is mild or severe. This, I suspect, is ever more the case in this disconnected modern world of ours. For now even in some cases power and responsibility is handed over to doctors to ‘birth’ for us, or at least have complete autonomy over each of the birthing stages. Furthermore this could be seen to leave the women not only disconnected but disempowered. Having no ownership of her experience could add to these possible feelings of post-partum loneliness and disembodiment. I still sometimes feel this way despite having what, in these dizzying times, is perceived as the ‘luxury’ of time to indulge myself. This being that I had done the minimal amount of research into different types of birthing. I found lots of positive propaganda for home-birthing and realized that every part of me agreed with the philosophy of making it a personal and not institutional or medical experience. The statistics of home-births to hospital, a whopping 2%, suggests to me that many women never even get as far as considering their options beyond hospitals, epidurals, forceps and stirrups.

Perhaps there is a connection to all of this. Could it be that the impact of a traumatic birthing experience is grossly under-estimated and underrated? Is there a direct link and impact on the psyche in post-partum mothers leading to depression and even in extreme cases Munchausen’s or infanticide?

Postpartum psychosis has also been signaled as a causative factor of infanticide. Stuart S. Asch, MD, a Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University. Cornell University established the connections between some cases of infanticide and post-partum depression. The books, From Cradle to Grave, and The Death of Innocents, describe selected cases of maternal infanticide and the investigative research of Professor Asch working in concert with the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. Stanley Hopwood wrote that childbirth and lactation entail severe stress on the female sex, and that under certain circumstances attempts at infanticide and suicide are common.’ (Wikipedia 17/04/11)

It is true that every birthing experience is unique; even so I believe this is the connection, the reason for some of the haunted expressions I have witnessed and (not discarding the loss of hormone etc) a factor in negative psychic states of new and first-time mothers.

It is the part of the women who entered that abyss and, whether it be through lack of support or acknowledgement from partners, family and community, through not making sense of her place in the scheme of things or believing in her abject strength in having birthed… never came back!

In light of all of this, I would like to send all the mothers out there my utmost love and respect. I realise that every birthing experience is unique and personal to the woman and not everyone’s journey is quite so dramatic. Many women (those with more flexible pelvis perhaps?) find the pain quite manageable. But there are still a kaleidoscope of feelings, thoughts and fears accompanying giving birth and being a new mother. Those who do relate to this and perhaps many other women are still lost in the wilderness, in which case its time to start gathering them back in.

Filed Under: Birth Stories

Jun 14, 2011

The Signs of Pregnancy

June 14, 2011 By Indie Birth Community Leave a Comment

What are the signs of pregnancy? Whether you’re actively and anxiously trying to get pregnant, or just wondering about a mysterious missed period, getting some perspective on the signs of pregnancy is important. I say that perspective is important because not all signs of pregnancy are created equal. Many are ambiguous at best. For example, if I turned out to be pregnant every time I had breast tenderness or was fatigued, I would have more kids than the Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe.

Additionally, every woman’s experience of each separate pregnancy is unique. But despite these shortcomings, the signs are good to know! The sooner you think/know you’re pregnant, the sooner you can begin caring for yourself and the baby. So with those disclaimers in mind, here are some of the most common signs of pregnancy.

Subtle Clues That You Might Be Pregnant

Fatigue
Growing a baby is hard work and requires your body to undergo big changes. Some women feel really tired, especially in the first few months as your body adjusts.

Breast Changes
Your breasts start preparing for milk production early in pregnancy. This may mean your breasts are especially tender, your nipples are a darker color, you may notice more prominent veins, or they may get larger or heavier. Of course, many women also experience breast tenderness and heaviness prior to having their periods.

Nausea and Vomiting
The increased hormones involved in pregnancy can make women feel nauseous or even throw up. There is usually a pattern, most often occurring in the morning or other times of the day when your blood sugar is low.

Urinating More Frequently
Peeing more often can be because your uterus is changing size, putting more pressure on your bladder and therefore increasing the urge to urinate. This usually goes away during the second trimester, but comes back as you get closer to birth.

Belly Growth
Your uterus grows bigger than your baby at first, so by 12 weeks it is usually reaching the top of your public bone. You may notice gentle swelling in your belly from these changes.

Bigger Clues That You Might Be Pregnant

A Missed Period or Irregular Period
Most all women stop having monthly bleeding once they become pregnant, but it isn’t uncommon for there to be some bleeding caused by implantation at around the time your period would usually come. Implantation bleeding would be more like spotting than a real period.

Elevated Basal Body Temperature
If you have been charting your fertility, one way to know that you might be pregnant is if your basal body temperature has remained high past your normal luteal phase length, or gone up to an even higher temperature level. This is especially neat because you can still notice this relatively early in pregnancy, and it is free!

A Positive Pregnancy Test
A positive pregnancy test is, of course, one of the obvious signs of pregnancy! Depending on the type of test, you may be able to get a positive reading around the time you miss your period, or in other words, at about 4 weeks.

Quickening/Feeling Baby’s Movement
This is when you, the pregnant one, start feeling the baby move inside your belly. First time mom usually notice a little later, but you might notice this as early as week 16.

“Feeling” Pregnant
Many women report that they simply feel pregnant. This may be physical or intuitive, but it is probably a pretty good sign that something is up!

Signs That You’re Definitely Pregnant

Other People Feeling Baby’s Movement
For many first time moms, it may only be in retrospect that they realize when they started feeling baby move inside. If women are connected to their bodies, there is no reason to doubt that they are feeling baby when they think they are feeling baby. It is, however, even more concrete when someone else can feel baby moving from outside. This is likely to happen around 20 weeks.

Hearing the Baby’s Heart Beat
Your baby’s heart beat can be heard with a piece of technology called a Doppler after about 10 weeks, and can be heard with a fetoscope (a special stethoscope to hear fetuses) after about 16 weeks, or once you have been feeling kicks. Congratulations!

Filed Under: Pregnancy

May 2, 2011

The Natural Childbirth of Liam

May 2, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 1 Comment

Shortly after I woke up on Tuesday, November 24, four days past my “due date,” (HA!) I lost my mucous plug. I hadn’t had any other signs of impending labor and had pretty much resigned myself to being pregnant well past Thanksgiving. When I told Evan about this new development, his eyes lit up and he said, “I think today’s the day!” I told him not to get too excited because I wasn’t having any contractions.

I dropped Evan off at work and once I got home, I started having irregular contractions. I didn’t think too much about them because there was no pattern and they weren’t too painful. I went about my normal day, except that I spent a lot of time moving back and forth between sitting on my yoga ball and tailor sitting on the floor. The contractions go a bit more serious, but I was convinced this was not the real thing yet, so I tried to keep myself distracted. I finished knitting a blanket for my sister’s baby and picked up around the house, breathing deeply through each contraction. I called my mom to see if there was anything she needed me to pick up at the grocery store for Thanksgiving dinner and I let her know that I might be in early labor, so I asked her to not tell anyone and to say a prayer for a safe and easy labor.

I went to the grocery store, and I had to stop periodically and lean against the cart to breathe through a contraction, but I was still not convinced that I was in labor. I picked up what my mom needed and got some frozen pizzas for our dog sitter “just in case” she needed to come that night.

