Raphael is here! He was born on Sunday, August 6, at 4:06pm. The birth went really well. It was stressful for me from 0-3 cm. The midwife told me to use a birth ball and do a lot of walking and stuff, which I tried to do, but it made me really tense and feeling lots of pain and intense pressure.
I decided to just do my own thing, and so I laid on the my bed and put in the easy first stage of labor CD. Dilating from 3-9 was super easy as I used hypnosis for the "easy first stage of labor". I was basically "asleep" for it, and "woke" up to feeling the baby moving really fast up towards my cervix, which freaked me out. I was afraid I was about to birth my baby all alone as my family was all outside playing in the hose with dd 2.yo., and I hadn't called the midwife to tell her to come back yet.
I had my cell phone, so I called the midwife, and it kind of threw my family for a loop when she was knocking at the door. She came upstairs, checked the baby's heartbeat, and then checked my cervix which she was very surprised to note was at nine. She had just visited me about 2.5. hours earlier when it was at 3 cm at 9:30 am, and she came back at about 12:30pm. She had told my family it would probably happen that night.
When I found out I was at nine, I hadn't expected to reach that stage so
quickly, and the plan had been that I would labor most of the time at home, and
then go to the hospital to push the baby out, so I was kind of freaked out. DH
and I decided that together, and it was a decision that made us both
comfortable. So, when I felt the baby almost at "the end", and me not where we
had decided to be for the birth, it made me feel very uncomfortable. I had set
up the finished basement as a place to give birth with all the supplies and
stuff "just in case", and after a quick conference, he agreed that it would be
okay with him.
We went downstairs, where I was listening to my hypnosis pushing CD, and
everybody was trying to quietly hurry to set everything up. Well, it didn't
happen as quickly as it felt like it was going to, and it was kind of a long
four hours, but I finally did it! and pushed that baby out! which was
terrifically exciting. His head came out, and then I gave another regular push
and his body practically flipped out and they put him directly on me. He was
looking around, and we were all cheering, and they suctioned him out, and he
cried and it was awesome.
He had been posterior but he finally turned during the pushing stage, and his
face was really red on one side. It still is a little bit, but he is doing
really well.
One bad thing about the experience, is the midwives told me to take out the
Push CD so they could help me find more effective pushing positions, but I think
it might have made it harder on me. I ended up tearing and needing a lot of
stitches, but other than that, it was a wonderful experience.
Kim