V called me at 4:30AM  to tell me she was having PW every 5 -10 minutes, since about 2:30.  She had showered and was moving around to make sure they stayed consistent.  Did I think she should head in to the hospital?  We talked a little bit more, she was worried she would get sent home, I suggest she listen to a CD and if her PW were still coming, she would probably want to go in. 

My DH was in London, so I called a doula friend to come and watch my boys.  I got ready to go, as I felt like this was it.  Indeed her DH called back about 40 min later and said they were on their way to the hospital.  I arrived not long after they did, about 6AM. 

She had gotten to skip triage, had a nurse that is a fellow Hypnobabies Instructor and was sitting on her birth ball, getting monitored and answering all the crazy questions they have to ask.  The funniest one was when the nurse asked, “Have you had any fertility problems?” 

V was 6cm dilated and having PW about every 5-7 minutes.  They had all the delivery equipment set up in the room, it seemed like birth was imminent.  V was cheerful, despite the fact that the baby was posterior and she was having back labor.  She was able to relax completely during each PW and was doing great! 

Things started to slow down, so we were doing lunges, belly lifts, walking around the room.  (The nurse didn’t want her in the hall in case her water broke and the baby was born in the hall.)  By the time Dr. K came in to say hi, her PW had spaced out to more like every 7-10 minutes.  V was worried, but Dr. K said, “Whatever you want to do.  We have all the time in the world.  I am leaving at 6 PM, but there are other OBs who can help you out if you go longer.”

So we just kept pacing the room, belly lifting and resting.  V took a break and listened to her fear release CD.  Steve and I took a little nap in our chairs while she listened.  Pressure waves were spaced out to about 10-15 minutes apart. 

We got a new nurse, who was fine with us walking the halls, so walk we did.  This made no changes to the PW.  We got lunch for everyone and V ate some soup, a cheese stick and yogurt.  She was staying hydrated with water and recharge.  

We talked through all her options.  She wanted to present one to Dr. K, so we talked about going home (Not really a choice she wanted to make, she had bypassed her 2 biggest fears (transition in car and triage) and was settled in a room, the baby was ready, her other 6 kids were all in good hands.  She could ask to have her water broken or ask for some pitocin.  I was concerned about breaking the water because baby was posterior, I called Carole, my fellow doula who has assisted at over 450 births in the past 20 years.  We talked about V’s previous births and as all were posterior and then easily turn at the very end as they are pushed out, she said that breaking her water would probably be her best bet.  V and I talked some more. 

V, DH and I  prayed.  She thought breaking water would be best.  Dr. K came in about 12:30, checked V who was still at 6cm and 80% .  She agreed that breaking the water would be a nice next step, but she was heading off of hospital grounds to do a procedure in a different office.  She would be back around 1:30 and could do it then.   

V wanted to put in the movie she brought, The Princess Bride, because she was bored and wanted the distraction.  By 1 she was having a few PW and wanted the movie off.  We put in the Deepening CD and again we all rested.  We knew once things got started it would move quickly. 

1:40 Dr. K broke V’s water.  At this point she was 6cm 90% effaced and baby -1 station.  Dr. K held the baby’s head and helped her descend a little slower into the pelvis as the water gushed out. 

V got settled onto the birth ball.  Her normal nurse wasn’t there.  A different one came in and tried to get the baby monitored.  It showed up fine as long as she held it, otherwise it picked up V’s heartbeat.  She left for a little bit. 

By 2, V was having PW probably every 5 minutes and I was talking her through each one and Steve was pressing on her back.  Her normal nurse came in and said she needed a better reading on the baby… that would have required V to move and that just wasn’t happening.  The nurse could sense that and said, “Or we could just take the monitor off.”  WOW, I was in awe.  OK, we jumped on that offer.  The nurse took the monitor off and left us alone.  She did bring us a hot water bottle, which was so helpful for the back labor.    