I had a midwife appointment that afternoon, so headed there a little hopeful, but still skeptical that I was actually in labor. I told Judith (the midwife I met with) that I had lost my mucous plug and I had been having contractions all day, but they still weren’t too strong or regular. She said that it might be early labor, but it might stop still, which was common among first pregnancies. She offered to check my dilation, but I declined because I was afraid it would either crush me if I wasn’t dilated, or possibly make me overly excited if I was. I asked who the midwives on call were for that night and the next, in case I ended up going to the hospital.

On the drive home, I was hit with a contraction that made me get serious – I had to grip the steering wheel and breathe very slowly and deeply. A few minutes later, I was hit with another one. When I got home I checked the clock, and it was exactly 10 minutes from when I had left the midwives’ office. I called Evan and told him he’d need to find a ride home because I wouldn’t be able to make the drive to pick him up with the contractions as strong as they were. Evan got very excited and said he’d finish up and get a ride. I paced and bounced on the yoga ball as I waited for him to come home.

Evan blew through the door, super excited and ready to go. I was still willing to believe that it wasn’t the real thing (talk about denial), so I suggested we order dinner and then see how I feel. We had a big pasta dinner, and I drank a small glass of wine, but the contractions kept coming. I went upstairs to take a bath to see if that would slow things down. As I was about to climb in the tub, I noticed a trickle of pink tinged fluid. I called the midwife on call, Melissa, and she said that it sounded like a rupture in my membranes, and that I should take my bath and call her if my contractions got to be one minute long and three minutes apart. As soon as I climbed in the tub, my contractions became much stronger. I kept an eye on the clock and noted that they were roughly three minutes apart.

I got out and got dressed, and brought my hospital bag downstairs. I let Evan know how the contractions were going and he got even MORE excited! We started Contraction Master on the laptop, and while he gathered up what we needed, I paced around the living room, stopping and kneeling against the back of the couch when a contraction came. Evan called Melissa back and she told us to come in to the hospital. We called our dog sitter and our parents to let them know we were on our way to the hospital.

The car ride was rough, but not as bad as I thought it might be. Thankfully, I had Contraction Master to distract me. As a contraction would start, I’d hit the “S” key and say to Evan, “Here comes another one,” and breathe or moan through it. We arrived at the hospital, and the nurses at the emergency room sent us up to OB triage right away. When we arrived at triage, Melissa greeted us and a nurse hooked my up to the EFM to get an initial reading on my contractions and Liam’s heartbeat. Melissa told us that she had to go deliver another baby, but that once the 10 minutes for the strip were up, the nurse would be able to let me walk the halls until Melissa could examine me. Those 10 minutes were really hard – we propped up the back of the gurney I was sitting on so I could lean over it during contractions. At this point, I had to moan to get through them. I was drinking a lot of water and beginning to feel nauseous.

Finally, I was released from the EFM and Evan and I walked the halls of the birth center, stopping for every contraction so I could kneel and rest against the railings on the wall. We walked for about a half hour before I wanted to rest in triage again. Quickly after that, Melissa came in and examined me – I was 6 cm dilated, and she was admitting me. She also noticed meconium in my waters, so she said that their protocol required continuous EFM at this point. Evan and I talked it over and decided to agree if we were able to get a telemetry unit so I could still use the tub and move freely. No problem – she got one for us right away!

As soon as we got into our room, I stripped my clothes off and put on a hospital gown (I knew I’d be more relaxed if I wasn’t concerned about messing up my own clothes). I was hooked up to the telemetry unit. I labored draped over the back of the bed as the admitting nurse asked me a bunch of questions. I remember thinking, “How long is this going to go on? Can’t she see I’m in labor?” As soon as she was done, our nurse Sara came in and asked if I wanted to use the tub. YES! I ripped off the gown and got in the tub. Such a relief!

I don’t remember much about the order of events after that. I know at some point, Sara and Melissa brought Christmas lights into the bathroom and my room so we could turn off the overhead lights, and someone got out my necklace from my Blessingway. Evan stayed right by my side, holding my hand, pouring water over my belly, and encouraging me every step of the way. Sara was in and out, bringing juice for me and Diet Cokes for Evan. Sara was an amazing nurse, more like a doula actually, and she supported both of us beautifully. I know I was in and out of the tub. I labored on a yoga ball, leaning over the back of the bed, and on the toilet. Melissa was in and out of the room, encouraging us. Somewhere around 2:00 AM, I started to feel pushy. Sara called Melissa in and she checked me – 9 cm! She said I could start doing little “grunt pushes” if that made me more comfortable. It did! Soon after, the pushing contractions got more intense. I started pushing in every position I could think of – on all fours, on the yoga ball, standing and squatting, and on a birthing stool. I was having trouble getting the pushing “right” – that is, doing it in a way that helped Liam descend. I felt like I was in and out of awareness, but I kept hearing encouraging voices around me. Evan reassuring me that I was making progress and that I was doing a great job. Melissa and the nurses commenting to each other how “beautifully” I was laboring and how well I was listening to my body.

As I progressed, my vocalizations became louder and more primal. I started making noises that I didn’t know I was capable of. I was exhausted from pushing, and from being awake for nearly 24 hours. Finally, Melissa suggested that I try pushing in the side-lying position to see if that would help me conserve my energy. I agreed to try it (I would have tried anything at that point).

Melissa had me hold my left leg up, while I had a death grip on Evan in with my right hand. Melissa checked me and told me that the baby had started to descend, and with a few good pushed he would be born. But, I was still having trouble making my pushes “good.” I felt stuck and exhausted. I started saying over and over, “I’m so tired.” Evan kept encouraging me and everyone was telling me I was almost there. We started talking to the baby – Evan saying, “Come on Liam, help your mom out, she’s working so hard.” I started chanting, “Come on, baby!” I felt him move down ever so slightly and slowly. I felt my body begin to stretch and Melissa told me to rest for a moment and reach down to touch my baby. I felt the top of his head and his hair, which I was told by the adoring nurses, was curly. Melissa supported my perineum and told me to push on the next contraction. I pushed and pushed with each contraction, and his head slowly emerged – first a forehead, then eyes, then a nose, and then his whole head. It hurt so much and I had to focus every fiber of my being on pushing beyond the pain and with all my strength. At this point, Evan was super excited, telling me he could see the head. Melissa told me to open my eyes and look at my baby. I remember shouting, “I CAN’T! I’M PUSHING!!” So we kept pushing, and with one incredible push and a sound that seemed to at the same time come from deep inside me and from somewhere beyond myself, it was over. I opened my eyes when I heard a squawk and there he was – Liam, all pink and covered in vernix and meconium. Melissa suctioned his nose and throat and placed him on my chest. At some point, the NICU team had assembled in my room – another standard procedure when meconium is present. As soon as Liam was checked out by Melissa, they cleared out immediately.

I was totally in awe of him. I remember repeating over and over, “I can’t believe we did it. I can’t believe you’re here.” Liam nestled right up in between my breasts and gazed up at Evan and I, and he stayed there for his first hour. He never left our room the whole time we were in the hospital. His Apgars were 8/9. Evan gave him his first bath in the room and spent lots of time with Liam skin-to-skin on his chest.

