Natural Pregnancy Project

We happily welcomed our 4th baby, a daughter, on April 21.  I have
been reading up on painless childbirth and experienced one of the
most calming, empowering experiences from it.  We chose an unassisted
birth and it went perfectly.I had been having contractions on and off for days.  They were strong
but never close together, and had the tendency to fade away after a
few hours.  I was growing a bit weary and temptation to coax baby out
with castor oil or other measures entered my mind frequently.  I
decided to hold off; it was baby’s choice when to be born, not mine.
Her due date came and went, and the contractions took a rest for the
next two days.  I took this time to rest myself, taking naps and
snuggling with my kids while we waited.  Hubby and I commented to
each other how hungry we were, and realized we had been pigging out
this past week.  Perhaps it was anxiety, perhaps it was our
instinctive measure to stock up on calories for the upcoming birth.
He began to experience some sympathy pains, a symptom I’d never seen
in him with our older children. Sunday came.  The contractions came too,
on and off all day.  My friend called me that evening to chat and asked if
I was having contractions.  I was, but I didn’t think they were doing too much.
She advised I may be in labor.  We hung up a few minutes later, and
what she said must have triggered something inside me because the
contractions suddenly began to arrive closer together.  They were
strong but there was no pain.  I was pleasantly surprised by this.
About an hour later, I called my doulas and invited them over.  The
contractions were coming about 6 minutes apart, strong but peaceful.

We sat in the living room and talked, then took a brief walk around
midnight.  The air had grown a bit colder, so we came in after one
lap on the street.  The contractions came closer and closer.  I kept
wondering if nature was playing some joke on me.  I knew I was in
labor, but wasn’t it supposed to hurt?  How could I be so calm and
talkative during this phase?  It wasn’t what all the books said would
happen, and it wasn’t how my previous labors had gone.  My second
baby’s labor had been very peaceful, but there had still been a
considerable amount of pain toward the end, followed by a scary and
intense delivery.

One of my doulas needed to leave for awhile, which was fine with me.
I felt a bit guilty about having them there since I wasn’t really
putting them to work.  I wondered if they thought I was full of crap
about being in labor.  The contractions still came closer and closer
together.  Mentally I tallied up the minutes in between, and finally
noticed they were about 3 minutes apart.  Still, they didn’t feel
like I expected.  It was about 4 a.m. when she left, and shortly
after I wondered if I should try to sleep.  My other doula was
preparing to doze off for awhile, and I got up for the umpteenth time
to use the bathroom.  No sooner had I stood up when my water broke.
A gush ran out of me.  I started to laugh and headed to the
bathroom.  Nice, clear fluid that just kept coming.  I changed my
clothes and moved to the floor on my birthing ball.  The next couple
of contractions were less comfortable without the wonderful cushion
of water, but I focused on relaxing through them.

Hubby had been sleeping up until this point, and woke up just in time
to help with back labor.  The baby had descended and I was in pain.
I tried to labor on the floor, on the toilet, and standing, but
nothing seemed to help.  I finally  went to the bathroom one last
time and decided to lie in the bed and labor.  I was there for just a
few minutes when suddenly I was pushing.  I didn’t want to push lying
down so I got up and headed back to the living room.  A contraction
hit me and I went on all fours to push.  The force was so intense,
animal-like.  I was amazed that my body would do this all on its own;
all the other times I’d been in labor I was “coached” on what my body
already knew what to do.  This was different.  No one was going to
tell me when I was ready to push.  No one was going to tell me how to
push, when to push, where to push.  It was all on me.  I let go and
trusted my body.  Another surge went through me and I found myself
grunting with a noise I’d never heard myself make.  It came
instinctively.  With another push I felt baby’s head.  I stopped and
held it in my hand as it eased from my body.  It was the most surreal
experience.  Her head was wet and warm.  Once it was out I let her
shoulder pop out.  I thought my doula had started pulling on the baby
and yelled “You’re hurting me!” but it wasn’t her at all; it was just
the baby coming out.  Hubby looked over my shoulder and said, “It’s a
girl!”

I managed to move around the cord and see our daughter for the first
time.  She was beautiful.   I tried to bring her to my breast but her
cord was too short.  We wrapped her in warm towels and waited until
we could sterilize our scissors to cut her free.  Finally, the
placenta was ready and I birthed it into a bowl.  It caught in some
membrane and lay suspended in them for a few minutes (I have
pictures, it’s interesting).  Finally they released and I was able to
pull our baby to my chest.  She began to nurse and latched for a full
hour.  Our son and oldest daughter cut the cord and we put the
placenta in the fridge.  I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to eat
any raw since I haven’t really been having any issues with bleeding.
I will probably dry some for later.

We’ve just been falling in love with her since her arrival.  All the
kids want to hold the baby, especially our son.  He was disappointed
that we couldn’t give him a brother, but I think he will grow to love
being a big brother to sisters.

Jessica Vargas

[tags]unassisted home birth, peaceful homebirth, natural childbirth story[/tags]

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