Birth as we know it

As I mentioned, we had an awesome birth! Here's the abbreviated version. For those who won't get bored with the unabridged version, you can ask me for it later.

I was really looking forward to this birth--the more I learn about the birth process and the more I learn to trust my body, the more positive I feel about birth. I was hoping to start labor after a full night's sleep since my labors tend to be long, and I wanted to have enough energy to enjoy labor. I'd had several episodes of regular surges for around a week, but they always ended after a few hours. One September 24, my "due date" came and went and I was still pregnant (this also happened with my other two). Instead of feeling frustrated, I felt grateful that my babies are able to come when they're ready instead of when I think they should come or when my care provider deems it convenient. The next morning I woke up and labor started at 9 a.m. I wondered if it would stop after a few hours, like it had before, but the surges just kept coming. I packed the kids in the Baby Jogger and took them on a 2-mile walk. Then I let them play on the grounds of the Provo LDS temple--we had been going there regularly for a few weeks, and they've loved exploring and playing in a safe and beautiful place.

Squeak and Pip at the temple on Squirt's labor day

I took Squeak and Pip home and fed and played with them. I was SO BUSY with the kids that I really couldn't stop to time surges or think about things. I knew my body was working and that my baby was coming though, and that was satisfying. I sent D a text around 3 to let him know I was probably in labor, but told him not to come home since, ya know, I've never had a short labor. I put Pip and Squeak down for a late nap around 4 and D arrived a bit later. I decided to lie down and try to sleep but discovered that I couldn't so I got up. I wanted to get things moving a bit more with some visualization and a long walk, but then the kids woke up from their naps, and again, I was SO BUSY taking care of them, there was no chance for that.

The evening hours passed quickly with lots of activity with the kids. I invited a friend to spend the night just in case we had to make a middle-of-the-night trip to the hospital. Squeak and Pip were absolutely thrilled that Rebecca came over! After finally getting them settled down around 10, and then talking to Rebecca and her husband Paul for a few hours, it was midnight before I even realized it! And I hadn't yet packed my hospital bag. So then I did that. THEN D and I finally had a chance to work on visualization and hypnosis. That's when I really started to notice that I was in labor--the first 13 hours passed by without me hardly noticing because I was so busy with everything else. I finally focused on the labor when I got the chance.

Sweet Rebecca came over for a slumber party

This was a few hours before we headed to the hospital.
So nice of D to try to look bigger so I wouldn't feel so beeg!!

We got to the hospital at 1:30 a.m. Roberta (my midwife) checked me and I was dilated to a 5+ so they started the mandatory 20-minute read on my best friend, the fetal monitor. There were some issues with blood pressure and heart rate, so I ended up being on it longer than 20 minutes. At 2:30 I was freed from that confounded machine! Interestingly enough, every single blood pressure and fetal heart rate read after that was completely normal.

I could finally get in the tub. Before I did, I had Roberta check me. I was a 7. She also told me that Squirt was in a less-than-optimal position, not posterior, but kind of sideways. It's nice to have a midwife who notices this sort of thing, and it's nice that I knew that my positioning could influence baby's positioning. So I was in the tub, I was relaxing, my George Winston labor music was playing, and I was concentrating on my positioning and visualizing the baby's positioning. That's when D took me to the beach. The beach happens to be my special place that he takes me to during hypnosis sessions. It is there, with the waves and the rocks and the birds and the shells, that I truly relax and feel free. D took me to the beach when I was in labor with Squeak and with Pip too. Always the same beach, always the same peaceful feeling.

I was enjoying the description D was giving me--the birds, the waves, the sunshine, the hermit crabs... I felt awesome! After an hour, I asked Roberta to check Squirt's position. "Perfect position for birth." And my cervix? Roberta said, "You're about a 9.75. You're ready to have this baby." I couldn't believe it--D and I looked at each other in shock and I thought, "How fast, how easy!" I had gone through all of what people call "transition" without noticing a thing. No pain, no distress, just complete relaxation and trust because I surrendered my mind and body to the birth process. D changed the music to this Jon Schmidt piano/cello remake of Love Story which I love--I'd heard it played in my hot yoga class during the warrior sequence and it made me feel strong, empowered, and beautiful--perfect for birthing music! The "pushing phase" lasted all of three minutes, and as I mentioned before, Squirt emerged en caul. D caught our baby and announced, "It's a girl!" As he passed her to me, she grabbed the umbilical cord, like a monkey swinging on a vine. We were pretty amused! We talked to our sweet girl and welcomed her to the world. She was wide-eyed and happy to be here. She even raised one eyebrow as I was talking to her. She breastfed right away. We put off all the procedures for later so we could enjoy some time together. We are delighted with our new baby girl and thrilled about another wonderful birthing experience.

