Birth Story

I thought I'd add a condensed version of how the birth went. I loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant--just to see how things might turn out.

Pretty much there's no planning anything. Beyond the goal of making sure Alexander was born healthy, I had wanted--ideally--to start birth naturally, use hypnobirthing techniques to manage the discomfort, and give birth with very little pain medication.

What ended up happening was different, but still an incredible experience. Since Alexander was overdue, the doctors had us schedule an induction for November 5th. I started having contractions on November 3rd, but they weren't regular (every 6 to 10 minutes). I went in to the hospital as scheduled with Mom and Micah on November 5th at 6:30 pm. I was barely (1-2 cm) dilated. Around 9 pm they started me on pitocin to augment my labor. Within an hour and a half I was having contractions every 2 minutes. However after four hours of this, I still wasn't any more dilated. At that point I decided I was in it for the long haul and opted to have some morphine. Though it didn't deaden the pain, it did make it more manageable.

After a few more hours, the doctors checked me again and I still wasn't dilated. The doctor manually tried to dilate me (very happy I had painkillers at this point) and I immediately moved open to 4 centimeters. After that, things progressed normally--with me ready to push around 10 am. Alexander was born at 11:02 am after 14 hours of labor. Micah received him, cut the cord, then bathed him and we all got into bed together to snuggle for half an hour. The nurse and doctor who were with us for the delivery were great--very willing to have us use alternative pushing techniques.

So did the hypnobirthing work? It kept me calm--the whole labor was very calm and almost meditative for me. I used hypnobirthing to relax through contractions--I listened to the relaxation CD and Micah read some scripts to me. I needed it completely quiet during contractions--the only thing I felt comfortable doing was closing my eyes and breathing out very slowly while moaning. (My mom called it humming, I think of it as lowing like a cow.) I eventually became overwhelmed with contractions (also not dilating at all was worrying me) so opted to use drugs.