Saturday, June 23, 2012

Birth Story

























The Birth Story...

So here is the birth story of how Piper Hallie Kay Hurst entered the world (warning: contains icky birth details so read on at your own risk):

6:00am - I wake up with mild contractions that come every 10 minutes.

7:00am - I am amazed that the contractions are still coming since they usually petered out within 20 minutes.

8:00am - I cancel my babysitter and call my midwife to let her know that I am having continuous contractions and might not make it to our prenatal appointment at 1pm.

11:00am - I check in with my midwife and let her know that the contractions are still 5-10 minutes apart, but are getting a bit more painful.  I decide to make banana muffins.

2:00pm - My contractions have become more painful and I can't sit down.  I walk around the house and go outside grabbing onto things to help me through the pain.  My midwife calls to tell me she has appointments until 5pm and that she will be showing up then to check me out since my contractions aren't that close together.

4:00pm - My contractions get more painful and I try to get relief by kneeling in front of my washing machine and hanging onto the top of it (aka. trying to do laundry while contracting).  I move to the bedroom and start to writhe on the bed and then move to the ground.  I realize that the contractions are super painful and sit on the chair in my bedroom with three pillows stacked in my lap so I can squeeze them to help with the pain.

5:00pm - My midwife shows up and is a bit surprised at my progress since we last talked on the phone.  She checks me and says I am 5-6 cm. dilated.  She gets on the phone right away to call the back up midwife so she can get to our house ASAP.  Andrew hears her say I am 7 cm. dilated.  I get super overheated with each contraction, but I kept closing our french door in the bedroom because I could see my neighbor hanging laundry up on their line in the backyard.  I didn't want them to call 911.

5:30pm - I go back to the chair and have lost my comfort zone and curse the fact that I was forced to move out of that spot.  My contractions get a lot more painful and are now coming 2 minutes apart.  I  feel the urge to push with the contractions and my midwife tells me to do whatever feels comfortable.  I move to the kitchen and plop a pillow right on the island and bury my head so the pain will go away.  I love that Andrew had to move knives and other food items out of the way for me.  The pain is super strong so I moved to the kitchen floor with my pillow.  It kind of helped to push the bottom of the fridge with my feet with every contraction.  I felt a huge urge to push so I pushed like heck for three contractions and then my water broke.  Andrew was standing above me and said something like "Uh, oh, um, Faith her water just broke."  There was such a feeling of relief for about 30 seconds and then my body wanted me to push even harder.  Faith had been bringing her supplies in from her car and came running in saying, "Okay, we need to get you up off the kitchen floor and onto the bed."  I said I just wanted to birth the baby right there, but somehow they got me up and we made a mad dash for the bed.  Faith called for Andrew's help on her side of the bed and within a few pushes her head popped out.  Three pushes later, her whole body was out.

6:36pm - My wonderful baby girl was in my arms.

6:45pm - The backup midwife showed up.

This birth story was fabulous for me and I am so thankful for my wonderful midwife and husband.  I wanted so much to be in the comfort of my own home and it has been super to recover in my own bed with home cooked meals from my husband.  Another great thanks goes to Andrew's parents for watching the boys so we could be without worries during our birth story.  More recently, a big thanks goes out to my parents for a week of great support.  What a family!!!

1 comment:

Martina said...

Shannon that sounds amazing! I'm so glad to hear the home birth story from someone "real". I watched the documentary Business of being born couple years ago and decided to opt in for natural birth when it becomes relevant once so I totally admire your strength. Congratulations on your beautiful baby girl!
Martina