I learned so much from this birth. I wish I would have listened to my intuition so much more. I used the lessons I learned in the birth with my last birth. It would have been so helpful to have a doula at this birth. I did decide to hire a doula with my last birth. I also wish I had birth photos from all of my births. They are such special memories that I believe should be captured. For an unmedicated birth this was still my hardest birth experience. I made a lot of choices that made if not feel so natural and a lot felt forced. I am grateful I had another birth to have a very different experience with.
A story of impatience….after my first I was told that my chances of having premature babies were much higher since my first one was so early. So 2 months before my due date I was ready and waiting. Everyday I would think today could be the day. It was quite torturing. So 2 weeks before my due date I saw my midwife and asked her if there was anything natural I could do to get things moving. She said she could try scraping my membranes and if I was getting close it could get things going if not I would have some contractions and they would stop. So I was nesting all day after that, cooking and cleaning with on and off contractions all day. So I called my midwife and she said I should meet her at the hospital and she would check me. I was already dilated to a 3 but when she checked me I was at a 5. She said I should stay at the hospital so I don’t have to come back in the middle of the night (I should have just went home though and slept in my own bed). So I did…then she said she should just break my water to help things get started. So she did…and things started to get really intense. My contractions were very painful. It did not feel natural. Jay wanted it to just be the 2 of us this time since we had surprise visitors the first time and I agreed to that. At some point they gave me an antibiotic to treat Strep B that I was showing positive for. I remember this being a very painful part of my experience. It had a burning sensation and was so uncomfortable. So Jay filled up the bath tub for me to sit in. The water was really cold for me and I don’t know why I did not say anything…I just assumed that the hospital did not have too much hot water. Such a silly assumption. It was hard to concentrate on anything anyways…to come up with words seemed very difficult. So I got out of the tub and shortly after that my midwife said I could try pushing. I spent about 45 minutes pushing and it was very hard work. It was much different than my first one that was just a couple of pushes. Skyler was born March 25th 2000 at 12:23am weighing 7lbs 4oz on ¾ full moon at Davis Hospital. So beautiful and sweet. Jay did not want to cut the cord so one of the nurses did. The labor only lasted about 4 - 5 hours but after he was born I was so tired. I wanted to stare at him all night like I did with my first but I was so wore out. The next day I was so sore in places I didn’t even know that I had muscles from pushing so hard. For being a natural birth there were a lot of things about this birth that did not feel natural. I wrote up a list of things for Jay to do while I was in labor. I am sure he looked at the list but I don’t think he did one thing on there. The one thing I wanted from him the most was to hear him say I love you! Later I realized I had way too many expectations on Jay and that was really heavy on him and was not fair. I was so grateful for the lessons from this birth experience. The lesson of being patient and the importance of letting go of expectations. I remember feeling bad that I did not wait for Skyler to choose his own birthday. I love being Skylers mom. He is always teaching me.
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