I am so grateful that I was able to give birth without augmentation or pain medication. Evan was the perfect coach and we had a great team at the hospital. Giving birth to Liam was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, and I am so grateful to have him.

Editor Note: You can visit the author’s website at http://thelittlestranger.wordpress.com/

Filed Under: Birth Stories, Natural Childbirth

Apr 29, 2011

The Unassisted Breech Homebirth of Edward

April 29, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 3 Comments

Edward’s birth story begins about 3 days before his birth, when I started having light contractions that stayed at a pretty steady 10-15 min apart and 1.5 minutes long. The evening of the 22nd, the day before he was born, the contractions went to 7 minutes apart , 50 seconds long, and stayed consistent no matter what I was doing. They were not painful, but I did get tired easily as my body was working! I had been at about 5 cm dilated and 75 percent effaced for a week. Those few days before he was born I stayed at about 5 cm and 80 percent effaced, stretching to 6-7 cm, with a bulging bag of waters the day before he was born.

I took a good long nap the afternoon of the 23rd, waking up every once in awhile to notice the same light contractions. At about 4:30pm I started some supper in the oven, and noticed that my contractions were definitely closer together and a bit stronger when I was walking around the kitchen. Around 5:30 we sat down for supper together and discussed plans to take the boys on a walk to the playground behind our house after dinner. My contractions were definitely stronger and closer together so we decided to get out my phone and time a few contractions on a contraction app that we had both downloaded for our new phones. They averaged 2 minutes apart and 50 seconds long. By the time we were done with supper I was pacing around the front room a bit through the contractions and decided we should change our plans of going for a walk. I told the boys that if they were on their best behavior they could help daddy set up the birth pool. I had Gregory pick up his toys from the living room downstairs while Adam set up the tarp and began airing up the pool.

Zeke was very cranky and tired, so daddy put him to bed as soon as the sides of the pool were up. When Adam came back downstairs he put on a tv show for Gregory, aired up the floor of the pool, and began to fill it. By this time the contractions were getting pretty uncomfortable, but I could still talk through them. I was back and forth from the bathroom quite a bit as my body prepared for labor and the contractions pushed down on my bladder. We posted on facebook and let a few friends and family know that we were filling up the pool.

Gregory watched two shows, and then it was time for daddy to put him to bed. When he came back downstairs it was about 8pm and we decided to call our doula Rebecca and let her know that I was in labor. Her shift at work didn’t end until 10pm and she still had 1 hours before she could make it to our house from work. I could still talk some during contractions so we told her not to leave work early. The birth pool was about 3 quarters of the way full by that time, and I was needing to vocalize through my contractions a bit more. It felt natural to make low “oooh” and “aaaah” sounds. I was pacing between the living room and the playroom in our basement, trying to keep an eye on the water level while Adam did a few things with Gregory again.

The water sounded like a really good idea by this point. When the pool was finally full, I decided to try out the shower during a couple of contractions first. The shower definitely helped, but after a couple of contractions I really wanted to get in the pool. I asked Adam to check me before I got in the pool. He said that he had to reach around the bag of waters to find my cervix and it was 9 cm dilated and paper thin. I had a hard time believing him (just as I had a hard time believing that I was 5 cm dilated for a week,) but he’d checked me enough times to know what he was talking about.

After some adjusting of the water temperature I got into the pool. The pool was definitely a relief and made the contractions much more manageable. I asked for my water mug and some music. After about a half hour I decided the music was not what I wanted and asked Adam to play my hypnobirthing CD. The hypnobirthing CD was very relaxing, especially the birth affirmations track. When the CD was finished I went back to listening to piano music. I continued to vocalize through the entire length of each contraction with vowel sounds. I would remember Ina May Gaskin saying “An open mouth is an open bottom” and the videos of women I had seen using tones. It really did work to focus the energy of each contraction this way. Adam could tell by the intensity of each tone I made how strong the contractions were getting.

I was steadily getting louder and louder at the peak of each contraction. I tried to focus on a couple of objects in the room, but that really didn’t work for me. I found myself getting annoyed by visual things and so it was just easier for me to block everything out visually and focus on my tones. I was moving from a semi-sitting position with my back against the pool to a squatting position on my knees, my body leaning over the side of the pool. I would go through a couple of contractions in each position and then switch again. I wished that the water would have covered my lower back in the squatting position. That’s why I kept moving back to sitting, because my lower back was hurting some.

I asked Adam to try a little massage, a heated rice bag on my lower back, and a cool cloth on my forehead, but with each thing we tried I realized I just didn’t want to be touched at all during a contraction. It felt uncomfortable or too restricting. The water was enough.

At 8:35 Rebecca called and left a message that she had left work early because her son (breast fed baby) was upset at home and wouldn’t calm down or take a bottle. At 9:40 Adam realized that things were getting intense and so he called her back to let her know that we would like her to head our way as soon as possible. When Adam got off the phone with her he let me know that she was leaving her house. Shortly after that I told Adam that I thought I had to have a bowel movement and might want to go to the toilet. He laughed softly and told me that was probably a sign that the baby was near. I wasn’t so sure. He tried to check me again in the pool, but could only feel that the bag of waters was at about a +2 station.

I wanted the water to be a bit warmer so Adam started to drain a little water out and fill it with some more hot water. I would move the hose so that it was rushing hot water at my lower back while it was filling. That felt really good. When the pool was full again I told Adam “It feels a little better to push during a contraction, but I don’t want to push too early.” He said to me “If you feel like pushing, then push.” Adam could tell my contractions were getting much more intense, because I was getting pretty loud. He sat with me during a couple of very intense contractions. He said something like “You are doing really really good honey, You can do this.” And for a moment I thought “Can I?” That thought scared me and so I tried to focus on getting through each contraction and not think about whether or not I could handle any more.

The contractions were pretty much on top of each other at this point and just then my water broke. The next contraction I went back and forth about whether my body was telling me to push or not, and realized I was definitely pushing anyway. I was pushing a little with each contraction, maybe 4 contractions back to back and I felt him with my hand very close to “crowning”. I thought his head felt squishy. I told Adam “Call Rebecca!” He called her and told her I was pushing. She was just south of Grand Island at that time, about 30 minutes away.

Another contraction and I felt him crowning (butting?) and thought “Is that his nose? It’s pretty far up on his forehead.” Another contraction and I realized it was his butt and his testicles. Adam was still on the phone with Rebecca and I yelled at him “He’s Breech!” He got off the phone with her and in another contraction I pushed his butt and legs out. I had a small break in my contractions after that. Adam reached his hands down to touch him and I yelled “Don’t touch him!” I was remembering “Hands off the breach” from all of the breech birth information I had read.

During that small break I also felt him kick in the water and yelled “He’s kicking!” Adam thought I said “He kicked me.” The next strong contraction I pushed his left arm and shoulder out. A couple more pushes and I pushed his head and other arm out, at 10:32pm. Nobody caught him, so he was in the water and I flipped around to sit down real quick. I said “Where is he?” because the pool was pretty bloody when his head was born, and was reaching around in the water for him. I pulled his butt up first and realized my mistake as I reached down to bring him up head first.

