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When did you realize you were really in labor?
When I woke up and realized the bed around me was wet.
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What was the most challenging thing about going natural?
I think my labor would have been challenging with pain relit actually. My midwife and her team worked with what I was feeling and I was able to push her from a posterior position to anterior during crowning. We also worked together to direct the tearing away from my anus and urethra. That level of precision would have been difficult with an epidural.
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What was the most helpful thing you did to prepare for childbirth?
Found a good midwife who had a whole team. My labor was 10 hours long. The 4 of them arrived at my home an hour and a half after my water broke. They stayed until she was born at 2:30, guiding me through each contraction and telling my husband and mother what to do to help. I never had then sense I needed a doula- each of them took turns helping me through it emotionally. In fact, if I could have just one support person, it would have been the midwives assistant, Naomi, (yes, I'd choose her over my husband). She sat next to the bathtub and breathed with me through the worst hour of the birth- when I was 9cm dilated but already pushing.
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What surprised you about your birth?
How long it took. By the time the midwives arrived at home my contractions were 4 minutes apart. I call them train wreck contractions. Nothing like waking up to that at 4:30 on the morning- no warm up whatsoever. So it surprised me that it took so long after transition to get her out. It makes sense now that we know that she started out posterior.
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What pain relief strategies worked best?
Growling. Listening to Enya. Yelling. Water. Changing positions. What didn't work: all the cute massages we learned in our birth class. I couldn't stand Anyone touching me. Curiously, I despised counter-pressure on my back.
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What position did you end up delivering in?
I pushed on hands and knees, but once the midwife noticed a lot of bulging near my anus she suggested getting on my back on the bed to protect it from tearing. On my next push on the bed her head started turning. The midwives were in shock, then their excitement was palpable. Shortly thereafter I delivered her with my husband holding up my shoulders, my mom and the infant nurse holding my legs up, the midwives assistant holding my anus and urethra to avoid tearing, and someone else catching the baby (funny I don't remember who).
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How did it feel to hold your baby for the first time?
Overwhelming. I practically cry screamed "our lives are changed forever!"
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What advice can you give to other mamas who want to go natural?
Set up your team to be as supportive as possible. And trust yourself about your birth location. I really wanted to birth at home, but I didn't want to be further from the hospital or make my husband clean up the mess. At first I thought I was being selfish for wanting to birth at home- then I realized that in order to feel strong and in control of my birth I needed to be in the location I was most at home in. I read positive birth stories, I watched you tube birth videos, and read quite a few books. That mentally prepared me. My midwives told me afterwards that I pushed more effectively than most first time mom's, and that they had never seen a posterior birth go so smoothly with so little cursing. Though I wouldn't call childbirth orgasmic- or even pleasant- I never lost faith in myself and I attribute that to strong mental preparation, the right location, and an amazing team.