Thursday, March 15, 2012

Delivered on Land?

I finally had my first dry birth. It was completely unintentional.

On Wednesday, I woke up at about 5 in the morning with some strong contractions. They were painful enough that I had to concentrate on relaxing to deal with them. I knew that even if I was in labor at this point the best thing to do was to try to sleep as much as I could, for the contractions could stop, and, if they didn't, I would need as much energy as possible. I got up and took a shower at 7 to see how my body would react. My contractions kept on, somewhat erratically. I called my Certified Professional Midwife, who works with my Certified Nurse Midwife, at 7:30 to let her know what was happening. My contractions were about 10 minutes apart.

Every birth is different. This birth my contractions, even in early labor, hurt very badly, so perhaps I was already in active labor. I follow a pseudo Bradly approach to labor. I just try to relax all my muscles as I contact.

 I cleaned my kitchen. I made chocolate chip cookies. Then I decided that standing in the kitchen was just not the way to deal with contractions. and I sat down. In retrospect I would have filled the pool at this point. I had 3 wonderful water births with my other kids. For some reason I was still worried that the contractions would slow down or stop.

Contractions were still about 9 minutes apart. At that point my contractions were so painful that I was coping on my hands and knees. Karen decided to call Christina the CNM. We know at this point something is going to happen. We are thinking it will happen in the next couple hours. I had a contraction, then went to the bathroom, had a contraction in there, came out and had another contraction.

Hands and knees. My husband was trying to fill the pool, but he kept running into problems. I thought I heard him say that he was going to just start filling the pool with buckets. My contractions were so painful at this point that I started to think that I wouldn't be able to do this for another hour. I asked to get in the water, but the pool didn't have water. I was stuck almost immovable on the floor. Now the pain was so great that I felt nauseous. I asked for a bucket, in case I needed to throw up. My good friend Erin mentioned later that I was probably going through transition. It was so caotic that no one at the time thought anything of my nausea. I sure didn't.

My contractions had gone from erratic 6-9 minute intervals to 1-2 minute intervals in 2 minutes.Then, I'm still on my hands and knees and fully dressed, my water breaks. I panicked! I was not expecting my water to break even though I was in so much pain. What flashed in my mind was that usually when my water breaks I'm already pushing the baby out.

Now I had to push. I needed to. Karen tried to help me get my pants off, and I couldn't move because of the contraction. Some how we got my pants mostly off, and I pushed hard and kept pushing until the baby's head was out. Karen told me to stop pushing and to wait for another contraction. It took all my concentration to stop, and it wasn't for long. When I started pushing the shoulders out, I wasn't sure if I could take the pain, but I knew I couldn't stop. I had to finish.

Karen caught the baby. She declared the baby a girl. She passed my baby to me through my legs and had me lay down. All I could think was, thank God! I don't have to have another contraction.

What was different about delivering on land, so to speak, as opposed to the water, was that my contractions near the end were closer together and way more painful, and my transition time was so much faster than any of my waterbirths. That could have been this birth, but I know that water tends to ease contractions and lengthen birth times. Also my bottom was sore for the first time after a birth, and I never felt sore before, not even when I tore the first time I gave birth. This was a great birth. I still prefer to deliver in water.


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