By 2:15 fluid was gushing out with each PW and it was dripping all over the floor, V was also getting flushed and said, “I think this is transition.”  I agreed with her. 

She made a one last potty break at 2:30, I tried to dry up the floor.  We got her settled back on the ball. 

Around 3 V said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”  I said, “That means the baby will be here soon.” 

The nurse offered to check her and at 3:11 we got her onto the bed to be checked.  The nurse said, “7 cm”  V groaned,”NOOO”.  I said, “It is ok, you can go from 7 to 10 in 2 minutes.”  V said, “YES, in 2 mintues!”  She then chanted 2 minutes a few times.  I talked her through a PW or 2 with her lying on her left side.   At one point I couldn’t talk, I just started crying, from happiness, I could tell the baby would be here soon!    

Then V flipped to her Right side.  The nurse had explained it was more like a 7 on just the right side, so switching positions might help open that last little bit.  It worked!

V said, “She is coming!”  I asked if she felt like pushing, she wasn’t sure.  After the next pressure wave she tried to tell me she felt something in her teeth.  I was so confused, then she said, “I felt it with each baby right before they were born!”  I said to the nurse, “Call the Dr.”

The nurse insisted on checking her first.  Which was pointless, but indeed she was complete.  It was maybe 3:17 at this point.  V started pushing in her own mother directed way.  More like breathing and Ahhing the baby out.  Nice LOW noises. The nurse called for the charge nurse and the baby was almost crowning pretty quickly.  The nurse called for the nursery nurse. 

At this point I moved to her foot.  She was still lying on her side.  Steve was holding her leg up, she needed more support for her foot to push against.  Dr. K got there, just as baby was crowning.  I told V she could push between PW if she wanted too… she did just that and slowly pushed the baby’s head out.  Then a minute later pushed the body out.  Her sweet baby girl was born at 3:24. 

V got to hold her and just love on her for awhile.  M was 9 pounds and is so cute!  She latched right on and knew exactly how to nurse.    

It was a fun birth to be at.  V did wonderfully.  It was an honor for me to be there! 

Oprah had Dr. Brian Weiss on her show yesterday. He’s a psychologist who uses hypnosis in his practice. He’s also the author of “Many Lives, Many Masters” which tells the story of the first of his patient’s to spontaneously experience a past life regression while in hypnosis. Dr. Weiss didn’t believe in past lives prior to this event and his patient didn’t believe in such things either. He’s utilized this hypnosis technique with very many more of his patients since, and now, Dr. Weiss regularly uses regression to heal his patients of psychological symptoms in this lifetime that might have begun in past lives.
Dr. Weiss hypnotized Oprah’s entire audience today in an attempt to regress them to prior lives. Now whether or not you believe in such things…the fact is that they are sharing WHAT hypnosis IS and IS NOT on OPRAH, and talking about hypnosis as a normal daily event that we all experience!

(personally I don’t believe in past lives, though I do believe we may carry some of the emotional baggage our ancestors have ‘passed on’ to us)  BUT I am so excited to see hypnosis explained to mainstream America.  I want to see this built upon.  I guess hypnosis was even mentioned on House last night.  Having experienced the power of hypnosis in my last 2 pregnancies and births, I want ALL moms to know this is an option.  Please help spread the word.
We all need to bombard Oprah ASAP with requests to have a show featuring hypnosis for childbirth while she is open to the idea of hypnosis being a normal useful mental tool.
PLEASE go to the link below to fill in their form to submit your suggestion that they have a show about hypnosis for childbirth.   If you have used hypnosis for pregnancy or birth, share your experience.   Let them know which progam you used.  If you think it is interesting, express your desire to learn more. 

http://www2.oprah.com/email/reach/email_showideas.jhtml

Bellies and Babies

I would love to get in my church and teach the young girls about the beauty of birth.  Sadly, my attempts to do so have been met with resistance, because the leaders are worried the parents will be bothered by it. 

