I finally had my baby girl! Last Sunday at 4 am, I woke up feeling contractions. DH and I spent the day timing contractions. At 9 pm, my MIL came over to support us. At 4 am on Monday, we made the trip to the hospital. I spent the whole day in the hospital with contractions that never progressed much. When the midwife checked me, she said I was only 1 cm. I could have cried because I felt I was halfway there! They tried to break my waters to get things moving, but not much happened. That night they gave me morphine so that I could sleep since I hadn’t slept in a day or so!
I slept, and then in the morning (Tuesday) I labored most of the day and only made it to 2 cm.! They gave me gel to ripen my cervix, but by then I was so exhausted and lost my confidence. I asked for an epidural. I labored for the rest of the day feeling much better, but not feeling much below! I eventually made it to 10 cm! I pushed for 3 hours, and then the decision was made that a c-section was the safe way to go. Off to the OR, and my baby girl was born weighing 9 lbs. and 14 ozs. She was 20.25 ins. long! She was not going to come out vaginally. I spent a few days in the hospital getting to know my little girl and healing. DH has been the most amazing. We are having so much fun being a family and taking care of each other!
It may not have been the birth I envisioned, but I have a beautiful and healthy little girl. HypnoBabies helped when I was forced to lay down for fetal monitoring. It helped in the whirlpool tub. It also helped in the OR to keep me calm while the surgery was going on. Lamaze helped when I was upright and walking around through contractions. I’m glad that I went through labor and pushing. DH thinks it’s great that I got to try a little bit of everything! The epidural worked perfectly, and the c-section was as fast as possible. All in all, it got the job done. I thought she was never going to be born!
I’ve been looking into different birthing methods. I want to have a natural birth. I know that there are medical options for pain management, but I would like to avoid them if I can since my baby is already exposed to medication. I really don’t want a C-section, and I know that it could be a slippery slope to a C-section if I use an epidural. There are times when epidurals don’t work, so I don’t want that to be Plan A- I won’t have anywhere else to go! I know a little bit about each of the main methods. I think I’m going to end up using a little bit of each. I did invest in the self-study of HypnoBabies, and a family friend will teach us a modified child-birth class which is a combination of both Lamaze and Bradley Method. I’m hoping I’ll have enough tools to use when it’s time to actually give birth!
From what I have gathered, Lamaze teaches relaxed slow, relaxed breathing. When contractions starts, take a deep and cleansing breath. Throughout the contraction, breath slowing in and out. When the contraction ends, take another deep and cleansing breath. If you need more support, you can vary your breath with two or three “hee’s” and a puff. For example: breath in, hee, hee, puff. They also talk about finding a focal point to focus on, finding helpful positions, and other natural relaxation techniques.
I don’t know as much about the Bradley Method. It seems to have more of a focus on teaching strategies to the birthing coach. The course is about 12 weeks long, and it covers all aspects of pregnancy such as nutrition, exercise, and the different stages of labor. This seems like a great option if you don’t know anything about pregnancy, the stages of birth, or what to expect in the hospital.
This method uses a form of hypnosis to help manage pain during labor. It provides a self-study course if you can’t find an instructor in the area. I ordered the different CD’s for the self-study program, and I am looking forward to getting it in the mail! What I liked about this is that you are able to move around with your eyes open.
This method focuses on deep relaxation, visualizing, and self-hypnosis. You aren’t out of it, just deeply relaxing. It talks about how the pain is from fighting against the contractions and not relaxing and working with each contraction. From what I understand, it focuses more on laying down and having your eyes closed.