Squirt enjoys her first meal, minutes after birth

Nurse Kimmy and CNM Roberta

Daddy and daughter checking each other out

Checking out the crazy hair

Smiling Squirt on her birth day

My sweet sister brought my other two babies to visit me in the hospital

Happy Birth Day, Squirt! It's a....

GIRL!

This time, for once, I did have mother's intuition. It helped that Squeak clued me in about this one awhile ago. I know that everyone really just wants to see a photo, so I'll try not to be too wordy in this post, but if it weren't for the sleep deprivation that accompanies having a newborn, I'd have a baby every nine (OK, maybe ten) months for the thrill and exhilaration of natural birth. Labor and birth were AWESOME! D was a fabulous birth companion--the best doula I could ever have!

Proud sister and brother

We're still deciding about a name (and hoping it doesn't take two weeks like last time!!), but one of our favorite options is Botum, which is Cambodium for princess.




Lots of exciting things to say about the birth, but for now I'll just mention one. Squirt was born with the amniotic sac intact, or en caul. This is something I had heard about as a childbirth educator, but it's very rare, and I've never known anyone whose baby emerged with the sac intact--and now it happened to us! Pretty cool!

Here's some info I found on the internet:

Dwight Cruikshank MD, states that being born with or in a caul is rare, probably occurring in fewer than 1 in 1000 births, and that he has seen fewer than 10 babies with a caul throughout his career.

In medieval times the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck. It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Birth "En Caul" is generally considered to be a very auspicious beginning for a child.

Many are great natural healers, which trait may be manifested by the laying on of their hands, or remotely from a distance. Many are considered to have great ability in matters of judgment and ruling nations and often possess insights which are difficult to appreciate by other people.

In many cultures the Caulbearers were considered to be “Kings by right,” due to the predictive nature of their births and their leadership abilities. This is one of the reasons why certain Buddhist groups, to this very day seek out Caulbearers to be brought up to become Dalai Lamas.

More info found here

Stats:
Birth Day: September 26, 2009
Time: 3:41 a.m.
Weight: 7 lb. 12 oz.
Length: 19.5 inches
Head circumfrence: 13.5 inches (smallest one yet)
Labor time: 18.5 hours

We are so thrilled about our baby girl!

A Thinking Woman

If you're a thinking woman, and you're considering having a baby, you should read this book:

The author, Henci Goer, has gone through most of the options available where birth is concerned, e.g. labor induction, O.B.s and midwives, birth centers, C-sections, epidurals and other drugs during labor, episiotomies, electronic fetal monitoring, IVs, etc. She has read the medical literature and presents the pros and cons for each option along with the possible consequences. I am one of those people who wants to see the research, and here it is! Actual studies are cited, making this book fact-based and opinion-free.

Reading The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth may or may not convince you that less intervention is best, but at the very least, you will be informed about your options and the possible consequences. There will be no surprises like an epidural not working, an unexpected C-section, a presumably healthy baby that ends up with respiratory distress, a postpartum backache, a baby that doesn't nurse well, etc. There will be no surprises because you will know the possible consequences of any choices you make for your birth. Knowledge is power!


Meet Fei. Fei is a thinking woman. When she was pregnant with her first, she had some preferences for her upcoming birth based on things her mother and sister had told her. So she talked with her O.B. about them. Her O.B. went through her list and said, "No... no... no... I will not acommodate your wishes." (Fei was not asking for anything EXTRA--she was actually asking for less-than-the-norm: no labor induction, no epidural, etc.) And so, in the middle of her third trimester, Fei fired her O.B. She later told me she had no idea where to go. She sent an email out to the Relief Society, asking if anyone could recommend somebody. She got a recommendation for a midwife group from a girl she didn't know very well. Fei had never considered going to a midwife, but as a thinking woman, she decided to check it out. Fei ended up with a wonderful water birth in a birth center, attended by caring midwives who were aware and respectful of the fact that birth is a normal body process. Her little girl was born naturally nine days after her "due date" at about six and a half pounds and absolutely perfect.

Fei and Pip

I didn't meet Fei until months later, but it was her story and that of my sister-in-law, both of whom switched to a different care provider late in pregnancy, that prompted me to make the last-minute switch to Ellen when I was almost 40 weeks pregnant with Pip. A switch that most likely saved me from getting an unnecessary C-section and instead gave me a fabulous birth memory that will bring a smile to my face and tears of joy and gratitude to my eyes for the rest of my life.

