So, I decided I was sick of the early labor dance and I wanted to try and do something about it… so since Bella was going to my Dad’s for the day, John decided to come home and see if we could get this thing rolling! We did acupressure, nipple stimulation, went for a walk and I drank GALLONS of RRLT (red raspberry leaf tea). That did it! The contractions picked up around 1 pm and they stayed through dinner… Morgan insisted we go have a distraction, so we fandangoed tickets to see Twilight (woo-hoo) and went! The contractions REALLY picked up about halfway thru the movie and I started needing to hold John’s hand through them.
When the movie was out and we got in the car, I started shaking and the contractions were right on top of each other. So we called the midwife and she said to meet us at the birth center! We made a pit stop at home because I had to pee, and we were off.
My ‘natural’ birth story, the story of Erik’s birth, truly begins three years before his birth when his older sister Roxanne was born. Going into Roxanne’s birth, I did not feel empowered, I felt scared and sure that I would need an epidural. My attitude about birth was formed only by the common lore that birth is terribly painful and I expected it to be managed by the hospital. I did expect to give birth vaginally, and remember distinctly skipping over the information about c-sections, thinking I’d never need one.
I guess life has a way of turning things upside down on you and it gave me possibly the only birth experience that could have shaken up my world view sufficiently that I would end up changing my views on birth so dramatically. After only a few hours of hard labor, rapid dilation to 8 cm, my darling daughter somehow managed to turn herself from head down to feet down, the cord prolapsed, she went into distress and an emergency c-section was done.
This was my first natural birth and I was 3 days overdue with my third baby. I started having contractions on Monday morning, November 25. I was hoping that this would be the day. My contractions weren’t painful, but were coming consistently, but irregularly, if that makes since. One would be 20 min. apart, then 10, then 7, then 10 again, etc…
We had my weekly midwife appointment that morning. When we got there, Sarah, my midwife told us that she was leaving town for Thanksgiving and that if I didn’t have my baby either today or tomorrow, she would be out of town. Wendy and Joanna or Jen would be coming over instead. I wasn’t too happy to hear this because I had chosen Sarah to be my main midwife because of the connection I felt with her. I guess, being my third baby, Sarah thought I would have already had him by now and that it was safe to make plans.
When I became pregnant with my first child I suddenly started to worry about what labor would be like. How painful would it be? Would I cope? Would I tear? Would it put me off ever having children again?! Then, to make matters worse, I found that other women were only too happy to share their “horror stories” with me and, although their intentions were to probably to help me prepare for what they believed was to come, I started to truly believe that pain and trauma were inevitable.
As a hypnotherapist, I had already experienced the power of the mind and how deep states of relaxation and visualisation can enable people to reduce anxieties and remove fear. This made me curious about HypnoBirthing and I decided to take the course.
Thursday March the 12th I went to my midwives for my 38 week check up. I asked them to check my cervix and I was very soft and dilated to a 2. My midwife said I was going to have a great and speedy labor. I was so excited to give birth again. My first daughter was born with a midwife in a hospital and it was the greatest moment of my life and I couldn’t wait to experience it again at home.
I went to bed that night around 11pm and at 12:54am I woke with a start. I turned to my husband and told him my water was going to break and he just mumbled something. I stood up thinking it might be false labor and began to walk. Just a few steps and my water burst. It was so familiar, this is exactly the way my first labor went.
My November 2008 birth story of baby D and a successful HBAC.
The 27th was Thanksgiving. We went to my moms for dinner and ate at about 2:30pm. We left at 20 to 7pm and came home. I was tired and just over done. About 8pm, I had a snack (popcorn) and Jason and I just relaxed. We were discussing Black Friday as he had planned on going out early in the a.m. to get a few things. We were making our list, I bought a few things online so he didn’t have a ton of things to shop for. Everything was fine and I was still pregnant and planning on being pregnant.