He was a good color but looked like he was sleeping. Adam was back on the phone with Rebecca. She asked if he was breathing so Adam checked his pulse on his neck and it was really strong. I was crying a little and saying “Oh my God, He’s so beautiful!” Right about then he started clearing his lungs and trying to cry. I knew that a few gurgles in his first attempts were normal. Rebecca said congratulations and got off of the phone with Adam. I was trying to hold the baby but was pretty uncomfortable as I was still having mild contractions to birth the placenta. The cord was still pulsing, and I started to push the placenta out. I really wanted to get out of the pool with the baby. Birthing the placenta felt like another little butt. It was out in about 5-10 minutes after he was born. Adam clamped the cord and got the kitchen scissors to cut the cord. We put the placenta in a plastic bed pan and Adam took the baby while I went to the bathroom to clean up a little.

By the time Rebecca arrived I was sitting on the couch with my brand new baby. Her help was invaluable during the “4th Stage” of birth, which is recovery. She made sure I was feeling okay and was comfortable, helped Adam clean up, take pictures, made me a comfrey bath, helped weigh and measure the baby, helped get diapers and clothes, and just made that time so much easier for us. She saw that I was comfy and tucked into bed before she left at about 2am.

Editor Note: You can view the author’s website at Natural Family Today.

Filed Under: Birth Stories, Homebirth Stories

Apr 28, 2011

Tranden Excalibur’s Unassisted Homebirth

April 28, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 2 Comments

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Hello all! In honor of the new year I decided to get to it and type up the birth of Tranden Excalibur. When praying about how to go about posting this I was perplexed as to how to start off. I do not want to offend nor do I feel like I should apologize. I know unassisted birth is a touchy subject and birth itself is very personal. I thought about posting the reasons we chose this route but feel that might detract from the story itself… and after all this is Tranden’s story, not mine. So I will just start off by saying birth is very near to my heart and something I take seriously. This took months of planning… years really, it wasn’t something we stepped into lightly. If you are someone who has made different birthing/pregnancy choices I think that is completely wonderful. I think mammas who make informed decisions… whatever they be are great! And just as I respect your choices I hope that you will show us that same encouragement

Ok, hear goes it! As a disclaimer… this is a birth story… with lots little details… involving birth. It’s a neat little messy process. Don’t say you weren’t warned I promise I won’t be offended if you choose to quit reading now! lol

Alrighty then… now here we go, for real…

On the morning before Tranden’s actually birthday I woke up pregnant, yet again! (shocker, I know) Being just as convinced as I was the day before that I was clearly in labor I rolled over and begged my husband to stay home from work. We both laid there talking about our hesitancy in keeping him home another day. After much listing of pros and cons it was clear he would yet again being staying home.

Labor was on! problem was… the contractions weren’t so much. I can honestly say I just knew… I knew. I needed Austin there for mental support as well as to rangle the kids so I could concentrate on letting my body relax and do what it needed to do. Having been 5 centimeters dilated for about 3 weeks now people tend to doubt that the real deal will ever actually conspire. I on the other hand was hopeful. I know my body works! I know it is an intricate process! I know it takes time!

Did I get impatient at times? yes. Did I ever consider throwing in the towel and going to the hospital and letting them break my water or a number of things that would have been done when they realized how far dilated I was and that I had been laboring on and off for quite some times? Yes! It was one of those times where you just want to meet your baby soooooo bad (in our case, just want to know if babe is a girl or a boy…although I was CERTAIN he was a girl… yes, I said he! lol) I decided we would do the next best thing… enjoy our final day as a family of 5! I was a little concerned Austin would get in trouble staying home… that his boss would think he was playing hooky… I mean, its pretty hard to tell your boss “yes my wife was 5 cm dilated and yes we were at the park and yes she is in labor but no she isn’t in pain” for some reason, because of our fast food/birth mentality I don’t think he would have bought it… and even if he had that would be just one more person telling us to go in and “let them help us start things moving”.

Nah, we prefer to fly under the radar. I had already skipped my last doctors appointment knowing I was dilated.. a lot… and knowing there is no way they would be happy with me going home to let labor take its course. So we woke up, got dressed and had breakfast. I made my “death tea”… Austin’s nice name for my red raspberry leaf tea. I asked if he wanted a sip, he said he wouldn’t drink it EVER! We then proceeded to go to the park, to the library (where I read Frankie a book 6 million times with something in the title about mommy having a baby… this is a book she had become very attached to every single library visit for the past 6 weeks or so) The boys played video games, Austin and I talked, mostly about the coming child…w hat would happen if I really weren’t in labor and he had to go to work on monday with no baby news… you know… the usual topics lately. He kept track of the rambunctious group while I took a quick trip to see my favorite Chiropractor. She adjusted me, we laughed about how I was sure a week before that I wouldn’t be in again. We joked about this getting me all lined up for baby to shoot right out! Then I set up my next appointment and said as always, I hope I don’t see you next week

I stopped by Grand Central and picked up supplies for Labor Day Cookies. (I have now found out these are the basic same ingredients that women have used for quite sometime in the “groaning cake” generally baked during early labor. After getting all of my ingredients I didn’t have at home I swung by the library and picked up the rest of the clan and we headed home. I baked cookies. “Death cookies” they were later named… notice a theme here?! lol they did taste and smell awful. I ate as many as I could handle (3) and decided that was it, I was taking a nap and labor would pick up. So Austin took the boys and Frankie outside to play basketball, swing, burn off energy, and most importantly leave mama alone! Mama may have been a little teensy bit grumpy! lol I laid down and proceeded to nap and woke up about 2 hours later DEFINATELY IN LABOR!

These contrax were different… they almost followed a scale… they would start suddenly… intensify slowly.. and then work back to nothing… I KNEW THIS WAS IT! I smiled, almost scared to… thinking surely if I knew I was in labor it would somehow stop the whole thing. This is 3 days after my EDD by the way. I went to the bathroom, made some more death tea (no, not in the bathroom, now I’m in the kitchen, sorry) and happily walked outside… I’m pretty sure there was a skip in my step now. Oh yeah, I also realized I was 6 cm now. (that was back up in the bathroom btw… yes yes, I warned you about TMI) hmmm so I walk out the door and wave to my husband who is too caught up in impressing the 8 year olds with his half court shot. I say, “Austin! Austin!”… and I smile and give him a thumbs up! We chat and decide it’s time for a walk. The boys wail, knowing they have to walk, no bikes this time. Frankie gets excited and we head out.

Upon walking our usual route Frankie gets super excited and runs and trips over her own feet and falls and bonks her head! A real nice goose egg! On the bright side she happily fell asleep in my arms and snoozed the rest of the way home. We returned home and daddy filled the birth pool with the help of two little excited boys. Shey settled in to watching scooby doo on the tv in our room, sprawling across the bed. I spent time in Frankie’s room (you know, the one she doesn’t sleep in but happens to have pink curtains?!)

Leaning on the birth ball just enjoying myself. We posed for some pics curtesy our little photographer Kalel. Eventually the kids fell asleep and contrax got stronger. I decided I would get in the water and relax. I spent some time in there and Frankie woke up and joined me. She had fun splashing, “swimming”, and rubbing my back. Eventually she got tired and made her way to the family bed and fell asleep too. That is when it really picked up.

