Ivy’s Birth – Very Similar to what Mom Visualized During Pregnancy
Here is my birth story, it was AMAZING. Below the birth story is my “perfect birth” that I visualized for hypnosis (I wrote it a few months ago). I thought I’d include it so you can see how my perfect birth really happened almost just as I had visualized it!!!!!
Ivy was born on October 6th 2009 at 6:01 am weighing 7 lbs 14 oz, 20 1/2 inches long!! The birth was everything I could have ever hoped for:
It was the evening of my due date and I didn’t have too many pressure waves(pw’s Hypnobabies word for contraction) that day, however I’ve been having them off and on for a few days now very consistently every evening. I went for a big walk that morning, and another big walk in the afternoon with Craig. Earlier that morning I got a text from Donna telling me that an hour after eating Eggplant Parmesan, she went into her birthing time (labor) with her daughter. So, even though it’s just an old wives tale, I decided I wanted Eggplant Parm!! We ordered from Vinny T’s and I had an early dinner around 5 pm.
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After dinner I decided to take my 22 month old Benji for a short walk. We got outside and chatted with our neighbor David for a few minutes. I told him how bummed I was that it was my due date and I hadn’t had her yet. I then saw little Sarah and her brother Zachary and talked to them for a few minutes. On my walk I didn’t have too many Pw’s like I had been having during previous walks this week. Right before we went home we saw Sarah again and she told me the story of how her brother came out just shortly after she talked to her mom’s belly and told him to come out. I told her you better tell this baby to come out too and maybe it will work!! So at 6 pm exactly, she told baby girl to come out very soon! I headed home, hoping that baby would come out so that I wouldn’t disappoint Sarah! haha.
I got home, fed Benji a little snack before putting him down to bed. After I put him down, I watched House and then went upstairs on the computer. Up on the computer I started getting pw’s!! Lots of them! However I had had false labor the last three nights in a row so I didn’t really think too much of it. I decided I better just try to get some sleep and see if they go away. I laid down in bed trying to go to sleep and they just seemed to get more intense. I started to feel a little nauseous and I thought it was the eggplant parm because I had eggplant parm before and it made me sick in the past.
I decided to try to take a shower to see if that would slow the pw’s down. After being in a shower for a while, they still didn’t slow down at all and I started to think it could possibly be “it”. I went downstairs to watch some TV with Craig and when I got down there, they finally started to slow down a little bit. So, I decided to go back upstairs and try to go to bed again. I went to lay down and they started picking up a lot! I called Craig up to tell him I thought that it “might” really be it this time.
I then threw up! I laid back down in bed and felt a tiny trickle of something and I thought, “My water broke!!!” But then when I went to look, I didn’t really see much fluid, but I still was pretty sure it broke. That was when we decided to call TBC. I called and spoke to Ann and told her I was having consistent pw’s and a trickle of fluid. She said to try to sleep through them and call around 8 am or when they got too intense to talk through and were 5 minutes apart.
I layed in bed trying to rest and listening to my Easy First Stage hypnosis track, going into hypnosis only during pw’s, but talking to Craig about the plans for the rest of the night with him. He was also going to try and sleep for a few hours. As we were talking, I explained to Craig that I could talk but needed to go into hypnosis during the waves.
Craig started to noticed that I was going into hypnosis very very often. I asked him if he could time them because I couldn’t do it as i had been before because it was getting too intense. I showed him how to use the Contraction Master on my iPhone. They were every 2:30 to 3:00 minutes. That’s when we decided it was time to call TBC back and probably head in. That was at 3:45 am.
Craig took a little while to get ready, call Anabel and his mom. At this point I was really ready to go in and thought we better hurry up. I said hello to Anabel very briefly in between waves, and then headed to get in the car. As I was walking out, I paused at the front door and leaned against the door to the basement to go into hypnosis for a wave. I then got in the car, put a towel on the seat “just in case” my water were to really break, turned on the heat and layed back in the seat waiting for Craig to come out and I listened to my hypnosis. Craig put everything in the trunk of the car and we left.
Craig drove nice and smoothly like I had asked him to before, I didn’t even have to remind him. I think it was at about the Wynnewood shopping center traffic light that my water BURST! It was huge. I continued to stay in hypnosis the rest of the drive, I looked up at the road once at the intersection of Wynnewood Rd and County Line and again when passing Haverford College. When we arrived in the parking lot, I just started to have a wave(although it was a soft one), so we waited a minute for me to get through it before getting out of the car. I held the towel between my legs as we walked up the the door and pressed the doorbell.
