My Natural Birth Story
Here’s the natural birth story of my first baby, our son, Louie.
Giving birth to me is the most spiritual event any woman goes through. It is the defining moment in our life that brings us to fully experience what the female body was designed to do. In a way it really is inexplainable- for me, it was a completely inward experience, meaning nothing around me mattered, I went into myself and allowed my body to ride the waves. I opted to have a natural birth, unmedicated, and to help me accomplish this I hired a doula for extra support.
My son Louie was due on the 13th of September. On September 9th at 3 am, I woke up with slight cramping-nothing out of the ordinary but for some reason, I knew that he was coming. I hopped out of bed to let my husband sleep and drew a warm bath for myself. After my soak session, my woman instincts kicked in and I thought “he’s coming!! I need to clean the house!” so I did exactly that. I grabbed the vacuum and went nuts around the house. When my husband woke, he was like what the heck are you doing and I just looked at him and said, “this is it, he is coming!”.
The whole morning, I was experiencing cramps that got more and more painful as the day went on. I found that laying down was the best thing for me, so I snuggled up and put headphones on and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks-this really helped a lot! At around 3 pm, the pain was getting intense so we decided to call our doula to come to the house. Upon her arrival, she had us do some Optimal Maternal Positioning exercises and was able to perform acupuncture on me with some press needles (tiny acupuncture needs on a sticker).
My Water Breaking
Then she had me in the bath and the shower to try to ease the pain. At 6:30 pm I was laying on the couch and my water broke everywhere on our white linen couch-I was more worried about the couch than my actual waters breaking (slightly OCD!). I wanted to stay at home for as long as I could before going to the hospital but once that happened, our doula suggested that we get to the hospital. The drive there was a complete blur- I was in the back seat listening to my zen tracks, I’d like to think I was zen during the drive, but my husband politely reminded me that I was moaning like an animal.
Off to the Hospital, We Go
By the time we got to the hospital and checked in, I asked the midwives to wait an hour before they checked me- I didn’t want them to do this right away because I wanted to give my body time to progress further without being disappointed knowing how far dilated, I was. By the time they checked me I was 7 centimetres. My intention was to have a water birth, so we drew a bath and in I went, I was there for a few hours (8:30 pm-12:30 am) and wasn’t making much progress when it was time for the staff switch, a new midwife came to our room and took one look at me and said “she’s not going to have a water birth”-hearing that made me feel so defeated, I felt as if she was ruining my flow and my doula asked her to give me another hour in the bath, she agreed but I still wasn’t progressing.
Welcome to the World, Louie!
The midwife knew I would be better suited on the bed (starting off on my knees with my hands over the elevated back of the bed, and then on my side. I had been favouring my side the entire time, even in the bath. There I lay, breathing in and out of contractions, in intense pain, I remember thinking to myself “why did you want to do this naturally? You are never doing this again!!” It was so tough, but then when you are ready to push the contractions stop and you just begin to push with all your might-at this point I was just so exhausted, but at 3 am, after 24 hours of labour, our little Louie arrived!
That moment when I first held him was unreal, the wave of emotions that come over you when you first see your baby is just something you will never forget. My husband and I called both of our families on FaceTime to celebrate with them. During this time, Louie was still attached as I made it very clear that I wanted to birth the placenta naturally and didn’t want to cut the cord until it stopped pulsating so Louie could get all the benefits of delayed cord clamping.
Delivering the Placenta, an Unexpected Turn
Everything was perfect, my birth happened the way I had planned, or so I thought. When the placenta came out, there was a huge rush of blood that didn’t feel quite right and seeing the look on the midwives’ faces confirmed what I was feeling. Soon our amazing love bubble burst and doctors were running in to stop my haemorrhage. When my placenta came out, there was a piece of it missing and they thought there was a chance that it was still in my uterus, so they wanted to rush me for surgery to make sure that it wasn’t there. I begged them to do anything but surgery as I was so exhausted and the thought of leaving my baby was unbearable, so instead they hooked me up to an IV put some sort of medication in me to stop the bleeding and agreed to monitor me. After time had passed, they felt confident that the missing piece came out with the haemorrhage, I lost 2 litres of blood and required an iron infusion.
My birth story just shows that things don’t always go the way you planned, I certainly didn’t think I would haemorrhage, and I most definitely didn’t think anything would happen after he arrived. No matter how it unfolded, it was my birth story, and it was perfect for me. Your story will be different, but it will be beautiful, remember to be kind to yourself, to set your intention of the birth you dream of but know that things may not go entirely the way you plan and that’s okay! The most important thing is that you and your little bundle of joy are safe and healthy!