I was going to wait to post this link until I could say… YES, I have done this.  But apparantly moms worry that if I talk to their teenagers about how beautiful birth can be than they will of course get pregnant right away and have a baby. 

I am a little slow in getting this up on my blog.  But I was honored to be asked to write a guest post on Rixa’s blog about my births.  Here it is!  If you don’t read Rixa’s blog, you should, it is great!

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2008/04/guest-post-1.html

You may remember this mom.  G was one of my students, whose OB told her scary things which were all about the routines he did to EVERYONE (episiotomy, pitocin, etc), she changed to a homebirth midwife soon before her birth.  I got a phone message from her on a trip saying what a great birth she had.  

She has written out her whole story, here is some of it with a link to the complete story at the end. 

When I was 5 months pregnant and we started to talk about our choices.  Epidural or natural?  Bottle feeding or breastfeeding?  Episiotomy or natural tear?  Dry birth or water birth?  Most of these I already had a gut feeling like breastfeeding of course and absolutely no episiotomy.  I was still up in the air when it came to an epidural because honestly I was more afraid of having the epidural than the pain of labor but there was a lack of confidence that I could really do it on my own.  I also had hear some comments about how epidurals affect the baby so I decided to discuss the matter with my doctor who reassured me that epidurals do not pass to the baby and it’s perfectly safe. 

I decided to research natural child birth classes anyway and chose a Hynobabies class.  We met some great people and most importantly it was a great group for me to discuss all our options when it came to natural childbirth.  The class was six weeks long and it seemed that every time I went to class all I kept thinking was how these topics should be things that my doctor should be telling me and discussing with me and giving me options on.  Instead every time I went in for an appointment I would leave with information that I had to worry about like, when they checked me to make sure I wasn’t going to go into preterm labor.  I was told that my cervix was too short and how the doctor was concerned.  It turned out it was fine but I had to wait 4 weeks before finding that out in which I spent the whole time worried.

After some encouragement from the ladies in class, I decided to discuss birthing options with my doctor again and realized that even though he said he would support me in my decision, he really didn’t.  He was more concerned about how it was going to affect him.  When I told him that I didn’t want any drugs, the first thing he asked me was “what about an epidural?”  I told him no epidural, no pitocin and instead of saying something supportive, he told me how long my labor was going to be without those medications and how he might not end up delivering my baby at all if I didn’t take them because he has so many patients and usually women like to get in, get the drugs and get out.  This was the first time I wanted to give my doctor the finger.  I assured him I was fine with that and continued to tell him, NO DRUGS.  The more time went on the less I wanted this doctor to be the one who would deliver my baby our insurance didn’t cover any midwives and we didn’t have the cash.  In the end I figured it would all be okay even if I had this crappy doctor because I had started seeing a chiropractor who was helping me a lot and at least I knew my body would be ready for natural birth even if my doctor wasn’t.

Over Christmas vacation I sat Gabe down and discussed how uneasy I was feeling with our doctor and how much I wanted a beautiful birth not a stressful birth that I could see us having if were in a hospital with this doctor.  So we decided to interview and hire a midwife and plan for a home birth but keep out doctor just in case we ended up in the hospital.  My appointments with my midwife, Sue, were such a pleasure.  In comparison to my doctor, Sue spent close to 1 hour with me, asked me what I wanted to do every time she came over and there was a decision to be made and we always discussed the birth, how I was feeling, and the baby. 

Finally at what would be my last appointment with my OB I went over my birth plan and left the office feeling small and empty and completely stripped of any rights that I had as a soon to be mother.  My doctor told me that he couldn’t sign my birth plan because he didn’t agree with it.  He had a problem with waiting 3 minutes before cutting the cord, not giving me pitocin to get my placenta delivered and no episiotomy to name a few.  Looking back all I can think is ‘who does he think he is’ telling me what’s going to happen during my birth?’  Those choices were mine to make, not his and from that point on, this “doctor” was out of my life before he got the chance to ruin my birth which turned out to be one of the most beautiful and most powerful experiences of my life.

