What a beautiful birth story Camille. I chose natural birth with 7 of my children, but I have to admit I wasn’t as in control at times as I would like to have been. I’m so happy you tried this and it worked so well for you.ReplyCancel

Hi! Katie Bastian gave me this link, and your story is absolutely beautiful. I’m almost 18 weeks along in my first pregnancy, and I’ve been seeing a normal doctor, but I’d really like my experience to be like this. I plan on delivering at a hospital, but I want it to be natural. When did you first talk to your doctor about going natural? I’ve loved the couple doctors I’ve seen so far, but I have this fear that they’ll be annoyed with me. Also, how far along in your pregnancy did you start preparing for your birth experience? Sometimes I feel like I’m already too late, and other times I think I can put it off. What would you recommend?
And thank you for sharing this inspiring story! 🙂ReplyCancel

My OBY/GYNE has their pregnant patients rotate through their 4 doctors and 1 nurse practitioner throughout the patient’s pregnancy. I ended up having the doctor on call that I had only seen once. Not that this was a problem, but I went 8 hours laboring without seeing her. I saw her when we first arrived at the hospital 1 hour after I lost my mucous plug, I believe. The nurses examined me. I was not dilated. The nurse did something called a ROM plus test to try to see if in fact my water had broke. (Sorry for the confusion, between water breaking and mucous plug). The doc came in a half hour later and examined me. Hurt like hell! I was getting to the point where I thought okay I will go home if you are not going to admit me. The nurse showed us to our birthing room. I went 12 hours with one nurse telling her I wanted to go natural. I did have her put the saline lock in. We had not seen the doc in a long time (turns out she was at her son’s soccer game). The nurse said she was not at the hospital and I said I wanted to see her. She came in around midnight I think and she said the labor was not progressing enought and that I needed strongly to consider IV, Pitocen, Epidural, etc. At that point I caved and was so mad. It was also the new nurse on duty and I told her I would get everything: the IV and epidural. I was so fed up. She started my IV and I started to pee immediately as she did. I think an hour later the doc tore the membranes. I think she did this twice actually. This was my first birth. I told my husband it felt like a gallon of fluid being released. It was such a release!!! Then they said of course for me to stay in the bed. All of the labor pains were in my back. I remember telling the doc and my appt with her that I was unsure what the contractions would feel like and that I thought I had had one earlier on in the pregnancy. 2 hours or after the membranes being ruptured ( i think it is the correct term) there was debate about whether I would get the epidural. Mostly my husband wondering. But me just thinking in my head if I wanted to. I felt like i needed too and so the anesthesiologist came in and i do remember the labor “waves” coming quickly. I had seen epidurals being placed before. I literally was hugging my nurse and not because they kept telling me to arch my back, but because I just remember the need to hug her and thank her. The actual placement of the epidural sucked and I still have a small bruise there and get some pain there on occasion. (I am 4 weeks postpartum). I remember 2 sticks of the needle. The first being the lidocaine numbing as they say, but I definitely (I think) felt the actual insertion of the epidural needle. She then asked if I felt numb and the medicine was starting to set in. It took about an hour for it to actually set in and I could not lift my legs hardly at all. This was frustrating as I wanted to lie on my side. I also had the monitor belts on the whole time and there was interference with the readings on the machine (pretty much the whole time and me and my husband pressed the silence button). Finally the nurse returned and said you are about to have this baby. I was pretty much hysterical -no other way to put it- but soo soo ready. She checked my cervix and said I was about there and I was pushing just by force of nature/habit. The doctor was not there yet so I didn’t want to push to much. As soon as the doctor walked in I knew all I needed to do was bear down. As the baby came out it was such a relief, it did not hurt at all. They plopped little babe on me and I was so happy!

That is my birth story. I had debated hiring the doula that taught our lamaze class but we did not opt to hire her. Next time I would definitely consider hiring one. I also would also consider having a nurse midwife birth my baby!ReplyCancel