Your best birth stories

Cyndel - posted on 01/20/2011

Now it is time to finish...
About ten minutes into pushing the Midwife made me stand. My feet were going a little numb from the bars of the birth stool, My water broke just before i stood. I hated standing so a squatted until I was almost sitting on the ground. I pushed for about 15 more minutes to crown him, then I had to stand up so there was room for him to come out, once his head was out he kind of fell out the rest of the way. They handed him to me and laid me on the bed a couple of feet behind me, covered him in a couple of warmed receiving blankets (he needed both he was so big) and stitched me up for an hour (Not exagerating). My feet were so cold and the one thing I forgot to pack were clean socks. So my dad had to run to the store down the street to buy a pack of socks.
It took us about five minutes to remember to look and see if he was the boy we thought. And he was.
A few hours later the weighed and measured him, he was 9lbs 15oz, 20 inches long, 14 inch head and chest. he had a deep voiced cry. I look back at those pictures surprised at the fat rolls he already had. His feet were so big that he already couldn't fit in newborn socks. He went home sockless because I hadn't brought the larger sizes that were still in the package at home.
Any way it was a wonderful birth. My husband said later when they handed him to me I had a confused and surprised look on my face and litterally said, "Is that all? Its over already?"
As I said earlier, I had hear horror stories of looooooooong labors and loooooots of pushing. Mine felt like it took no time at all. A few hours later I was thinking about the other children we planned on having (5 all together) and knew I could do it, and I didn't dread it, since i knew I wouldn't be hurting still when labor started. In fact I dread the first two weeks of nursing this child more then the labor.
Anyway that is my wonderful birth story. hopefully my next will be even better.

Cyndel - posted on 08/29/2010

Thanks ladies for your birth stories, I didn't have time to go into the details of my birth story when I posted the question so here goes:
I woke up at 2:01 am, which I know because I looked at my phone before going pee. In the bathroom I noticed my underwear was a little wet but I thought I had simply leaked a little before waking. When I got back to my room I changed my underwear then laid back down and felt my first contraction a minute or so later. As I had not had any braxton-hicks that I could feel up to this point, and my due date had been the day before I began to wonder, about ten minutes later I had another slightly stronger, I wasn't going back to sleep so I got up and read some chapters in Psalms that I had been studying that week, after about thirty minutes I went and finished last minute packing just in case and went back to bed having not had any more contractions. The moment I laid down I had another contraction, then only a couple of minutes later another one that was noticably harder then the previous. I decided to go sit in the bath because that always makes me feel better when I'm hurting or sick but it only seemed to make the two I had in there worse, so I went and laid back down within the next five minutes I had two more each harder then the last. I woke my hubby up and said I was in labor. He had just finished working 12day-12hour shifts in a row and had only been asleep for about three and a half hours when I woke him, and he muttered something and fell back asleep (he is incredibly difficult to wake once he is asleep).
I suffered through two more contractions, again each becoming increasingly and destinctly harder, before shaking him awake. He helped me to the bath and held the trash for me as I threw up, called the midwife who talked to me through two contractions which I couldn't talk through after only two hours since my first contraction and told us to come to the maternity center.
I threw up once more before leaving, and again for the last time when we first arrived at the center. We arrived at the Maternity Center at 5:40am more then 3 1/2 hours after my first contraction, when they examined me I was 6cm-75%effaced, and my sons head was resting on my cervix.
I found that I'm very vocal during labor. Focusing on the sounds I made really helped, as well as conciously relaxing every muscle in my body from my elbows down, I HAD to tense something or I was going to go crazy, so I tensed my forearms and hands while relaxing everything else. Praise the Lord that I was able to sleep between contractions.
At around 9:00 (I only know this because of when my son was born and because my mother paid attention to about how long I pushed) I was fully dialated and 90% effaced, they decided to put me on the birthing stool, it only took 10 minutes to efface the rest of the way.

Krista - posted on 08/20/2010

Mary, we didn't find out the sex of our babies either and also forgot to check once he was born. Too wrapped up in the moment to really care at that point I guess. I loved not knowing and having that surprise after a long day. My first son is now also 2!

Mary - posted on 08/19/2010

Its hard to keep it short, but here goes. I had a 14 hour labor w/ my daughter (now 2). My first contractions started around 4pm on a Sunday. I did some last minute preparation and relaxed w/ my husband for the first 8 hours or so. The pain was very manageable. Around midnight we tried to sleep, but the contractions became too strong to get any rest. We walked around the house and my husband helped me work through the contractions. I found it helpful to push against a wall during the contractions or go outside for fresh air. Around 3am my doula came over to the house and realized that the labor was progressing. She pushed against my hips to alleviate the pain during the contractions. We got to the hospital around 4am. I insisted on walking to the L&D unit, getting to know the hallway wallpaper really well as I leaned into the walls during the contractions. They were pretty intense at this point but still I could deal with the amount of pain for the minute or two length of the contractions. When the midwife checked me, I had dialated to 9cm! Everyone respected my birth plan requesting no epidural. They insisted on oxygen and IV fluids to hydrate me, but no one pushed pain drugs. My water broke on the hospital bed with a big whoosh of fluid! It helped me to yell during the contractions because they were all consuming at this point. It's amusing that I had to reassure the staff that I was OK, but that yelling was my coping mechanism. I visualized the contractions as hills. Going up was tough, but then eventually I reached the peak and the pain would subside. Around 5am I was fully dialated and started pushing. It took a few tried to focus my breathing and muscles and holding my legs. I could feel the baby moving in the birth canal - a bit forward and then a little back after each contraction. I had to focus inward and work so hard that the time passed quickly. I pushed for 45 minutes total. Once the baby was born it was the biggest physical relief of my life. Such an amazing moment! The midwife put her on my belly and we just marveled at the miracle. We had chosen not to find out the sex of the baby during the pregnancy and everyone forgot to check whether it was a boy or girl at first. We were just so thrilled w/ our little one that it didn't matter whether the baby was a boy or girl. Finally the midwife remembered to look and we were excited find out we had a baby girl! The sun just risen and we took in the beautiful view of the sky w/ our precious baby.

Krista - posted on 07/12/2010

Both my sons were born at the independent birth center in CT. The first was a pretty long labor (16+ hrs) but that is because he was "sunny side up" rather than face down. My second was born in a birthing tub after I drove myself because my husband was on an interview in Texas. lol. That one only took 5 hours. Anyway, both were completely born naturally with zero intervention.