Fei is now pregnant with her second. She and her husband have chosen to pay out of pocket for a birth center birth rather than let insurance cover the intervention hospital birth that everyone else they know is getting. A thinking woman married to a thinking man. Awesome!

Enlightenment

I'm very passionate about natural birth. If you find this offensive, you may want to skip this post. My dear friend recently posted her feelings about birth on her blog. I thought I should do the same. I also wanted to resurrect her post, since it was such a good one.

I was recently able to spend some time with this dear friend who shares my views on natural childbirth, and while we were talking, I said, "Wow, ten years ago, I never would've thought that I'd be able to say I've had two natural births with a midwife as my birth attendant." She said the same thing, and we each talked about how we'd become enlightened. This is how it happened for me.

My mom set the foundation decades ago when she birthed all eight of us without drugs. She also conveyed to us that birth was a normal event and a natural body process. I never heard horror stories about pain and complications. It was actually quite funny to hear about our births because my mom preferred to labor mostly at home because "as soon as you get to the hospital, they want to stick a bunch of needles in you"--she'd wait until the last possible minute to check in at the hospital, and a few of us were almost born en route to the hospital, and a few more were born just a few minutes after she arrived. My mom wasn't one of those ladies who writhed and screamed during contractions--she calmly went about her day. And I thought, "Well, if she can do it, I can do it," and I always had in my mind that I would birth naturally.

About seven years ago I had two co-workers whose wives had birthed with midwives. I was especially intrigued by Will and Melissa's experience because their first baby had been born in the hospital with an OB and the standard interventions and the whole thing had been quite negative, so they chose a CNM (Certified Nurse Midwife) and the Bradley method for their second (and third and fourth). The difference was night and day. I enjoyed hearing how positive they were about natural birth and midwives and decided to look into finding a midwife should I ever get married and have a baby.

My sister Karen got married and had kids before I did. When she was pregnant with her first, she looked into different childbirth methods and discovered HypnoBirthing. She had a really positive experience with HypnoBirthing (and to this day applies it to regular life and not just birthing), which got me interested in it. I suppose I would've thought the hypnosis part was kind of kooky if it hadn't been my sister telling me about it, but I knew that my sister had good judgement, so I wasn't at all weirded out about the hypnosis. I came to realize that hypnosis for birthing is simply a way of focusing your mind so that your body can maximize the effect of each surge (that's what we call a contraction in HypnoBirthing).

The aforementioned factors all led to the two AWESOME experiences D and I have had with the births of our babies. I was able to look forward to birth with a calm and peaceful attitude--and I'm not just talking about having the baby in my arms. I looked forward to my body performing the labor and birth that would get my baby into my arms. I didn't fear pain or complications. I believed things would go well. And indeed, it was wonderful, and having a birth companion who supported me and helped me was paramount to me feeling so satisfied about how labor and birth went. Using the HypnoBirthing method and having a midwife as our birth attendant were also key factors.

What is it like to have a midwife? First, the midwife philosophy is that birth is a normal and natural body process. Every birth is different, therefore midwives are willing to sit back and let a woman's body dictate the pace of labor and birth. My first labor was very long, and when I finally checked in at the hospital after being in labor for over 50 hours, I told my midwife Claudia that I had come to the hospital after 25 hours and my cervix was open 1/2 cm. Thankfully, they gave me a shot to help me sleep and sent me home. Twenty-five hours later, I went back to the hospital, and this time my cervix was open 1 cm. (At this point I was getting worn out and was starting to doubt my body's abilities just a tiny bit.) Her response was, "How rude! After all that work, they told you you're only open 1 cm!" She told me I was doing fine. I never heard a word about having to ramp things up with pitocin or having to rupture the amniotic sac. After ensuring that the baby's heart rate was fine and that my body was handling labor just fine, she told me I could decide when I wanted to be checked. When the nurses came in every half hour to get the mandatory read on the fetal monitor, she made sure they didn't keep it on too long and let me get back to the labor tub or sitting on the birth ball as quickly as possible. She offered to fill in for D if he got tired (he was a trooper; he stayed with me the whole time!). Claudia offered me a priceless treasure--trust in my body. She didn't DO anything to "manage" my labor. She was there as a support and a resource. She told me to follow my body's instincts, which I did. I changed positions when I wanted to; I followed my own body's urge to push, rather than a roomful of "coaching" medical folk. And, WOW, what a rush to give birth that way!! The thrill of finishing a marathon or cliff jumping or hiking to the top of the rainforest canopy don't even compare to the exhilaration I felt at having my mind, body and spirit completely aware, completely in sync, and completely present for birth. I neither wanted nor needed pain medication. The self-confidence I gained from working (and believe me, it was hard work) to achieve my goal of natural birth is priceless, and it's something a woman can't get from an ordinary birth. Then again, ordinary is no thrill for me--I prefer extraordinary.

