The Business of Being Born Message Board

Baby’s Birth Date: 14 March 2006

Birth Story: I visited my lay midwife on Saturday. I’d been having contractions all morning, but no serious ones. I was checked and dilated to a 5. I thought this must be the day! I continued ALL that day, but right around bedtime they stopped. Nothing the next day and only a little activity on Monday. Finally, Tuesday morning around 5:30am things started going. I stayed in bed to get my rest and just deal with it. I told my husband and friend who came from out of town to assist in our birth, to just leave me alone. I had a notebook and pen and a clock by my bed. I would write the times down and let them evaluate them later. I did that until about noon and they decided it was time to get the midwives to the house.

Just around that time I went to the bathroom and when I wiped, it didn’t feel right. My husband checked and it didn’t look right. It didn’t look like cord or baby. Our midwife asked if we wanted to transport or wait for her to arrive and check things out. We decided to wait for her to check on it. So I went into the head and knees position on my bed and waited for over 40 minutes for her to arrive and check. She discovered nothing out of the ordinary. It had corrected itself (later we realized I had developed a prolapsed cervix due to multiple births and large babies). But I was dilated to a 10 and could push anytime. She told me to not worry about rushing, but to do what my body felt like doing. Brilliant advice considering when I got into the birthing tub my labor came to a screeching halt. I had maybe four mild contractions every hour for 2 hours. My husband ordered pizza for everyone and when the delivery guy was at the door asked if we were having a birthday party. He said “Yes, as a matter of fact!” After my 2 hour rest, my body decided it was time to get back to work. I had very little to no urge to push the entire time. I HATED to have to get out of the tub. The contractions would hit me one after another. I stayed in for all checks and monitoring.

I remember getting tired and asked for a pillow, which my husband put on my shoulder. It was distracting to have one shoulder warm and the other cold and it felt wonderful when my husband rested his hand on my other shoulder so I told him to leave it there. Which, of course, he did. I did 2 hours of this work until I felt this great urge to push so I turned over into a sitting position where everyone was now able to see the bag of waters bulging out. One push the bag breaks and there’s my baby’s head seriously crowning. I pushed again and his head was born. I stopped for a minute and touched his SO soft hair. The very next contraction he was born and I lifted him up onto my chest. He gently coughed and snuggled up with me. NO crying.

Side note: I’m terribly indecisive about names so I gave my husband a couple that I really liked for a boy and a girl and told him he could pick from my choices. After I delivered, he told me I had earned the right to name him. So, what was it going to be? Well, I didn’t WANT to be the one to pick. I said I didn’t know and to pick one. So he turns the camera toward my 7 year old son who was sick on the couch and asked him what we should name him. He blurts out “Jason”. Did I mention THAT wasn’t one of the choices!!! They ask if that’s ok and I say, “Sure”. And that’s what we stuck with. Jason was 9lbs even.