Austin helped with hip pressure as Tranden was moving down as well as counter pressure on my back. Eventually I said, okay that’s enough, you can leave me alone now, nothing is really helping now. And that he did! He watched a little news radio and I labored on. I only freaked out on him once… he entered the room and I yelled “ew gross you brushed your teeth didn’t you?!” My pregnant senses were on overload and that did not please me. I proceeded to apologize immediately following the contraction. lol ok no make that twice, he also fixed the lamp on the nightstand beside the pool and I yelled at him for that too. Which I also apologized for one second later.

Eventually we came to pushing… I began doing grunty pushing at the end of every other contraction… it felt great… like I was actually doing something… took the edge of a little. At first I worried in my mind about “what if I am pushing too soon?” But that quickly was wiped away by “well I couldn’t stop pushing even if I wanted to.”

I pushed off and on for almost three hours. It was great, powerful, scary… everything. I wish I had said out loud some of the thoughts going through my head at the time. On video they would have been very funny. My husband took care of the obvious while I labored on. He basically left me alone (not physically, he was in the room) and that was the best thing he could have done at the time, it’s what I needed. I had little conversations in my head about “how can I get to the hospital and get them to give me an emergency c-section” but then I freaked out thinking “they wont give me one… there is no medical reason… I have to make them think there is a reason… well, that won’t work… they will be so mad at me for trying to do this at home that they will take their time helping me and really make me wait it out.” lol

Then I was thinking “man now I see why women get the epidural” lol and then freaking out “what if I’m not even dilated and I’m pushing and in pain for nothing???” I quickly reminded myself… “duh you already checked and are fully dilated… you can feel the head right there… you’re just going to have to do it” lol yes I midwifed myself.

Haha it was as if in that moment a lightbulb went off and there he was. I remember Austin being in the bathroom and saying… baby! baby! To which he ran in and said he’s right there! So out came his head and it was as if time was suspended with me thinking… wow that is a really cool whitish bag… the contraction was over and I waited for another and then his shoulders were out and about the time his stomach emerged the waterbag burst.

It was cool. He was the cleanest baby I had ever seen! He came out crying and pink and flailing his arms. I brought him up and Austin said, what is it? What is it? To which I replied, I don’t care! Then I looked and sure enough he was a boy!!!

Talk about shock! Yayay! So we waited and eventually I clamped and cut the cord… then I got out and loved my baby! Within 3 minutes I was back leaning over the pool to deliver the placenta and the rest is history… not much left as far as story goes.

We loved our baby, I fed him, we weighed him and he took a bath with me. We called a friend and had her stop by because we were just so excited! She got me juice and helped us settle back into bed for the night. She also took the coolest picture of us and you can see the three kids snoozin in the back ground. It was the greatest most undramatic birth ever….. Tranden Excalibur was Born!

As a side note, Joaquin was the only one of the siblings to meet him before morning. He woke up an hour or so after the fact and walked in where we were holding Tranden before we returned to bed. He came in and looked at us. We excitedly announced, “Joaquin look! It’s your new baby brother! mommy had the baby!” he stared said nothing and turned and walked away. (I kind of assumed he was sleep walking and wouldn’t remember a thing.)

That was until the next morning I heard him proudly proclaiming to everyone… his brother, sister… and later to kids on the playground “I was the first one to see my baby brother after he was born! It was so cool!” Of course he had a huge smile plastered across his face that he couldn’t have wiped off if he wanted to! The kids have been smitten ever since, as have Austin and I!

Filed Under: Birth Stories, Homebirth Stories

Apr 26, 2011

Gage’s Birth

April 26, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 3 Comments

Jun 8, 2006
Gage’s Birth

I thought I would go ahead and tell Gage’s birth story. He’s 7 weeks old today. He’s already grown so much. He weighs almost 14 lbs!

I woke up at 2:00 am on April 19th to contractions. I was so excited to think that I was going to have this baby, after all, I was 7 days over the estimated due date and I was huge!

I went back to bed and waited for Michelle’s alarm to go off at 3:00 am. I knew how important it was going to be for me to sleep and rest as much as possible. When Michelle got up, I couldn’t even hold my excitement back, “I’m having contractions!”

Michelle was so excited, too, “Yeah! I’m calling in to work.”

Then we tried to get some sleep. We woke up about 6:30 am to send Drake and Gavin off to school. They were also excited to hear that the baby was soon to arrive and told their teachers at school. I just laid on the couch and napped in and out most of the day. I had sporadic contractions throughout the day. Michelle and I walked up to the bus stop about 3:20 pm to get Drake and Gavin. I was trying to walk to speed things up. I had been hoping to have the baby by then.

So it’s been more than 12 hours since I woke to contractions. I called our friend Lorraine to let her know I was in labor. She was to be present to help Michelle with guidance and direction during the labor and delivery. Lorraine came over about 5:30 pm to check in with us, see how things were progressing. It was still slow going, so Lorraine went to have dinner and came back a couple hours later. By then I was in the bath tub to relax and take the edge off some of the contractions.

Drake and Gavin helped Lorraine make comfrey burritos for my perineum after the birth. Michelle put the boys to bed about 8:30. I was now in our bedroom laying on the bed just contracting away! I sipped on a fruit and yogurt smoothie which a friend brought over to me. It was delicious! I knew it was still early labor because we were just hanging out in our bedroom talking and laughing.

It was close to 10pm when the contractions picked up some more. I really started to feel the intensity of each contraction. I was going from the toilet to the bed for hours, while Michelle and Lorraine tended to my every need. They were amazing! I got a warm blanket fresh from the dryer every 20 mins. The toilet was the perfect place for laboring. It was so comfortable to sit with my hips supported. When I grew tired of the toilet Michelle would help me over to the bed. I would lay on my side, my back, my hands and knees, then to the floor leaning on the bed with my belly hanging. I was having major hip labor! Michelle continued to support me with whatever I need. She put counter pressure on my hips with each contraction. The contractions were so prominent in my hips! I remember thinking, “I have never heard of hip labor!”

It was so late and I was feeling exhausted. Each contraction was getting stronger. I started to feel anxious. I asked for my herbal tincture, ER w/Gorse to calm my nerves. Lorraine had Valerian Root Tincture, which tastes and smells like rotten potatoes! She mixed it with orange juice, so it tasted like I was drinking orange juice mixed with rotten potato juice! YUCK! But, it helped! I got real sleepy. Michelle ran the bath for me and helped me into the tub. It felt like I was in there for hours just dozing. The Valerian slowed my contractions dramatically. It was a mixed blessing I suppose. I was able to get some well needed rest and start again. The water started getting cold, Michelle really had to coax me out of the bath tub.

Gosh, what time was it? I don’t even know, the hours were mushing together.

It was definitely the wee hours of the next morning, April 20th. Holy cow! It had been close to 24 hours. I thought your subsequent labors were supposed to be shorter…

The three of us were sleeping in between each contraction now. It’s amazing how one minute can feel like 20 when you’re in the middle of something so intense! Poor Michelle and Lorraine. They had been up for way too long and were just exhausted. They didn’t have the benefit of adrenaline to keep them going, they were running on empty and pure dedication! I was sleeping in the middle of our bed, Michelle was sleeping on the end of our bed, and Lorraine was sleeping on the floor.

