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Having my first child was a blessing that I can’t even begin to describe. I’m sure other mothers can relate as well.
The nine month period took forever, of course. I couldn’t wait to be out of pregnancy and have my sweet little one. I was very active my entire pregnancy, ate well, walked all of the time, ate dates, molasses, drank herbal teas, anything I could think of or find that would help my baby come out, I did. (Minus the castor oil. I had way too many people tell me it wasn’t worth it.) Everything was attempted repeatedly. Nothing worked. Finally, the day before her due date, (I know, I was trying to get her out early) my husband challenged me to walk around the lake with him, three times. 7.6 miles. He knew I couldn’t turn down a challenge. I walked the lake once every day, on occasion, twice. But this was a new thing. I of course, couldn’t turn him down, and took the challenge. My water broke at two am that night.
At first I was hesitant to wake my husband, because I had heard that when your water broke, it was this flood that went everywhere. But it wasn’t in my case. It was just a trickle. But I was sure I was feeling mild contractions too. But as I had been hopeful before, (though I hadn’t alerted anyone before) I waited for a bit. Finally, I woke my husband up and said that I thought my water had broken. We assumed it was a little trickle because Cassie was already way down low, (had been for about two months) due to me exercising so much. So her head was acting as a cork. My midwife had been impressed whe she’d seen how low she was. So we had assumed she would come early. But she didn’t.
My husband was pretty sure that I was going into labor too, but we decided not to call the midwife for awhile, just to make sure. However, after about twenty minutes, my contractions went from mild to excruciating. After about two hours, my husband said that I should call the midwife. Because he thought it sounded pretty intense, (and it was!) so we called.
She listened to me over the phone, and began timing my contractions. Pretty quickly she said she was going to pack up her supplies and head up. She lived about an hour away. I kept thinking that the contractions couldn’t get any stronger or more painful, but I was wrong every time. In the hour it took to reach us, my contractions were even stronger, and much closer together. After she checked me out, and asked how I was doing and several other questions she needed to know, she began setting things up. After only a little bit of her being in our home, she told me she thought she should check dilation, as it sounded like I might be coming up on the pushing phase. It had been five hours already, so we checked.
I was at zero. Five hours of hard labor, and I hadn’t dilated at all! I almost cried. She gave me some arnica to help begin the dilation, and the contractions continued. After about another two hours, she said that I was at three centimeters. So we kept waiting. She and Paul “bullied me”, having me get up continuously and move around to open everything up and help move the baby down and get my body ready. It was tough, I just wanted to curl up into a ball. (Which is really hard to do nine months pregnant!) But I did what they said. They had me get in and out of the tub multiple times to help with the pain. And it certainly was a blissful moment every time I got in. The warm water helped lower the pain level considerably. My family and friends had thought I was crazy for insisting on doing an unmedicated home birth. At this point, I was in agreement with them!
Paul was such an amazing help to me. He wouldn’t let me rest from moving to improve my position to better align my hips for the baby, and coached me through it. I couldn’t have asked for better help from him. He was truly amazing. After awhile, we got to five centimeters. After another three hours, it was six centimeters. Obviously I was not happy with how slow it was going.
Fast forward to when I was finally at nine centimeters. My body switched to the pushing phase, and I wasn’t fully dilated! Cassie was stuck, and my body was working hard. My midwife checked and apparently the cervical lip was pinned between my bone, and Cassie’s head. However, after we managed to untuck it, Cassie came out fast. In only a few pushes. Paul got to catch her and hand her to me, and while I cuddled my daughter after an exhausting day, after fourteen houros of labor, I marveled at her, and how God had designed my body to handle this.
Apparently the reason my labor had been more difficult that was expected was because Cassie was posterior. (Sunny side up.) Which made the whole process far more difficult. My midwife said that if I hadn’t kept myself so fit, I would have been transferred to to the hospital due to exhaustion. But because I had good endurance levels, I could keep going.
She has been such a happy baby, full of life, strong, and full of smiles. Latching her was no problem, she seemed to know what to do better than I did! Aside from having a wonderful daughter added to our family, the whole experience of labor, as awful as it was, brought my husband and I closer together. Me because I couldn’t believe how patient and supportive he was the whole time, and him because he couldn’t believe how strong I was and how much I could handle. I might be insane, but I imagine for the next one I will again be doing and unmedicated home birth, just because I’ve researched how much better it is for the mom and the baby. (Even if it’s so much harder!)
We were both excited to be parents, and Paul had a hard time handing Cassie back to me even when she needed to be fed since he wanted to cuddle her so much! We are truly blessed, and love her so much. And Paul keeps reminding me; only five more to go!