Mia's Birth Story

Our Birth Story with Mia Elizabeth Rose

I’ve always wanted a natural childbirth. No pain meds, no interventions, just simply trying to let my body do what it was meant to do on its own. With Nataleigh I did end up getting an epidural at around 6/7 cm. By that time I had labored for over 24 hours and had terrible lower back contractions that were not being relieved. We went with a doctor in a hospital where natural childbirth wasn’t encouraged. I could have gone with a doula but that was too costly. I really wanted a midwife but we moved in the middle of the pregnancy and I had no idea where to even begin looking.
This time was going to be different. There was no doubt about it. Chris and I both saw how incredible of an experience it can be to birth a baby and with our health there was no reason to give it a try. We felt like we missed out on so much because birth is such a beautiful experience. We didn’t want to look at giving birth as something that was in need of a cure but rather a natural process that would happen if we let it.
As soon as it was time for my yearly I began seeing a Certified Nurse Midwife practice. I really liked what I heard when I began asking questions about natural childbirth and how I could even go about doing that in a hospital setting. So, this was the route we chose when we got pregnant with Mia. A few months into my pregnancy I was really intrigued by something two of my college friends had used with their second births. This was HypnoBabies (www.hypnobabies.com), using Hypnosis as anesthesia during childbirth. I contacted these friends and read up online about HypnoBabies. My friend said she would send me all of the material if we decided we were going to use this. This was a complete childbirth class that Chris and I taught to ourselves beginning around 26 weeks (I believe). There were scripts that taught me hypnosis and I would listen to one every day. There were also positive pregnancy affirmations that I would listen to each day. So, basically it was all about staying positive and relaxing in order to have hypnosis be my only anesthesia.
It was Friday afternoon, the day before my “guess date” and I was taking my normal afternoon snooze while Nataleigh was napping. Chris was home, as Friday is his day off. I began feeling some contractions. We started timing them and they were 10-15 min apart. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and the contractions started being closer together so we called my in-laws and we met them for dinner and they took Nataleigh. We ran a couple of errands after dinner and then walked around the mall. We continued to time the contractions and they were about the same. We tried to sleep that night but I couldn’t fall asleep until I completed some little things around the house.☺ I slept a little bit that night but not much. The next morning we woke up and began timing them and they weren’t too consistent. I continued to sit on my birthing ball all morning. We went to the park and walked around and I was having them about every 5 minutes. When we came home they tapered off and sometimes the contractions were 30-45 minutes apart…It was so strange. The afternoon came and the contractions were still far apart. We called a few people at this point to see how “normal” this was. With Nataleigh my contractions came and progressed and never tapered like that –just confirms how every pregnancy is different! We took a walk around the neighborhood and the contractions picked up again but still not close enough together. That evening we took a really long walk to Walgreens (I had pictures to pick up) and they really began getting close. We attempted to go to bed but I just couldn’t get comfortable. Around 11pm we went to the hospital and for the first time I was checked to see how much I was dilated. I was a 3-4. In Hypnobabies we were encouraged to go home if it was less than a 4. I knew how quickly I had progressed with Nataleigh just by walking so we decided to stay. We chose to go to bed as soon as we got into our labor and delivery room so we could get some rest since it was nighttime. We were in and out of sleep until about 6am. That morning the midwife came to check me and I was dilated to a 4/5. We then walked the halls and I sat on the birthing ball for awhile. She was going to come back at noon to check me again to see if I had progressed. I felt the contractions tapering off once again and knew we probably hadn’t made too much progress. I was right, I hadn’t progressed AT ALL! ☹ She told me I had two options: I could stay, but they would probably intervene if I did, or I could go home and labor some more. We of course chose to go home but it felt so strange to leave after being admitted, etc. It felt so right though and I am so thankful we did! When we arrived at home my mom was there with Nataleigh. It was strange to go home with out a baby in our arms but we were determined to let my body