All of a sudden I get this huge contraction. I literally feel the baby’s head move down, I swear, 3 inches! I yell, “He’s coming! I sit up in a half squat. Michelle and Lorraine fly up from their places. Lorraine is throwing out instructions, and I’m sure I remember them both running around the room in circles, asking each other where this or that is, and flinging things into a pile, and stuffing more chux onto the bed and under me. Ok, it was like a sitcom. I couldn’t laugh at the moment, but knew I would later.

I started panting quick, short, “Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho.” It was so instinctual. The baby was coming so fast, I thought if I didn’t slow my body down, he would for sure fly out and hit the wall with a thud! I was telling Gage, “Slow down, wait Gage. Wait Baby.” “Oh, oh, ok! I flip myself over like a big fish, there was so much pressure on my perineum, I didn’t want to tear. Well, now I’m on my hands and knees. Crap the pressure’s at the top now! Oh, well, he’s coming now! I put my hand between my legs and use some counter pressure to ease the skin around the baby’s head. Michelle is behind me helping with the counter pressure also.

His head comes out, and in an instant his little body comes flying out into my arms, with about 30 gallons of water flooding the bed and drenching Michelle and Lorraine! So much for the chux… I look at the clock, it reads 3:58am. “3:55- it’s 3minutes fast.” I say. I’m so anal!

I tip him upside down to confirm the ultrasounds, yup, he’s a boy!

I snug him up to my chest with one hand while I maneuver myself to the far right corner of our bed, about the only dry spot. Michelle joins us in our little corner. We just gaze in awe of him. I offer him my breast and he mouths at it. I feel some small contractions, the placenta has detached, but I don’t feel like moving. Lorraine insists that I deliver the placenta. It’s freakin’ huge. I think about nibbling on it, but Michelle is sitting right here. I decide not to in front of her. ‘She’d probably ick out,’ I think to myself.

Michelle wakes up Drake and Gavin. They come in to meet their new brother. They both smile, say a few words of delight and flattery towards Gage. Then back to bed with their sleepy heads.

Michelle and Lorraine clean things up. We get settled in bed. We are both glowing with love. Lorraine heads out. It’s 5am. Drake and Gavin will be getting up for school in an hour. Yeah, we’re sending them to school, we’ve got to sleep!

Good Morning baby Gage!

Filed Under: Birth Stories, Homebirth Stories

Apr 22, 2011

How Natural is Natural Birth?

April 22, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 1 Comment

I woke up this morning with a thought on my head and it just won’t go away. How natural is our natural is our birthing process today? Really I mean it. Women say they are having a ‘natural’ birth and then go into a hospital?

Now let me get it said from the start… I do believe that there is a time and place for hospitalization and for the wonderful Doctors and Specialists in the maternity wards. What I don’t get is that EVERY woman does not need these interventions, in fact most don’t so why do we all run there?

In this day and age we have given up on our ability to give birth. The western woman seems to have lost her trust in her own body to birth the wonderful life that she has nurtured and grown for 9 months. It is an almost sad and worrying situation. If you look at some of the native tribes they have traditions of women labouring alone, ok not necessarily ideal either, but at least they are letting their bodies do what is natural.

One need only look at mammals as a whole to see that we have it all wrong. If you look at a cat, or even a wild animal, the first thing the female mammal does is prepare her birth place. She goes off and finds a place that is calm, dark and makes it cosy. Anyone who has ever seen a cat give birth will agree with this, it is not unheard of for cats and other animals to go ‘missing’ and be found hidden at the back of a cupboard with her kittens or under a bed in a dark place. This is done for no other reason then the cat wanting privacy and the ability to ‘relax’. Yep you read me right, it has been found that wild animals in labour do the same and should that animal be threatened then it will actually ‘pause’ the birth and labour and in some cases the cervix will contract closed until the threat has passed. So then why do we more advanced mammals, who can talk and make rational decisions, why do we labour in wards with strangers watching and bright lights? With people coming in and out, with noises and interruptions… we are expected to allow our bodies to open up and bring our new innocent baby into the world.

Ina May Gaskin talks about the ‘Sphincter Law’ , where she explains this law of the cervix closing and just how it works. Well worth a read.

Environment then is the first key to our births being more natural and less medicalized ailments that need to be seen to in a hospital ward! So where ever you birth, get cozy, make it ‘home’ but best of all would be to birth at home in your space. I know that for some you are more scared at home than in a hospital. If this is you then make your hospital room as relaxing as you can with candles, dimmed lights, your own pillows and some music.

Claire is a mother of 2 with a passion for birth and pregnancy, and a desire to empower women to make informed choices and to see birth as natural. Claire qualified as a doula in 2007 and ran her own doula practice for 2 years before moving back home to the UK. She has studied lactation management as well as some perinatal education modules such as HIV/Aids and Pregnancy, Newborn care and Kangaroo Mother Care. Currently studying a Diploma of Higher Education in Adult Education – Antenatal Education as well as teaching her own one-on-one and small group antenatal classes, she has a passion for all things birth.

Claire has a dream to reach every mother-to-be, whether via internet or in person, and to share with them that pregnancy, birth and labour are not unnatural and that it is a perfectly normal time in their lives. Part of her dream is to treat each mother as the unique woman that she is, and to walk with her, beside her, on this wonderful journey that she is on.

You can visit her site at www.betterbirthing.blog.com

Filed Under: Natural Childbirth

Apr 20, 2011

The Homebirth Stories of Guy and His Baby Sister

April 20, 2011 By Indie Birth Community 1 Comment

Our little boy was born on June 4th, 2008 at 11:02am. I first started feeling irregular contractions on Sunday, June 1st around 1:45 pm. These irregular contractions lasted the rest of that afternoon and all of the next day, but would stop and start, and weren’t really getting intense at all; just annoying…

Finally, around 4am on Tuesday, June 3rd, (his due date,) they started coming stronger and more regularly. We thought that this was the day. The midwife arrived at our house at 7am, and checked me. After a day and a half of irregular contractions, and 3 hours of stronger, regular ones, I was only dilated to 1 cm, and I was only 90 % effaced. I was disappointed. After that, I totally lost track of time, so I don’t really know at what point everything happened.

I labored all that day, and all through the night. Glen was the best birthing partner I could possibly have had. He stayed with me the whole time, except when I sent him to the store. He pushed on my back for hours, and helped me to move into whatever positions I felt that I wanted to be in. At some point, he filled the birthing pool with warm water, and convinced me to try getting in it, as I was beginning to get discouraged with the seemingly never ending contractions. I felt so much better in the water that I stayed there for almost of the rest of the time. At some point, I told Glen to call Chris, our midwife, and let her know that it was time to come back over.

It seemed that I had just recently gotten in the pool that she arrived. After a few more contractions in the pool, I had to get out so that she could check my progress. I didn’t want to get out of the pool, but at this point, I had been in hard labor for over 24 hours, and I really needed to know if I was close. She checked me, and I was at a 9, with just an anterior lip in the way! That really gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going.

After several more contractions in the birthing pool, the anterior lip was still in the way. Glen suggested that we try a different position to try to get the baby to descend, and after pushing through a couple contractions that way, Chris broke my water. I got back into the birthing pool, my favorite place to labor. Soon I was in transition. I could tell because I had 3 or 4 contractions that were really ramped up. Luckily I knew that while transition is generally the most painful part of labor, it’s also the shortest, and that it meant I would soon be pushing. I’m not sure how many times I pushed, but at one point, Chris suggested I get out of the pool to try pushing in few different positions. I did that for a little bit, but was soon back in the pool again, on my hands and knees, pushing. It just felt better in there.

