Birth Story #2

A few days before, I felt great. I was dressing up and cleaning and cooking. I was dancing around the house with my son. I had a craving for Italian Ice and mostly water. To prep for labor, I drank a pitcher of red raspberry leaf tea. If you have tried red raspberry leaf tea- try it iced!

Avocado corn and quinoa salad with iced red raspberry leaf tea. Water is in the picture

all that big belly glory! Shot out to Jessica Simpson line for the shirt.

Thursday around 1AM, I began to feel something wasn't right with my contractions. The baby was moving so I knew she was okay. They were the Braxton-Hicks contractions but at the tail end of the contraction was accompanied with abdominal, thigh and low back pain. It was mild so I did not worry about it but my husband was. "I will call the midwife tomorrow." I said putting him at ease. "It might be the beginning of early stages of labor. Go back to sleep." He went back to sleep as I went into the living room to sleep and time contractions. I eventually thought it was a silly idea and stopped after an hour and went to sleep.

The next day or later that day I went into the midwives office and had a few contractions while on the baby monitor but good heart rate overall. The midwife and myself thought it would be a great idea to check my cervix. I was thinking that it was only 1 or 2 cm dilated. Wrong. I was 5 cm dilated and 50% effaced. She thought that it would be okay for me to go home and not to the hospital and should the contractions become stronger to head to the hospital.

Friday, (4/21) around 12:15am I went to the bathroom to see some bloody streaking and I alerted Vince about it. He took our son upstairs to my mother in law and I was already dressed. We drove to the hospital, calling the midwife and doula. When we got to the hospital, I was having the urge to push. After trying to go through the maze of the hospital without the support of the security guard, we made it to the birthing suite. They were waiting for us and who else was there on the scene? The doula for my son was there! She is in her last week of clinicals for nurse midwifery. I was taken to my room where I used the bathroom and went to the bed while the water for the tub was being filled. They checked my cervix which was 100% effaced (or thin) and 10 cm dilated (no cervix present) and ready for labor. One thing first, my water still had not broken. Within 10 minutes after arrival into the birthing room my water broke, I let my body do the work and not consciously trying to push. I breathed through the contractions with the simple, relaxing hypnobirthing J breathing I learned about all the way to the gut breathing and  effective loud moans associated with crowning. When the water broke it took two contraction breaths during crowning. The head began to come out but then her head went back in and I yelled in between contractions, "C'mon! Get out already!" I was told to push and I said I can't and the midwife said, "You can do it!" I said, "No, I'm not having a contraction." We all had a simple laugh before another one came and with some assistance from the midwife. "One more push and you can see your baby." I pushed with one last contraction and she came out, I turned to look at her. ( I was on my hands and knees birthing) She was blue. She wasn't breathing!

A team cut the cord apologizing for not delaying the cord cutting as was intended in the birth plan and took her to the station where they weigh the baby. They removed fluid from her lungs and tried to recussitate her- within a minute, she was breathing on her own and crying. The color came back to her and I yelled out, "Praise Jesus!" Before she was taken to the nursery I got a chance to hold her and apply some skin to skin contact. Between 1:30 and 1:33- Genevieve was born.