do what it needed to do on its own time. I enjoyed seeing Nataleigh but felt bad whenever I did get a contraction and Nataleigh didn’t understand. My mom, Nataleigh and I took a walk after dinner (it felt so good to eat something when we came home I pigged out!) My contractions did pick back up again but I just continued to take each one as they came and didn’t dwell on when this baby would actually come. We went to bed around 9pm and my pain began to increase. By 2am I couldn’t take it any longer in the bed so I woke up Chris and came downstairs to sit on the birthing ball. I made it to all fours and not the birthing ball as that was more comfortable. I told Chris it was time to go and that he better go get the car. He called and told the midwife we would be back soon because I was more than likely in transition. Before we left the house I had Chris grab a bowl so I could puke if I needed to in the car. I grabbed my flip-flops (with my socks still on) and got to the car as quickly as I could. I got in the back seat and tried to get as comfortable as possible and off we went back to the hospital. I couldn’t even look at how Chris was driving and once we got to the hospital I needed the wheelchair because walking was not an option at that point. Our room was left untouched and we just went back in knowing this time we wouldn’t leave that room without a baby! The midwife checked me and I was 6/7 cm. They began to fill the tub because I wanted to finish laboring in the tub. It was so relaxing and I continued to progress very nicely. When I was checked towards the end the nurses were so excited to see if I was a 10-you could tell they loved their job and couldn’t wait to see this birth! The nurses couldn’t believe how relaxed I was during transition and when I was a 10 they were really shocked. So at 10 cm my water still had yet to break and I wasn’t having any more contractions and not progressing so I had them break my water to get things moving. I kept going back and forth with wanting a water birth – it was hard for me to “feel” anything when it came time to push. So as I was getting out of the tub to move to the bed where I felt I could have a little more control, thanks to gravity, I finally had the first urge to bear down. I felt like the baby was going to fall right out of me (I didn’t know this feeling because of having an epidural with Nataleigh). I made it to the bed and felt most comfortable on all fours and then laying on my left side as I pushed. One nurse put pressure on my back with her fist while I pushed, as I once again had really bad lower back pain but this time I was thankful to have someone naturally help with that instead of having an epidural to relieve my pain. For an hour I pushed and Mia entered this world at 10:28am. (side note: Out our labor/delivery window you could see the atrium and I don’t ever remember hearing the noise from there until the end of pushing when I thought I heard Nataleigh saying “PaPaw”. I found out later that they hadn’t even arrived to the hospital at that point. There was nothing more encouraging than hearing her little voice for some extra motivation to birth Mia so with a couple more pushes Mia came.) They put her right on my chest immediately after she was born and I got to hold and nurse her for a long time. With a couple of pushes the placenta was delivered. It was such a beautiful experience as I got to feel the whole process. I got to see just how my body was made for this. I had a 1st degree tear which is much more bearable than the 3rd degree episiotomy I had with Nataleigh.
I’m so thankful for this beautiful experience! At 35 weeks Mia was breech and it was so discouraging because we were hoping for a natural birth and we had been so diligent with our Hypnosis class (something that needed to be worked on every day). My midwife gave me natural things to try and I researched online (inversions on the couch, bag of frozen veggies where we thought the head was, crawling around on all fours, talking to Mia where her head should be, laying on my left side, not leaning back in the couch or putting my feet up higher than my pelvis). At 37 weeks we had an ultrasound that would check the positioning and the fluid and praise the Lord she was head down, all ready to go!! Who knows what actually worked all I know is that we did what we could and prayed a lot!
So, did hypnosis work? Yes! Was it the only thing I used to get through this birth? No! God was first priority in my birthing experience and hypnosis was a state of being I chose to be in. I chose to be relaxed, calm, focused and positive.
Natural childbirth is something I strongly believe in. Some day I would like to do something with these strong beliefs. One thing I’m looking into for when our children are grown is being a doula. Ever since my sister-in-law’s home birth with her first child I’ve never been able to shake this huge passion I have for the birthing experience.