It seemed that every time I pushed, he would start to come out, and then he would slide back in. I finally decided that I was going to really push and get him out on the next contraction. I pushed with all my might, and the contraction stopped right as his head was half way out, which burned until the next contraction, when Chris and Glen helped the rest of him come out. A few short seconds later, I heard the little cry of my newborn son! It was such a beautiful sound!

I had to maneuver a bit to turn around, and Glen handed me our baby boy. It is so wonderful to finally have him here! He is just a perfect little boy, with an adorable face, and red hair; like his dad.

Our little girl was born April 3rd, 2011 at 2:57am. Let me start out by saying that my labor with Guy was 31 hours, so even hoping for a faster labor, I was planning on at least 18 hours. I was at work Saturday, which is my regular day to work a double shift. At 8 o’clock, 14 hours into my shift, I started getting contractions. I remembered my contractions with Guy being more painful, though, so I wasn’t sure if these were just Braxton-Hicks contractions that felt a little more intense because I’d been on my feet so long, or if it was actual labor. So, I continued working.

By then time I was giving report to the night nurse at around 10:30pm, I was pretty sure it was real labor, as the contractions had been coming every 10 minutes for the last 2 hours. I drove home, which is luckily 5 minutes away, and told Glen I thought I was in labor, but I wasn’t sure, so I was going to see if the contractions went away when I laid down, and try to get some sleep. I ate a snack, and went to bed.

Over the next hour, the contractions were stronger, and coming more frequently. I texted our midwife to let her know that I was in early labor, but told her not worry about coming over yet, and that we would call as things picked up and we needed her. She texted back, “Okay..but please call.”

I sent Glen to get our birthing tub, which was still in storage from Guy’s birth, and I took a shower. I had a dozen more contractions in the shower, and I remember thinking, “Either I’ve been in the shower for a long time, or else these contractions are getting really close together.” Glen got back around 1:30am and asked me if I thought he should get the birthing pool set-up, or try to get some sleep. I told him to try to get some sleep because things were still early, and he may not have a chance to later.

He laid down by me in bed for a little while, but couldn’t sleep, so he got up and went downstairs and started getting things ready. Around 2:30am, I called him back upstairs to help me to the bathroom, because I was feeling a little unsteady. Once on the toilet, I told him, “I think you need to call Chris,” (our midwife,) and he said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Well, let me think.” Things were feeling more intense, but I was still worried it was “just” early labor.

At that point, however, my water broke, and I started feeling like I needed to push. “Yeah, you need to call Chris. My water just broke,” I told Glen. He called her, and told her what was going on. “Sh*#. Glen, you’re going to be delivering a baby. I’m on my way.” She later apologized for the expletive. Glen finished getting the tub inflated, and started putting water in it. Then he came upstairs to help me get downstairs. I tried to get into the birthing pool, but the water was too hot, so I stepped back out.

Immediately after that I felt the absolutely overwhelming urge to push. In fact, overwhelming doesn’t even really describe how intense the sensation was to push. Glen was frantically trying to cool down the water by putting ice in it. I squatted down on my robe and told Glen, “The baby’s coming!” He then switched from getting ice to putting chux pads from the birthing kit all under and around me. I’m not sure when in all this he called Chris back, or if she’d been on the phone the whole time, but I know she was on the phone with him over the next three pushes, which is all it took for our baby to be born, right into Daddy’s waiting arms.

She was born at 2:57am. After this, I climbed into the birthing tub, and just held our little girl and waited for Chris to arrive. Chris arrived and helped with the delivery of the placenta, and did her newborn assessments, and made sure we were doing alright. We were all doing wonderfully, so she went home, we went to bed. Guy woke up and was delighted to see his new baby sister in our bed. He exclaimed, “My baby come out!” and spent the next few hours wanting to hold her, and talking about her little ears, and elbows, and fingers, which he counted. It was a perfect experience, and we are all doing very well.

Filed Under: Homebirth Stories

Apr 17, 2011

An American Werewolf in Labor

April 17, 2011 By Indie Birth Community Leave a Comment

(This is my story. It’s taken from my blog, mybumpandgrind.blogspot.com, which chronicled my pregnancy in the Netherlands, where home birth is the norm.)

There are few absolutes when it comes to labor. There’s no way to know just when it will start, how long it will last, or how it will feel. But one thing that I think applies universally is a quote from midwife Suzanne Stalls: labor is hard work, it hurts a lot, and you can do it.

Even with labor being so unpredictable and with no two labors being exactly alike, while pregnant I loved hearing other people’s birth stories. For me, labor has always been clouded in fear and mystery, and even though learning how it went for someone else told me nothing about how my labor would go, it was still reassuring to know it could be endured.

Of course it’s always nicer to hear the stories of relatively easy labors, but even the tougher experiences are promising, because they echo the most important part of what Suzanne Stalls says: labor is doable.

For me, labor was intermittent and gradual, and therefore quite manageable. Twenty-four hours passed between the contraction that was convincing enough to take seriously and the final push that brought it all to a close. That may sound long, but although labor was exhausting and all consuming in the last hours, for the most part it was what happened in the background, an interruption that came and went throughout an otherwise busy day.

On the day I went into labor, the Irish fella and I were frantically calling around looking to replace house cleaners who had failed to show. Weeks of construction in our new home had been completed the day before, and movers were scheduled for the next day. Months of living out of suitcases were coming to an end, but before we could move into our new house, we had to rid it of the dust, muddy boot prints, and general filmy filth that you’d expect at a construction site.

I had been having strong cramps throughout the morning and, at a scheduled midwife appointment, had been told that if I wanted to have my baby in the new house, I really ought to move that day. I met up with the Irish fella for lunch and I mentioned this as casually as I could, reminding him that it is common for women, particularly with their first pregnancy, to think they are in labor when they are not. This is false labor, I assured him, both because I believed it and because actually going into labor that day didn’t really suit our plans.

After a morning-long search, the Irish fella had found two cleaners to work on our house that evening. We made a list of supplies we needed and planned to spend the afternoon doing a preliminary scrub before the professionals arrived. Before setting off to buy mops and brooms and bleaches and detergents, the Irish fella suggested we time my cramps, which were twenty minutes apart.

We walked around a hardware store and a supermarket. We went to the house we’d been staying in and packed up some things we’d need for our first night in our new home. By the time we got to the new house, I was having cramps every ten minutes.

In my antenatal class, it was drilled into us that the best thing you can do in labor is stay upright, forward, and mobile. The Irish fella, for whom standing still is anathema, was all for my being active in labor. He handed me the vacuum.

We cleaned for a while, and my cramps, which we were now calling contractions, had intensified and were occurring every five minutes. The idea of being upward, forward, and mobile is to help things progress, but what I wanted then was to slow it down. I decided to rest.

The house was mostly empty, but we had one room that was furnished and decorated, with paintings hanging and new sheets on the bed, with books on the shelves and towels neatly folded on the side table. The Irish fella had put this room together before the construction work began, as a sort of shrine to normalcy. I was grateful for a bed to climb into.

