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When did you realize you were really in labor?
Contractions began around midnight and felt very different than Braxton Hicks-they woke me up. I couldn’t lay down without them feeling worse and had to keep going to the bathroom. They were consistently about 10-15mins apart to start.
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What was the most challenging thing about going natural?
Sticking to my beliefs during prenatal doctor appointments and at the hospital since they always tried to talk me into other things. I was able to work with the midwife staff so they were more natural minded than the OBGYNs would have been. Unfortunately, we don’t live close enough to a hospital to have a home birth and there are no birthing centers around us either.
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What was the most helpful thing you did to prepare for childbirth?
The Mama Natural Birth Course! , My husband and my Mom (who both attended the birth) also watched the videos to prepare.
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What surprised you about your birth?
I was able to have a completely unmedicated water birth but once I moved to the bed to hold my baby and deliver the placenta, I lost a lot of blood. Looking back, I think the midwife tugged on the cord and pulled on the placenta before I was ready to deliver (this was only 10 minutes or less after delivery). I was told they would wait to deliver the placenta and I declined pitocin in my birth plan. The situation quickly turned into an emergency as I lost about 3 pints of blood and they needed to give me pitocin. I plan to question the midwife further at my 6 weeks check up to see how I can avoid this for the future.
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Surreal. It was hard to believe she was really here and that she was inside my belly!
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What pain relief strategies worked best?
Being in water and counterpressure on my back during contractions. My baby was in the posterior position so I also had painful back labor, which caused pushing to take longer.
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What position did you end up delivering in?
Facing upwards and slightly to the left in the water.
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How did it feel to hold your baby for the first time?
Surreal. It was hard to believe she was really here and that she was inside my belly!
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How did the Mama Natural Birth Class help you in your childbirth?
It helped me have confidence in telling the doctors what we wanted instead of giving into their standard procedures. Sometimes I think they didn’t understand why we would do anything differently than the norm, so I hope I was able to influence the doctors to look at the other side of things in the future too.