Ann met us at the door and showed us to the room. She asked me for a urine sample. When I went to pee, I also got amniotic fluid in the cup as it was pretty hard to reach down to hold the cup! After about 10 minutes or so, she came in to check my stats and do an internal. I was nervous she was going to tell me I was barely dilated and to go home or something, because the waves really weren’t as “bad” as I thought they might need to be to truly be in birthing time. I could still talk totally fine and smile and laugh between waves. But she checked and I was at 6 and -2 station(although I didn’t hear that part)already!!
After she checked me, at 4:38 pm Craig called Donna to tell her we were ready and to drive over. She was already in the parking lot waiting for us to call her, yay!!!!! I’m SO glad she did that. When Ann felt the baby, she was a bit posterior so she had me lay on the side of the bed with Craig supporting me by putting my one leg on him and hanging my belly off the side. I listened to my Hypnobabies Early Labor track for about an hour like that(although it went by SOOO fast).
In my mind, I still had a long time to go, however it was getting pretty intense. I just kept reminding myself that it was a choice I had to make to stay in hypnosis and that it would work if I allowed it to and that this was finally the moment I had been practicing for for all those many many hours every night. I imagined my safe place laying on the towel in the sand with the sun shining on my back, warming my skin, feeling perfectly comfortable and relaxed, especially my skin and watching my son Benjamin and husband Craig playing in the sand and water.
There were a few times i had to get up to use the bathroom. During that time I would have Craig follow me in and put his hand gently on my forehead and say “relax”. Craig was also really great because he really wanted to help with the hypnosis. At one point he asked me if he could turn off the hypnosis track so that he could talk me through it himself and he was AMAZING at it(even though he only practiced with me about two times), it was so great to hear his calming, loving voice. He had a tendency to try and move a bit and massage me(a very natural instinct I’m sure) but I kept reminding him to be perfectly still, it was very important to me that everyone be perfectly still. Between pressure waves I told them to rub me, but to stop as soon as one started.
Donna put pressure on my lower back with my warm rice bag I made(I ended up liking the brown one best because it was so smooth). I was able to talk and whatnot between waves and felt great, but soon realized that I needed to start to continually focus and not get distracted from my hypnosis. At this point I stayed in off position most of the time. I finally got to a point where I needed to move. I felt this intense need to get up and get some relief.
After a wave I said, “Okay, something needs to change right now, I need to get in the bath right now.” They told me it would take a few minutes to fill it up, so I went through I think two more waves and then got up(in center position) and got in the bath, laying on my right side facing the wall and went back into off position. It was at this point that things started getting extremely intense. I felt my belly with my hand during a wave and it was rock solid. I still felt like baby wasn’t very low though and thought I had a while to go.
This is when I felt as though I was losing control a bit. I started saying, “open, open, open” in a very deep, gutterly moan. I remember thinking that my voice actually sounded a bit like my son, like I reverted to a toddler for a few minutes. I then felt like I couldn’t handle another second of it. I began to think of how could I possibly get myself over to the hospital and how long it would take to find someone to put an epidural in me!! It was a fleeting thought that got me through that moment. I screamed in a deep, low moan, that kind of cracked my voice, “I can’t take it ANYMOOOOORE……….”. Someone( I think Sabrina) said some very calming things about how I COULD do it and I found her words to be very helpful and centering.
The nurse Sabrina or maybe it was the midwife Ann said, “Okay, you need to get out of the tub RIGHT NOW” The way it was said was very calm, yet firm and strong and it helped me to feel strong. When she said I had to get out, I didn’t think I could possibly do it, but I remembered watching one of those birthing shows and the exact same thing happening, so I knew it was time for the baby to come out and I had to find the strength to get out of the tub. Craig and Donna and everyone stood there to help me up. As I was getting up I felt down with my hand and felt the baby’s head and this intense burning feeling. I kept my hand there putting pressure because I felt like she was going to fall out while I was getting over to the bed and because it lessened the burning feeling. I made it to the edge of the bed, got on hands and knee’s and realized that she would come out.
No one said anything(that I remember anyway) and I realized it was the very moment i was waiting for, the time to push her out. Her head popped out during the first push and I pushed one more time and the rest of her came out. I did not look down until I realized she was out and I looked down and saw her between my legs. I waited just a moment before realizing that I could reach down and grab her and hold her, and that’s what I did. She was still attached to me and I held her in my lap. They put blankets all over her and dried her off a bit while I held her there.
