Member Questions

I have 2 wonderful little girls with wonderful birth stories to match. Both of my daughters were natural childbirth in a birthing center in NY, however my second daughter was a water birth. In order to make a long story short, I knew I wanted natural birth, no drugs and a midwife only. ( unless the baby was in danger)

My first daughter I was in labor for 16 hours, no drugs, but my midwife spoke to me with the help of my husband and I had the mental ability to push her out. ( and it was the hardest thing I have ever dine, and I am very proud)

My second daughter, I wanted to do something different, I remained with my midwife however I opted for a "water birth" at the birthing center. Having a water birth in a jacuzzi does not help with the pain, it is a great experience and something I am proud of. And my first daugheter was able to see her sister born in the water, that was a great moment for me. But by no means think that have a baby in the water is going to alliviate any pain!!!!.. NO WAY!!! But you will experience something with the assistance of your midwife or doula you will have something you will remember for years and be proud of yourself for. No drugs!!! I truly beleive that women are made to have children naturally without assitance from drugs. All you need are positve people and words of encouragment in your ear at during the childbirth process.

My first was induced. I was a week and a half late. I had my mother and mother - in - law staying with me and they would both look at me everyday like they were waiting for paint to dry, so I begged to be induced. I actually first asked for a C-section because I had a feeling that's what I would need. The Doc said no.

Potosum, then broke my water...slowly dialated. 17 hrs later....

Epidural guy was MIA in the hospital. Felt contractions...epi guy arrives...AAAAH! I felt relief.

My little guy still wouldn't come out. Failed vacuum.

Well, what do you know "EMERGENCY C" I ran a fever.

Then my lil guy had a rough start and was rushed to NICU 8 hrs. later.
He's o.k.. now.

2nd one:

My Dr. :"How would you like to proceed..C-Section or V?"
Me: C...C....C.....and I LOVED IT!!! 20 minutes and DONE!

Nothing went according to plan. The plan was to have an at home water birth with a midwife. Two days before my daughter was born the midwife came to strip my membranes and made the unpleasant discovery that our little one was breech. The next day my contractions started, and tried everything to get her to turn (including going to the local pool and doing underwater handstands, laying upside down on an inverted ironing board with frozen veggies on my belly and burning moxie sticks between my toes.)

The contractions continued, so I eventually had to go to the hospital where they were going to try to turn her manually. They got me prepped for a c-section before-hand in case things went badly. The doctor tried to turn babyjama but she wouldn't budge and her heartrate started to fall. They took her out QUICKLY. I was pretty upset about the whole thing at first. I had really looked forward to the experience of giving birth. I still look forward to the experience, but I don't feel like I was a failure anymore for my first experience. I hope to VBAC in the future!

Oh my gosh! Just know that it is different every time. I have two and they were both very different, night and day.

Gracious. Time for some happy birth stories! I've had three.

#1: 16 hours. Woke at 11 p.m. with a contractions, but stayed in bed and slept between them. By five in the morning, I was too uncomfortable to sleep at all, and we went to hospital. They told me I was 2 cm and to go home until the contractions were 5 min or less apart.

"FINE!" I said. "I am not going back until I KNOW this is really happening!" So we went home, and I paced, and I did the breathing, and I leaned against the wall with the contractions. I ate a little when I was hungry, sipped water when I was thirsty, I paced and breathed and paced and breathed...

At noon, we went back. I was five cm! By 2:30, I was fully dilated and pushing, and at 3:16 p.m., I held my perfect baby girl in my arms. No drugs, no episiotomy.

#2: It might have been the way he was sitting, but I had a lot of back pain with this prenancy. In the last month, it had gotten so bad, and I needed so many pillows to make me comfortable, that I was sleeping on the pull-out couch in the livingroom. (Strangely, it was more comfy to me than our bed.) One night, about 5 days after he was due, the backache was particularly strong.

I reached around behind me for one of the masses of pillows to tuck between my legs, when I felt a sort of a "POP"... and my thighs were wet. 12:05 a.m., and my waters had broken. With that, the contractions started, hard, fast and fierce. (Of course, that "particularly bad backache" all day had likely been contractions...)

