Full Circle Midwifery

This woman is a former client, but moved to the other side of the state.  She gave me permission to share her great birth story!

Here’s my vba2c birth story for Freddie:

Tuesday May 5th:
I was making breakfast at 8 am when my water broke! The fluid was clear. The rest of the day I waited for contractions to start and tried to rest and keep my mind off of things. But the only thing I really felt was a little menstrual cramp type of feeling in my back. My midwife came over twice to listen to the baby’s heart beat and check position. Everything was looking good just no contractions. I also was taking my temperature every 6 hours. She gave us some suggestions on different positions and things I could try to get labor going. We tried them all to no avail. So we decided to go to bed early and hope that we got woken up in the middle of the night with some good strong contractions.

Wednesday May 6:
I woke up with still no contractions!! We spent the day walking and walking and doing pelvic rocks all to no avail. I even went to the chiropractor and got adjusted. Labor was just not starting on its own. At this point it was 5pm and my water had been broken well beyond the 24 hour mark. We decided it was time to go to the hospital because we didn’t want to wait so long that the hospital would limit my options to another repeat c/s. We got to the hospital at 6:30. The doctor we met with was super supportive of vbac even after 2 c/s which was a HUGE relief. They had to check to see if my water really had broken and while they did that they checked my cervix and I was not dilated at all and really thick. The plan was to do a foley catheter and pitocin. It took awhile to get us to a room and everything because we got to the hospital right at shift change. But we finally got settled in our room and they put me on the pitocin and put in the foley catheter at 11pm. When she put it in I had dilated to 1 cm on my own. According to the monitors I was having contractions I just couldn’t feel them. The catheter is not very comfortable at all. Lots of pressure as it dilates your cervix.
Thursday May 7:
At 12:30am my nurse came in to give another tug on the catheter and it popped out! Which meant I was dilated to 4cm. At this point the contractions were in full swing coming every 2 minutes and making me work through them. I continued laboring through the night. Around 8 in the morning I was checked and was at 6 cm. I was completely exhausted at this point and would literally fall asleep in between contractions. And I was not able to cope through them anymore. I was a mess. We were getting worried that I wasn’t going to have enough energy when it came time to push so I got an epidural. It was 9:30am when the epidural was put in. They kept it really light so I could still move my legs and feel the pressure of my cervix dilating but none of the pain. Finally I could sleep! It was heavenly. I slept for just over 2 hours. Then the pressure was getting really intense. And I said to my husband completely dumbfounded-I think I need to push. So the nurse came and called the doctor and she checked me out and I was complete! Patrice I couldn’t believe it. So the doctor had me do a few practice pushes during the next few contractions so she could sort of gauge how I was going to do. She warned me that I was basically a first time mom in this respect because I had never done this before and it could take me 2 hours to push the baby out. Well I surprised everyone and pushed him out in 20 minutes! He was born at 12:56pm. When I gave the final push and they put him up on my chest I couldn’t believe it. All I could do was cry and say over and over I did it! I did it! I did it! My husband was crying. It was the most amazing and healing moment of my life. And I still have a hard time believing it actually happened!!

Frederick Graham was 7 lbs 4 oz. and 20.25 inches long. I worked really hard this pregnancy to make a smaller baby. My first two were 9lb 5 oz and 10 lb. 4 oz. I really think working out and watching what I ate really made all the difference.

I did get a 2nd degree tear and it’s been surprising to me how I can be so sore from that but still feeling so good. This is so much better than c/s recovery! I am really happy with my birth experience. The hospital was amazing and everyone was super supportive even though we were the weird home birth transfers.

He is a great nurser!! He sticks to about every 2 hours and is doing really well. He had a bit of jaundice but that’s fading. He is such a sweet baby and hardly cries at all. His older siblings just love him.