The cleaners arrived and scrubbed the house around me. The Irish fella came to check on me from time to time, and we wondered whether we should cancel the movers we’d booked for the morning. The contractions intensified, and by 8 pm we called the midwife. At this stage, we really just wanted someone to tell us if I was actually in labor. We were still living in the reality in which moving house was the priority, and wanted to know if we should transition fully into the reality of my being in labor.

The midwife kept me on the phone long enough to hear me through a contraction. She said I sounded fine (“You are not screaming”) and to call her back in the night. We called the instructor from our antenatal class, asking her if she thought it’d be better for me to get up and move around or stay in bed. She said I could have hours or days to go. She told me to have a glass of wine and go to bed.

Labor is often compared to marathon running. Having now experienced both, I agree that there are similarities: both require endurance, mental and physical strength, controlled breathing, and regular hydration and energy repletion. Both also require proper pacing, which is where the analogy falls apart.

When you are running a marathon, you know exactly where you are in the race–you know how far you’ve gone and how far you have to go. In labor, you don’t, and having contractions for ten hours only to learn you are 1.5 centimeters dilated is akin to thinking you are nearly at the finish line when you are still doing warm-up laps. And not knowing how much more intense contractions are going to get can frighten women who are managing quite fine into receiving pain medication that they may, if they choose, do perfectly well without.

The Irish fella and I settled into bed. The contractions continued to come every five minutes, lasting for one minute, and getting stronger as the night went on. I got through each by exhaling deeply for a count of ten, inhaling deeply for a count of ten, and then repeating three times until the minute had passed. I reminded myself that each contraction was getting me closer to meeting my baby. On occasion I heard myself asking God or my mom for help.

The Irish fella and I had a hot water bottle between us, and throughout the night we’d press together to push it as hard as we could against my lower back during contractions. I didn’t sleep, but I managed to doze during those five-minute spells when there was no discomfort at all. I considered calling the midwife again around 3 am, but when I envisioned her arriving and the lights going on and the atmosphere changing, I decided to wait.

At 8 am we sat in bed and discussed what to do. Should we call the midwife? Should we cancel the movers? If I was only in the very early stages, we reasoned, I could have a good twelve hours to go, in which case we may as well have our furniture moved. We called the midwife, hoping she’d come examine me, and expecting she’d say I was maybe at two centimeters, in which case we’d stick to our moving plan.

When the midwife arrived, we waited for a contraction so she could feel my cervix. I breathed deeply–ten seconds out, ten seconds in, repeat–and when I opened my eyes she was removing her rubber glove and smiling. “Nearly seven centimeters,” she said. “I can get you through this.” She told the Irish fella he should go out for a walk, get a coffee, and come home in about an hour. She suggested I get in the bath. We rescheduled the movers.

It was a huge relief to know that I was not only definitely labor, but that I was actually quite far along. We were all delighted. The midwife brought in her birthing stool and prepared the bed with rubber sheets. The kraamzorg arrived–the nurse who would attend the birth and care for me after–and set out clothes for the baby. I apologized over and over for not having any furniture for them to sit on, and for the general state of the house.

I also apologized each time I felt a contraction coming, because it was impossible to concentrate on anything else in the midst of one. But between contractions, I was myself, and with a heightened politeness. The mood was so pleasant and the two women who buzzed around me while I floated shamelessly in my bathtub were so friendly that we were, dare I say, having a nice time.

There was laughter and small talk and banter, and then every five minutes, I would morph into some primal version of myself–not a werewolf perhaps, but some form of lowing, moaning creature. Once a contraction was over, I’d return to the conversation until the next one started.

The Irish fella returned. At 11 am, I got back on the bed, and the midwife suggested she break my water to speed things up. I couldn’t see anything over my enormous bump, but I heard her ask the Irish fella if he saw what color the warm liquid was. “Green,” he said. “Erwtesoep,” she said. Pea soup. “And what does this mean?” she asked him, instructor to student, and he answered, “We have to go to hospital.”

The green color of the water is a sign that there is meconium, the baby’s first feces, in the amniotic fluid. Breathing this can be harmful to the baby, and its presence is a sign that the baby is stressed. Although the midwife was monitoring the baby’s heart and it sounded fine, a more accurate method of heart monitoring–whereby a monitor is physically clipped to the skin on the baby’s head–can only be done in the hospital. By law, we had to move.

At 8 centimeters with the end just in reach, getting up, putting jeans on, walking to the car, and driving to the hospital was the last thing I wanted. And I’d like to extend sincere apologies to the poor man with whom I held mid-contraction eye contact while stopped at a red light. But within 15 minutes, I was in a hospital bed ready to resume.

But everything was different, and I think it shut my labor down. The midwife had to leave so the doctor could take over. The heart monitor meant I couldn’t move around anymore, no more shower or bath. I still had my hot water bottle, which the nurse wanted to take from me because it was giving me burn blisters, but I wouldn’t give it up.

Two hours passed and I was still at 8 centimeters. The doctor explained that they would like to give me a drug that helps speed up contractions. So ingrained is the belief in natural childbirth in the Netherlands that even this relatively minor intervention was explained to me with reassurance that it was nothing I was doing wrong, that I was still doing all the work, but that they had to do this to help move things along, to help me.

Things were harder now. The drug sped contractions up so I was now having four every ten minutes, and they were far stronger. We were left alone, and the Irish fella sat next to me and rubbed my shoulders while pressing the hot water bottle into my back. When a particularly hard contraction had me hyperventilating, he would breathe deeply until I was back on course by following his pattern. But in between contractions, there were kisses, there were jokes about the faces I was making, there was a phone call about the delivery of our new dining room table. In between, I was tired and thirsty, but I was fine.

When I was at ten centimeters, the doctor said I was ready to push. In spite of it being 24 hours since I put down the vacuum and climbed into bed, when the doctor said it was time I heard myself say, “already?” And so there I was, in the hospital, knees to ears, Irish fella to my left, doctor, nurse, and intern at my legs, waiting for a contraction so I could push. In three pushes, my baby was resting on my chest.

It’s a bit of a blur, those first minutes. The Irish fella cut the cord. The doctor and intern and nurse took the baby to a table to examine him, and the Irish fella followed them. I stayed on the bed, streaked with sweat and blood. My belly was a soft, empty pouch. I was dying of thirst but my Powerade was just out of reach, and not a person in the room was paying any amount of attention to me. From a tray across the room, the placenta seemed to say, “Tell me about it, sister.”

It was all over and I felt fantastic. One benefit to drug-free labor that I appreciated right away was that I could walk around, and felt no grogginess. My baby was placed on my chest and began to feed. The physical pain of contractions was gone, and the elation of knowing my baby and I made it through labor happy and healthy made it all worth while. They say women forget the pain, but I don’t think that’s it. I remember it. And as soon as it was over, I remember thinking it was not at all worth fearing. It wasn’t that bad, and it was definitely worth it.

For the last week I’ve been hearing the birth stories of the women from my antenatal class, and some of them had labors that were far longer and harder than mine. Still, we have all said it is something we know we want to do again. We know it will be hard work and it will hurt, but we also know it will be manageable, completely worth it, and most important, we know we can do it.

Filed Under: Homebirth Stories, Natural Childbirth

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