a birth story {Sophia + Zaylee}- Part 1

I've held onto this draft post for a month now...and now feel ready to share...


I am finally getting around to writing Zaylee's birth story. She is now 10.5 weeks  3.5 months old, but her birth story is something I have repetitively thought about in my head over and over again as well as retold to many family and friends in these past 2 3 months. Now I am sharing with the world on this little space of mine and I hope you all take the good from it and fall more deeply in love with the natural process and beauty of childbirth. (It is secretly a deep passion of mine to share with woman worldwide the beauty of bringing babies into the world.)  


SOPHIA'S BIRTH STORY
Before, I go into the actual birth story let me tell you what kind of birth I had dreamed about before having my own and how I prepared for this all to happen. When I was pregnant with Sophia I dreamed about having a natural childbirth, probably in the country of Tennessee at Ina May Gaskin's 'The Farm'. I read and reread "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" probably a gazillion times (i think the best book out there for natural childbirth). We hired a doula to be with us and I sat on my birth ball and walked and walked to get myself into labor each night. But, once labor started...things went fast, and long story short...I got an epidural (it was strongly suggested to me by my doula), which lead to pitocin, then to a episiotomy, to my baby being vacuumed out. There were complications due to a rough nurse who ended having me lose too much blood and they needed to get Sophia out asap. My doctor did allow me to pull the rest of Sophia's body out once her head came out, but I felt like I didn't finish my labor and fully experience pushing my baby out after I got about 7 cm's dialated on my own. I felt deprived, exhausted, very medicated and was very upset with the nurse who put me in an emergent situation. 


When I got pregnant with Zaylee...the painful memories of all of that came back and I was so anxious! I didn't want to go through it again and was just full of fear of it all. I contemplated a home birth several times because I wanted to avoid the nurses and doctors. Well, I happen to talk to my friend (who happens to be a doula) when I was about 30 weeks pregnant and she told me about hypnobabies and that changed everything. We took classes, practiced hypnosis and felt more at ease.

(minutes after Zaylee's birth)

Zaylee's Birth Story 

Before you get labor envy, let me tell you that I am a woman who has a lot of early  labor, so please don't be surprised by how quickly things moved (what some women experience in 12+ hours or so of hard labor, my body does for 3 weeks before the actual birthday..so by no means is my labor a fast one). With Sophia and Zaylee I was dialated 3-4 cms by 39 weeks. My doctor was convinced with both girls that I was going to deliver at 38 weeks because I was 3 cm's dialated and about 80% effaced. Those numbers mean nothing, Sophia came at 41 weeks and Zaylee 39 weeks. Well, the morning of Zaylee's birthday I woke up around 4 AM with back pain. I didn't go back to sleep, and I secretly knew today was the day. I went about the rest of day having stronger contractions which felt like I was dilating about 5-6 cms, but unbelievably I only had about 2-3 strong contractions an hour. I wasn't going to go to the hospital for that, so I continued about my normal day. Well, around 2 PM I decided to lay down next to Sophia during her nap...and about 2:45 PM, I felt a pop and my water broke while I was laying down. I immediately went into much stronger contractions and felt an incredible pain that I haven't felt before. I actually didn't know my water broke, until I stood up and saw water leaking. We called our friends to pick Sophia up and rushed to the hospital. I was soo nervous (that i was going to give birth on the freeway) with traffic starting to build up as we got on the road at about 3 PM. We listened to the hypnobabies CD on the drive and I was telling my husband to get there fast, I knew it was time for pushing soon. I started shaking and I knew I was going into transition. Laboring in the car was so hard and at one point I told my husband "i can't do this anymore." When we got to the emergency room entrance of the hospital, I put on my headphones and just drowned everyone out and focused on relaxing with each contraction. It seemed like the hospital staff were taking too long, having us sign papers and answer questions. Even when we got up to the labor and delivery floor, they wheeled us into the triage room and left us alone. I told my husband at that point, "get me out of here, I'm going to push now!" He then ran out of the room and grabbed a nurse and they finally started wheeling me into labor and delivery. When we were on our way to our room, I took my headphones off at that point and I needed the support of my husband. I needed him to help me with the hypnosis and talk to me. In between my final contractions (in the wheelchair) I told him, "talk to me" and he started to script words(impromtu) we practiced for several weeks and it helped me and gave me the most relief. Once, we got to our delivery room, my body started bearing down on its own and began pushing the baby out. (to be continued on Part 2)