We headed out immediately to the hospital. We had only been there a few minutes when it was time to push. It was all going so fast, that I panicked and started to scream. The midwife (my doc hadn't arrived yet) pushed her face into mine and said very sternly, "You are NOT helping yourself." It was exactly what I needed. I took a deep breath and started to push. Four pushed later, he was born, all 9 lb, 10 oz of him -- at 1:34 a.m. -- only 89 minutes after my water broke! (And no tearing, only some "skid marks".)

#3: With a precipitous birth in our history, we considered a home birth for the third, but midwives weren't then covered under our health care, so we couldn't afford it. (Better safe at home, we figured, than in a car on the way to the hospital!) With home birth not an option, we scoped out a really nice birthing centre, staffed by midwives, in a nearby hospital. I was teaching prenatal classes at the time, and so gave my two older kids (then 7 and 4) some child-focussed labour prep, too, because they were coming to the birth.

I was woken at three a.m. by the contractions. I had breakfast, and when the older two kids woke up, we started going for walks around the block. My husband timed the contractions, and my seven-year-old wrote them down in a chart. (I still have that. So sweet!)

We headed for the birthing centre, where our friend (who would be tending to the older children while my husband tended to me) was waiting. We walked around the rooms, we breathed, we chatted between contractions. We cooed over my friend's 3-month-old baby, who, being breastfed, was with mama.

When the time came to push, I did NOT want to be leaning back, so the midwives raised the top of the bed to make a chair-shaped bed, and I kneeled on the lower part while leaning into the upper. The midwives were behind me. At 11:46 a.m., just about 9 hours after the first contraction, my baby girl was born.

"Why is she all purple like that?" my 4-year-old wanted to know.
"She just hasn't started breathing air yet," his 7-year-old sister informed him. "Just wait a minute and she'll turn pink." (She's 22 now, and every bit as smart still.)

We bathed her and wrapped her up, then brought out the birthday cake with five candles -- one for each member of the family. We sang "Happy Birthday" to her, then her older sibs gave her the gifts they'd brought (loved old toys, too young for them now).

We went home five hours later.

Every birth is a miracle!

My first was three weeks late and had to be induced. I`m in Guatemala, so there was no pain relief, and the first induction attempt didn`t work. I ended up sitting there all day in the hospital bed, no food, waiting for the darn thing to kick in. Finally, they gave me another pill and at 9 pm I went into HARD labor. As in, it didn`t get worse, not even at the end, it was full on, 1 minute contractions every minute until 5 am. AWFUL! I was begging for a C-section. When I dilated to 6 cm, they put me on a metal gurney and took me to the hall outside the birthing room where I stayed, listening to other women have their babies. When I reached 10 and my body started to push, they told me to just wait because they were busy. :( Well, that baby wasn`t waiting. Not after all those hours of hard labor. He was born a minute after they got me onto the birthing table! It was a horrible experience. There were no doctors, only interns and they gave me an episiotomy, despite my telling them not to and botched it really badly. The girl who did it called a bunch of her friends over after to look at the mess she`d made. They were all peering at me going, "whoa, I`ve never seen that before." And wouldn`t tell me what. :S

Anyway, the second baby came along real fast after the first and I was totally stressed about the hospital experience and decided to have him at home. But he wouldn`t come out! Finally, my midwife had to go in for surgery and of course, I went into labor that day, but didn`t progress at all. So I went to my doctor and he did an ultrasound, told me the baby was out of amniotic fluid and stripped my membranes, saying I`d have to be induced if the baby wasn`t here by morning.

Well, I went into proper labor about an hour later and labored at home. Finally, I went to the hospital around 9 pm. The interns there checked me and I was only 1 cm, despite having been at 5 earlier in the afternoon. Just too much stress. So I went home, walked outside and hung onto my hubby until I seriously couldn`t move anymore and headed back at midnight. This time I was at 7 cm. so they let me in. It was a TOTALLY different experience. There were two female doctors who helped me breathe and were very sweet with me, not yelling for me to shut up like the interns had. And there were barely any other babies born that night (as opposed to THIRTY the night I had my first). When my second son came into the world, naturally and untraumatically, all the nurses oohed and ahhed over him and I was actually feeling pretty good!