So we'd had this awesome birth with Squeak, and my thought was, "Why doesn't everyone give birth this way?" I became certified as a HypnoBirthing instructor so I could spread the good word to other expectant parents, and we decided that having a midwife was the way to go. I actually didn't meet my midwife for Pip until two days before he was born. I made a last-minute switch to Ellen because only a doctor (whose ideas about birth I do not embrace) from the midwife group I'd been going to was on call. Like Claudia, Ellen also reviewed my birth plan and told me she agreed with everything on it. She was true to her word. I had no doubt that labor and birth would again be a positive experience. I again labored mostly at home and checked in at the hospital after around 18 hours of labor. Ellen was so hands-off, I felt like I was having a home birth! She convinced the nurses to leave me alone (no intermittent fetal monitoring, no checking my cervix, no checking my vitals) for hours. Nobody even came into the room unless I called. She told me (just as Claudia had) that she'd check my cervix only if and when I wanted her to. She even said that after the initial check, I didn't need to be checked at all. D and I were left alone--what a remarkable thing! I again used the birth ball, the jetted tub, the birthing stool that D made for me, and the relaxation, visualization, and breathing techniques I had learned from HypnoBirthing. Labor progressed naturally with my body dictating the pace. Ellen also expressed a lot of confidence in my body--when I told her I felt like Pip was about to arrive and asked her to check me to see if my cervix was completely open, she said, "I don't have to check you. If you feel like you're ready, you're ready." Wow, talk about trusting a mother's instincts! She was there as a support and resource if I needed her. She told me to birth in whatever position felt the most comfortable. I wanted to try the birthing stool, so she sat on the floor in front of me. I ended up switching at the last minute, but here's the point-- I gave birth the way my body chose to. D caught Pip. I had absolutely no tearing, and Pip was breastfeeding less than five minutes after emerging. His arrival, like his sister's, was so peaceful, so serene. The lights in the room were dim, the voices of the few people present were subdued, and the standard newborn procedures were put off until D and I had spent time (more than an hour both times) bonding with our new baby so fresh from Heaven.

And so it was... The experiences of others led me to my own enlightenment about birth. I'm so grateful! I only know a handful (well, maybe two handfuls since I married into the right family--all my sisters-in-law are proponents of natural birth) of people who have had the kind of birth experiences that D and I have had. Most women are physically able to give birth this way (I will say that medical intervention is a great blessing and should be used for the small percentage of women who need it) but choose not to for reasons I do not understand. I have experienced many exciting things in my life, but nothing as empowering as natural birth. That feeling, and the peace of birth without intervention, is the good news I want to share with women everywhere.

Pip has Emerged!

D, T, and little Pip

Pip wearing the cute hospital hat

Pip

Here we are with Ellen, our awesome midwife

We had a New Years Eve birthday party when Pip joined our world. We are so excited to be parents of a Squeak and a Pipsqueak! I'll put more photos up later, but here are the details:

Birthday: December 31, 2007
Birth time: 6:45 a.m.
Weight: 7 lb. 9 oz.
Length: 20.5 inches
Head circumference: 14 inches (thank D for that)
Labor time: only 25 hours!!
(we are thrilled that it was less than half of my 59.5 hour labor with Squeak)


We did an exciting thing two days before Pip's EDD and switched to a different care provider. When Pip's amniotic sac ruptured on Thursday morning and I didn't go into labor, I called the midwife on call from my clinic and found out that only a doctor from the clinic would be on call the whole weekend. I had met this doctor previously and didn't feel comfortable with his ideas on birth, so I called another midwife in the area, Ellen Franklin (who attends births at the same hospital)--I had been told excellent things about Ellen from one of my HypnoBirthing students--well, I asked Ellen if she'd take me as a patient and she said yes! She is very hands-off as long as birth is proceeding normally, and she has so much confidence in a woman's body to birth naturally with no intervention. So I felt true relief, and I think Pip felt safe enough to come to us. I think the sac must've ruptured and then resealed because actual labor didn't start until Sunday morning (Pip's EDD), and the sac ruptured again as Pip was emerging. Anyway, birth was a thrilling experience, and switching to Ellen was key to Pip's fabulous birth journey. So was HypnoBirthing and having D as the best birth companion ever! We are so grateful for our experience.