11 pounds 4 ounces- Natural Hospital Birth! First Time Mama!!

I am so so so excited to share a birth story from my last childbirth class. This is a first baby for a wonderful couple. I am just so incredibly proud of and happy for them. Did I mention that this baby weighed in at 11 pounds 4 ounces! and was birthed naturally! (By the way- this was a mama who did yoga her whole pregnancy, so yeah for pregnancy exercises and a fantastic coach!) This mother also had a fused spine-

If I never hear the phrase, "You are too small and your baby is too big, you need a c-section" again I will die a happy woman!!!! As it turns out, women are actually designed to give birth from their vagina's!

OK, I'm done. Enjoy!

Archer's birth was a great experience and it was the most incredible thing I ever did.

I started to feel things happening in the early morning of March 24th. He was a week overdue at that point. But I knew that it could still be awhile so I just took everything with a view that there could be days to come before he got here. But I did begin to have real significant contractions that morning. They were noticeable but not painful and only 10 to 15 minutes apart. I spoke with out doula and she told me to keeping eating, drinking and get some rest if I could. All day things kept pretty consistent. In the evening the contractions started to get closer but were only 30 seconds long. I spoke we our doula again and she said that when the contractions get to be a minute long and five minutes apart for 2 hours to give her a call.

So we had some dinner and hung out until going to bed. The contractions started to get stronger and longer and closer to 7 minutes apart. I would sleep in between. When someone says that you can sleep in between contractions it does not seem possible but it is. In the middle of the night the contractions continued to get stronger and closer. By 5:30 AM, I told Brandon it was time to call our doula. She arrived at 6 AM and we hung out and continued laboring. I labored a lot on my side. It was the most comfortable. At 8:30 AM, I went to take a shower and when I was drying off my water broke. At that point things got much more intense. And I had to lay down right away because the intensity was really overwhelming. We stayed at home until the doula mentioned that we might want to consider when we wanted to go to the hospital and after a bit I said that if we didn't leave now that we would not be going. But it still took another half hour to get dressed an get to the car. My method for dealing with the pain was very internal. I did not yell or scream, I just breathed my way through. I was very happy that I had practiced yoga.

The car ride seemed to take forever and after the birth I realized it was because I was in transition. We got to the hospital at 11AM. They hooked me up to the monitor and did not like his heart rate and the contractions we on top of each other. This was because I was dehydrated and had thrown up twice and not had much to drink since the early morning. They hooked me up to an IV and things improved. The midwife came in at about 11:30 and it was the midwife I had been seeing during my pregnancy, so I felt really fortunate. At about noon, I started to have pushy contractions and mentioned this. They had not done a vaginal check at this point and when they did they found that I was almost fully dilated and the midwife said I could begin to push when I felt like it.

I started pushing around then, on my right had side. The medical staff was having trouble distinguishing my heart rate and the baby's so the suggested an internal monitor and we agreed and after that they found his rate was low but consistent and were allowing be to continued to labor. We tried standing and pushing but his heart rate didn't like that so I ended up delivering him on my right side at 1:54. Once his head was out the rest just slipped right out and we had a beautiful baby boy.

The great thing about the natural birth was the incredible high. The minute he was out, all the hard work and pain just slipped away and I was completely consumed by this little person.

Brandon and I agree that the Bradley method and you class were great preparation for our birth and allowed us to comfortably labor at home for as long as possible.