Seth's Birth Story

For as long as I can remember, I was afraid of childbirth. Labor. Pain. Pushing. I remember asking expectant mothers if they were afraid, and I was always astonished when they would reply in the negative. Then I got pregnant... and I was so excited. Still, there was that little itch in the back of my brain: I was going to have to go through labor. It was easy to push out of my mind in the beginning... I had months and months before I had to think about it. Labor was future Natalie's problem.

And then came the childbirth classes. We had five weeks of classes scheduled - once a week every Tuesday. We would discuss labor, watch videos, look through the various "items" that may be required during delivery... and every Tuesday night I would lay in bed terrified.

I'm not completely sure if my fear of labor is typical or not, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. I started to look for ways to deal with the fear, since I wanted to enjoy pregnancy. Somehow I stumbled across Hypnobabies, a self-hypnosis program toting "pain-free childbirth." I was definitely skeptical at first, but reading review after review and story after story, I became convinced that it definitely couldn't hurt to look into it. Hypnobabies offers classes taught by instructors, but I had to go with the home study course, as there weren't any classes nearby.

I think I started the program around 27 weeks or so. It's a complete childbirth education system, teaching you what to expect for yourself and your partner during childbirth. It had lists of things to do (like what to pack for the hospital) as well as a collection of CDs teaching self-hypnosis.

The CDs were fabulous. Jordan commented that he noticed a difference in me right away. The fear had melted away, and as I got closer to my due date, I actually became excited for labor. The CDs gave me confidence, techniques to deal with pain, and they gave instructions for my birth partner (Jordan) during labor. The program actually gave me the confidence to try a natural unmedicated childbirth - something I would never have thought possible.

So - that's a little background on my preparation for labor. Other things I did included rubbing peanut oil on my belly at night (to prevent stretch marks... I smelled a little like burnt peanut butter!), drank red raspberry leaf tea (to tone the uterus, helping prevent or lessen post-partum hemorrhaging), had regular chiropractic adjustments (about the same schedule as my OB appointments) as well as regular prenatal massage (oh how I loved being able to lay on my stomach!).

At my 36 week OB checkup, I was 3 cm dilated. My doctor definitely thought I wouldn't make my expected due date of February 18th. Jordan and I were both shocked (in fact, I hope to never forget his face when she said "3 cm"!). It gave me the final push to put together my hospital bags, and then I started hoping that my parents would make it back from their Florida trip before our little man made his arrival.

At 37 weeks, I was almost at 4 cm and 80% effaced. (I should mention that I used the Hypnobabies techniques during these internal exams as well, as they are SO not comfortable.) Again, my doctor expressed surprise that I was still pregnant, but at this point, I was beginning to think that these internal exams were bogus. :)

At 38 weeks, I had almost no change, but we knew that the little guy was head down, and his head was right there. Additionally, my bag of waters was bulging... it really was an "any day now" situation. (And, at this point, I was beginning to construct a blog post entitled "Why You Should Decline Internal Exams Until You Are Actually In Labor" in my head.)

At 39 weeks, on February 10th (38w6d to be exact), we strolled into the clinic for our OB appointment. We had finally come to terms with the fact that my internal statistics didn't really mean much. We expected "no change," and instead got the news that I was dilated to 5 cm, and she could stretch me to 6. We checked his heart rate, and it was elevated (as was my blood pressure). He had a baseline rate of 180 bpm, with excursions up to 200 bpm. Target heart rate for babies is 120-160 bpm. My OB hooked me up to the monitor to see what was going on, and it was determined that I was contracting every 1-2 minutes, pretty regularly (although I couldn't feel any pain).

At this point, our doctor gave us two options. We could get an ultrasound to see if the cause of the elevated heart rate could be determined (and if everything was fine, she would let us go home), or she could break my water and we could have our little man that day. In the end, we decided to go the water-breaking route, since we both didn't think we could relax at home knowing that something was going on with our little one.

Around 1:15pm, my doctor broke my water. We called Anne, our birth doula, and let her know that labor was going to start. She started heading this way, and arrived around 3pm. My chiropractor/boss Shari arrived around 4pm, and thus my wonderfully supportive birth team was complete.

The hypnobabies worked fabulously for a long time. I had the "Birthing Day" CD on in the background, we had the lights low, I had lavender oil on a cotton ball near by pillow (since I had been using it during massage and it had a calming effect), and I just worked through the contractions. Jordan commented that in the early stages, the only way he knew I was having contractions was by the monitor readout. I give Hypnobabies a lot of credit for helping me develop techniques to deal with the pain.

As I entered transition, my level of discomfort definitely increased. There was a point where Jordan noticed that I had a particularly uncomfortable contraction. After it passed, he used some of the hypnosis cues that we had practiced to get me back into the "zone," and he said the next contraction went a lot better.

I started pushing at 6:30pm, and it lasted for about an hour. I am definitely not going to claim that Hypnobabies made this part "pain-free," but my birth team was amazing. They breathed with me, made sure I was efficiently pushing, and they helped me get into more comfortable positions. At this point, my wonderful doctor came in, and she was completely and totally fine with me pushing in all sorts of positions (as opposed to the traditional flat-on-back-legs-in-stirrups). This was SO great for me, as being on my back was the most uncomfortable position to be in.

I delivered our beautiful baby Seth at 7:30pm-ish (there was a slight discrepancy with the clocks), and he was 21 inches, weighing 8 lbs 2 ozs (again, there was a slight lack of a working scale for about 2 hours, and when we were finally able to procure one, all we got was a metric readout!). When they put him on my chest ---- It was an indescribable moment.

Now my baby is two weeks old. I wanted to record the events of his birth, as it was a huge life event for us. As we get further from it, the pain seems to lessen and the details seem to blur. Anne, our doula, kept a record for us - it's been great to have that to look over. She even recorded the two times where I asked why I had decided to do this without pain meds. :)

I am over-the-moon happy with how the labor and delivery went. I can only hope that all those stars align again for the next baby. I will definitely practice the Hypnobabies again, as well as enlisting the help of a doula. To have someone there the entire time who is so well-versed in childbirth was completely comforting - it took away the fear for me. I could ask her questions during each stage, and she was knowledgeable and reassuring. Additionally, she visited a number of times in the days following the birth to check in, provide support and help with any breastfeeding issues.

I truly believe that I was put at Healing Hands during pregnancy for a reason. Not only did it put me in contact with Anne, but I had people who had been through childbirth (my boss has 8 kids!) to talk to every week. I was very, very blessed during pregnancy.

And now I have this perfect little person in my life.