I have been wanting to write my birth story since my first day postpartum! It is one that I am very proud of and excited to share. Hope you enjoy!
- My last “bumpie”
- (three days before my water broke)
It was Sunday, June 21st, 2015. I woke up in the morning feeling sad, as this was the first Father’s Day I was not spending with my father who had passed just two months before I got pregnant. Trying to keep busy (and in full nesting mode) I finished my final touches downstairs in my birthing suite (my birth was at home, find out why I chose to have a homebirth here) and my mother came over to take me to Walmart for some things I felt I had to have before I went into labor. I still needed a curtain rod to hang my curtain, an end table in the living room for my guests, bathroom supplies and more. After putting only a quarter of the stuff away, exhausted and missing my nap, my mother left and I began to cook a Father’s Day dinner for my fiancé. We probably ate around 7:30pm and then I asked him if he minded if I left the dishes until morning, I needed to lay down! He of course said he did not care and up to bed we went. We watched our Sunday night TV and just before 11:00pm I got up, went to the bathroom, turned the light off and got back in bed. We both said goodnight and closed our eyes. Not even three minutes later, I yell,
“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!”
“What?!” He asks.
“My water just broke! Come get me, help!”
He hops out of bed to come get me and walks me to the bathroom. As I sit on the toilet he asks me, “Are you sure?”
I probably gave him the look of death as I said, “Yes I am sure, do you see this?!”
Every woman and every labor is different. I was told that a lot of waters do not even break until active labor or even delivery. I was also told that when your water breaks it may not be a huge “gush” and you may not be sure, or you could have a false alarm, that it wasn’t always like the movies where the women end up standing in a puddle! Well there was no mistaken mine, I had the movie-like experience! My water had broke, at 11:00pm, on Father’s Day. It was my birthing time!
(Off note: My baby girl is feeding right now and I am typing this blog at the same time! Go me for being a multi-tasking, breastfeeding, coffee drinking, blog writing momma!)
After my water broke I called my midwife right away to tell her. I had no pressure waves yet and felt pretty normal. She told me to get some sleep and that my waves should start anytime between now and morning. We hung up, I got back in bed and tried to close my eyes. (HOW am I supposed to SLEEP!?) Well within ten minutes I felt my first wave. We timed them right away because they seemed awfully close for the beginning. Three minutes. Within fifteen minutes I had five consecutive pressure waves. I called my midwife back and told her about my waves, that they were small and not discomforting yet, but happening every three minutes. She again advised me to try and sleep. I got out my iPod and began my hypnobabies tracks immediately. (Read about hypnobabies and my experience here.)
Part of my birthing room.
By 2:30am I hadn’t slept and could not concentrate on my hypnosis as well as I wanted to. I was so anxious and my waves were still so close – anywhere from two to four minutes apart and lasting about fifteen to thirty seconds. I needed to get ready. I woke my fiancé up (HOW could he of fallen asleep anyway, right?!) and told him we needed to go downstairs and setup. After the birth we were going to be sleeping/staying downstairs for about a week (two months later and we are still down here every night) as I wasn’t going to be able to use the stairs. I began gathering things like I was an animal heading into hibernation. I took two trips downstairs and brought everything I was going to need for the next week with me. My laptop and chargers, my toothbrush and hairbrush, my makeup (like I was going to reapply during my birthing time) and anything I could think of that wasn’t already down there.
By 5am I had my fiancé filling the birthing pool and doing last nights dishes while my midwife was on her way. I had been lying on the couch getting deep into my hypnosis and as a first time mom I was not sure what I was feeling. Is this it? Am I close? Am I not even close? I needed reassurance.
“Time has NO meaning” affirmation from my banner
My midwife arrived around 6:00am. She sat with me and asked me some questions before doing my first check. I did not want to know how far I was throughout my birthing time and I had not been checked for dilation at any of my appointments.
“You are in labor, Teresa. I think you are going to start to feel things a little more intensely in the hours to come. I want you to rest as much as you can. I am gonna go home for a little, call me when you would like me to come back, when you really need to use your vocals to get through a wave,” she said to me.
I knew then that this was indeed the very beginning if she wasn’t even staying, and for a minute, that scared me.
I continued to listen to my hypnosis on the couch and slip in and out “sleep” (it was probably a deep state of hypnosis) between waves. I was becoming less anxious and more relaxed every hour. I could not believe I was almost eight hours into my birthing time. To me it had only felt like two. Little did I know, I had twenty more hours to go….
“My baby is almost here” affirmation from my banner
Read Part 2 of my story here!
Be sure to join us in our social media accounts to be up to date with the progress of our project!
And… Don’t forget to share your brelfies using our HT #BreastfeedingWorld
–
[col1]
[/col1]
[col2]
[/col2]
[col3]
[/col3]
I am a 27 year old first time mom who lives in New Jersey. I had an all natural planned homebirth with the help of water and the self-hypnosis hypnobabies method. I am currently a stay at home breastfeeding mother to my beautiful baby girl and I’ll be sharing with you all some personal experiences and covering some other interesting topics, stay tuned.