She was born at 6:01 am, just six hours after I thought I “may” be in my birthing time, just an hour and a half after arriving at The Birth Center. I layed down with her on my chest and just a few minutes later, the placenta came out. I remember Ann saying, “OK, the placenta’s gonna come out now, but don’t worry, this one doesn’t have bones.” It just plopped right out. A little later she showed it to us and showed us the different parts which I thought was very cool, Craig was grossed out, haha. She then examined me and saw that I had a very small tear. She said I could get a stitch, or it could just heal by itself. I really didn’t want a stitch because I was scared it would hurt. Donna said, “oh get it” and Ann said, “well it’s her choice” and I was hesitant to get it, but then Ann said it was a little bigger than she originally thought and that I should get it. So I did. She did one small stitch at the bottom and one on the top left labia. They used some spray, but I could still feel the needle and it was a bit uncomfortable. I just tried to focus on the baby. The pressure waves continued after birth and were very intense, but at this point I didn’t feel like using my hypnosis because I just wanted to focus on my baby!!!!
The entire thing was so amazing and everything I could have EVER hoped for. It was truly my perfect birth, I think it was actually better than I visualized my perfect birth to be.
Okay and here is the birthing plan I had written out for The Birth Center and it was also what I had visualized every day:
Wake up around 8:30 am as usual! Go downstairs to put on coffee, eat my cereal in front of the TV, then bring coffee up and bring Benji into bed with us. Sit and drink our coffee in bed. Get up to pee cause I’m getting a braxton hicks and those things always make me have to pee. Get another braxton hicks about 20 minutes later. I soon noticed that I’m getting them more often than usual and they’re coming pretty regularly. I suddenly realize that I may be entering my birthing time, and in fact I am!
The pressure waves are coming regularly, about every 8 minutes and lasting about 45 seconds each. As soon as I realize that I am entering my birthing time I hope online and tell Facebook. I have Craig call Donna to tell her that it’s the day. I call the birth center. I They tell me to wait to come in until pressure waves are 5 minutes apart and last 1 minute each. I then grab one of my nut bars filled with protein, eat that as well as a nice bowl in quinoa and a large cup of raspberry leaf tea. I put my headphones on and practice having a loose, limp body to allow my body to do all the work. I feel pressure waves gaining strength which feels like a power higher than myself guiding my body to take care of me and my baby and guide her out of the womb. I listen to my different hypnosis tapes and during each pressure wave I choose to use the meditations and hypnosis that I’ve learned over the past few months. I make that decision every time a pressure wave comes and remind myself to stay calm as this power takes over, it is a strong and gentle power that is going to bring me to my baby so soon. Donna arrives and I ask her to bring Benji downstairs so I can be alone with Craig. I lay on the bed, get up, sit down, walk around the hall shaking my hips, and sitting on the birthing ball and doing whatever feels good. An hour and a half passes and the pressure waves stronger and closer together. By noon two hours have passed since I first thought I might be in labor and my pressure waves are lasting about a minute long and coming every 5 minutes. We decide that it’s time to head over to the birthing center so that I can get settled and enjoy a nice bath over there. We call Craig’s parents to come pick up Benji. Donna stays with Benji until his parents get there while Craig and I head over. Donna arrives 20 minutes behind us.
When I get to the birth center, they check my cervix and find that I am 6-7 cent. dilated. Craig sets up my blanket and pillow while I labor peacefully in hypnosis. He reminds me to drink my tea and juice. He also sets up my birth board that I made as a reminder to myself with many positive affirmations, as well as suggestions/reminders of things that I thought would be helpful to myself as well as my helpers Craig and Donna. At this point I am anxious to get back in the water to relieve some of the pressure on my back.
It’s now 1:30 pm, I’ve spent some time in the bath and I decide to get out and walk around a bit more. I try different positions recommended to me by my midwife, Donna and Craig. My helpers are now helping me with each pressure wave by doing the “Peace” cue and “Relax” cues. Earlier on I was spending some time in the “off” position, but i now find I need to spend more time in “Center”. My husband Craig will also probably need some reminders from The Birth Center staff on how to assist me best as well as reminders that this is a natural, normal and healthy process, though at times intense. In fact, I will probably also need those reminders!
As I birth I will continuously use my Hypnobabies cd’s, probably through my headphones. At about 3 pm I will be ready to push! At that time I will put on my “Pushing Baby Out” track on the regular speakers so that everyone can hear it to best assist me. (as suggested by the Hypnobabies program) I will not need an episiotomy and wish to tear naturally unless, given the midwife’s experience, she feels it is absolutely necessary. Pushing takes only a few pressure waves and the baby is in my arms! After the cord stops pulsing, either Craig or I are directed by the midwife to cut the cord. Donna is busy taking pictures. When the time is right, the nurse or midwife help Craig and I on how to wash the baby and dress her. We’d like to skip the eye drops that are often given to newborns. Donna will assist me with the baby’s first latch for breastfeeding as has been the tradition in our family when Benji was born.