Here is her full story.  I am so glad that she said I could share it with everyone. 

V. had her baby on Tuesday.  It was a great birth and I am so glad it worked out that I could be there, thanks to my doula friends who helped with my boys.  :) 

Short version.  Water broke at 1:40 PMand sweet baby in moms arms at 3:24.  There is a much longer version, as mom was actually in hospital from 5:30 AM.  I will check with mom if it is ok to share the whole story, as it is a wonderful story to share! 

So, this could be a good thing, except he doesn’t even want to go, he is behind in work, it is really meetings he could do over the phone, etc.  So he is grumpy about going.  Top that off with my stress about him leaving. 

I have a mom due with her 7th baby any day now.  One of my friends (the one I would call in the middle of the night to watch my boys) is heading out of town as well.  I luckily have a back up set of doulas, that I can call in case I can’t figure out someone to watch my kids. 

My client knows about the situation and is fine with whatever happens.  She has met the backups and is fine if I can’t make it.    She is planning on the baby being born next Friday, as it is good timing for her family (she was planning this before DH was even leaving)  It would also be good for me as DH is getting back before then. 

So let’s all hope that the timing works out that I can easily get to her birth.  I am thinking it will be a fast, easy one.  I really want to be there.  Friday would be great! 

It was Saturday, I had my lists of errands to run while DH watched the boys.  I headed out, happy as a clam.  I get almost half my errands done.  I am in Walmart looking at shoes for B. and realize I don’t know his size.  I get out my trusty cell phone to call home.  It is DEAD, not low battery, but DEAD. 

I freak. I have a mom due with baby #7.  Probably won’t be a long birth.  I ask if there is a pay phone anywhere (do those still exist?)  They do.  I have no change.  I decide to drive home and get my DH’s cell phone to finish the errands.  I hurry home, there have been no calls.  I get his phone and finish my shopping. 

I need to ALWAYS make sure my phone is charged each night.  Hopefully that is the last time THAT will happen. 

I had 2 moms who were in that 5 week window of baby could come at any time.  Life was good, it was chilly outside and the baby (ok, he is 2 years old, but he is MY baby) needed a nap.  So DH took Carson to soccer and I stayed home to enjoy a bit of quiet.  Baby napping and Devon on the computer. 

DH comes home a bit earlier than expected.  I hear him say, “I’ll get the ice.”  I hear whimpering.  I go out.  Carson is on the sofa crying.  He got kicked 2 times and his leg really hurts.  Even later in the day he refuses to put any weight on it.  We call his pediatrician.   She says if he won’t bear weight on it after dinner, to take him to Urgent Care. 

To make a long story short, he wouldn’t bear weight on it, we took him in and he had a broken leg.  He was pretty miserable until Monday after he got his real cast on.  But he was still homebound until we got his wheelchair, 3 days later.  Let me tell you I went about crazy calling Apria Home Care about where the wheelchair was.  They kept promising me it would get there “today” for 3 days! 

I was so hoping a mom wouldn’t start her birthing time until after we got the wheelchair.  It wasn’t easy carrying him around everywhere.  I didn’t want to have to subject anyone else to that.  Luckily the moms didn’t start their birthing time until a few weeks later.  Somehow it always seems to work out. 

Painless Childbirth: An Empowering Journey Through Pregnancy and Childbirth by Guiditta Tornetta is available today on Amazon!  It was written by a wonderful doula in the LA area and she understands the power of hypnosis for childbirth and this book is all about that! 

Very inspiring and informational. 

Right now the #1 Pregnancy and Childbirth Book on Amazon is What to Expect When You’re Expecting.   Ugghhh.  Because today is the premiere of this book, if it sells 2000 copies today then it will be #1 and can boot that other book out of #1 position! 

If you buy it in the next day you can register to win some prizes by going here and entering your reciept number to be entered in the drawing.