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Zachary's Birth Story By Jennifer |
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Birth Stories -
Homebirth Birth Stories
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Saturday, 03 January 2009 10:16 |
I had planned a home birth from the beginning for my first child. I was never comfortable with the idea of giving birth in a hospital, and after watching most of my friends end up with c-sections and having horrible experiences, I resolved that I would go with a midwife and a home birth. Water birth intrigued me as well, so I had a high-sided wading pool all ready.
I was due on Groundhog Day. Naturally, I came down with the flu that day. I was terrified that I would go into labour on schedule, as I had a fever and that would have meant kissing my home birth goodbye. It took a week to recover from the flu, and exactly a week after my due date, things started to happen.
I passed my show late in the evening. I tried to be calm about it, knowing that this didn't necessarily mean things were going to start right away, so I went to bed and got to sleep. I kept being woken up by contractions, but they never seemed to get closer together than about half an hour, so I got a fairly good night's sleep.
I called my midwife at seven in the morning, when I realized that contractions were now five minutes apart. I spent the next half hour on the phone calling people, alerting them, not really noticing the contractions. I was hyperactive; my husband thought I was nuts.
By eleven, the pool had been filled and I climbed into it gratefully. I was having nasty back labour, to my puzzlement--the baby was turned the right way; why was I getting back labour? My husband kept leaning on my back with all his strength while I crouched in the pool. It was the only thing that seemed to work. My midwife broke my water at the next bathroom break--she said she could see the membranes bulging every time, and it might speed things up. By that time, I was all for it!
At two or thereabouts, I knew it was time to push. I wasn't really seeing too much by that time--my sense of vision seemed to have blacked out, but I could still hear. The only way I could keep from holding my breath or screaming during pushes was to make birthing sounds that my father later described as "the bellow of a sick moose". (I was hoarse for a week afterward.)
The next hour lasted forever. It hurt like hell. I withdrew into myself. Then suddenly, I knew that the baby was about to crown, and I heard myself shout, "The head's coming!" an instant before my midwife said, "It's crowning!" I reached down to touch my baby's head. It felt so soft and downy! I'd never imagined it would feel that way.
Things started to get urgent. All I knew was that people were telling me, "We've got to get this baby out. Come on, Jenn, push!" Later, I was told that the shoulders had stuck a bit--not shoulder dystocia, just a little tight. They flipped me over onto my back in the water and raised my legs in the air, spread wide. Naturally, my right thigh chose that moment to go into spasm. I was NOT happy about that, but I tried to push. It was so hard!
Suddenly, the shoulders shifted, and the baby FLEW out into the water with a splash! I heard a collective gasp around the room. (There were eight people in the room at the time.) I still wasn't seeing anything, and the relief was indescribible; I almost forgot that the baby was there! Apparently he came out blue, and they had to quickly cut the cord and rush him over to the oxygen tank to get him breathing. I wasn't even aware of it. My vision came back to me after the placenta was delivered. Imagine that; my first real sight after the birth of my baby was staring at a placenta.
They weighed him on a spring scale, and he went off the end of it. They couldn't believe it. He was 12 pounds 2 ounces at birth. Biggest baby on both sides of the family, for generations. That's my Zachary!
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