We decided to head to bed so he’d get some sleep and I was tired anyways. Went to bed at 11pm, put in a DVD of Golden Girls to watch while we fell asleep. At 1130pm, I started having contractions. They were stronger then my previous ones. I waited it out, I didn’t pay attention to how long they were or how frequent. After about 5 painful ones in a row, I woke Jason up and told him I didn’t think he was going to be heading out.
It was the night following the afternoon in which I thought vehemently, “I can. NOT. do. this. one. more. day!” I woke up when John came home late from a meeting, and noticed the familiar tightening that usually just faded away during the weeks prior. Night-time, it seemed, was workout time for my tummy.
But this time -oh bliss!- the tightening came back at regular intervals. As much as I wanted a well-rested husband during the whole process, I couldn’t hold back my excitement very long. It’s his job to time these things, you know. [He'd been on-call during the week prior, and was running very little sleep, poor guy... ]
Thus it was that around 2am, contractions were roughly 6 minutes apart and getting closer. The midwife was called & the kiddie pool inflated. John’s lungs got a workout taking care of the last 5% that the air-matress-pump couldn’t do. I giggled and pranced around the play room, giddy with joy that I was nearing the end of being pregnant.
Titan Daniel’s Birthing Center Water Birth
In: Birthing Center Births, Hypnotic Births, Water BirthsI started feeling contractions Thursday night around 8:30, but they were very mild. Having been induced with Andelyn I wasn’t sure if it was real labor or not. I spent that evening reviewing my birthing book while Royal finished up at work. We went to bed around midnight and contractions continued to progress throughout the night. Around 4am I was timing them at 5 minutes apart for one minute each so I called my midwife Suzanne, we dropped Andelyn off with friends, and met Suzanne at her birthing center.
During this pregnancy I felt strongly that the hospital was not the place I should have the baby. Our insurance changed so I had to start over searching for someone I liked and trusted to take care of me. Royal and I had a tour of the birth center and felt a lot of peace while we were there. That same day we checked out a different hospital and a different midwife clinic than I had had previously. While we were at the hospital I did not feel the same peace as I did talking with Suzanne at the birth center. I knew everything would be just fine if I was not in the hospital. So I followed my gut and trusted the Lord would guide my path…He always does.
This story starts long before Hannah was conceived. It starts in the operating room where my son, Mason, was born by cesarean section.
I was induced simply because my OB/GYN said I was “overdue”… I was just 40w 6d. Mason was posterior, and I was stuck in bed with an epidural and the million and one wires connecting my body to various machines — the typical hospital birth scenario. My doctor declared CPD and FTP after stalling at 4 cm for 4 hours.
The cesarean was cold and impersonal. It was a traumatic experience. The doctors were busy gossiping, I was shaking uncontrollably, I felt ignored and belittled. The doctors never said “congratulations”, in fact I didn’t even know they had left the OR until I was suddenly being wheeled out of the room to be taken to recovery. Once there, I cried for my son… everyone got to see him but me, I was an invalid in bed. I didn’t get to see Mason until 3 hours after he was born, because I was passed out in recovery.
Saturday morning I had started up with some very intense contractions. They were not letting up and I started wondering if I might be in labor. They came and went all weekend and I was starting to get frustrated and nervous that I just wouldn’t be able to do it. Every time I had a contraction, the only way I could get through it was to say in my mind “This is not a real contraction” over and over again.
The contractions hurt so bad because they felt like they were pushing the baby’s head against my pelvis and that she couldn’t get into my pelvis. It was like bone grating on bone. I had experienced the same thing with my third child and ended up going into the hospital to be induced and get the epidural after enduring 12 days of those bad contractions and the anxiety that he just couldn’t fit into my pelvis.
About this website
Birth is inspiring, amazing, and empowering. This website shares a collection of real natural birth experiences from you, the readers. Births the way nature intended. No pitocin. No epidural. Just the beauty (and intensity!) of the human body at work. Whether you've had one natural birth, five natural births, or are considering natural birth in the future, our hope is you will find courage and joy in these stories. Enjoy.
Recommended Reading:
 Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices |  The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth |
