So I finally made it to the labor and delivery room, ready to go.  I will just say this very quickly – it took me three hours to get to 10 cm, and it took two hours to push.  I’ve received a lot of questions about natural delivery, so I think now’s a good time to sidetrack and talk about my experience “going natural”!

I want to make a quick caveat – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting an epidural or any other medication.  Most women get them nowadays and there a lot of healthy moms and babies out there!  Our decision to have the baby naturally was one based on our own convictions and my own assessment of my own body – I knew I could do it, and I felt that if it was possible for me to give my baby the absolute healthiest and most risk-free option, then I ought to do it.  And I will say that that was what kept me going – even when it would have seemed “easy” to get medication, when I reminded myself that I was doing this for the baby, not for myself, I had the strength to keep going.

In short, it was a GREAT experience and I plan on doing it again for all my babies.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but a huge one was just the sense of control I felt over the situation.  I know that it seems that being bombarded with pain would make you feel out of control, but the fact that I had prepared for the pain and that I was expecting it and ready to face it head on rather than trying to get rid of it gave me a huge measure of confidence and a sense of control over the situation.  Also, I felt very in tune with my body – I was able to monitor my own progress, I knew myself when it was time to push, and I had more control over the pushing.  But the biggest pay off came after the birth, when I had complete charge of all my own faculties – both mental and physical.

Secondly, the pain was quite manageable.    There was a short window of about 30-45 minutes (the transition period) that I began to feel that I just couldn’t go on, that I couldn’t handle another contraction.  The upswing of this time period was that I was prepared enough to know that when that transition period hit, it was going to be the hardest of all – but that it would be very short and that when I began to feel those emotions, I would be ready to push very soon.  Thus I was able to hang in there.  The only tough thing was that when I began to go through transition, no one was able to verify for me that I truly was – so I began to have a doubt in my mind that perhaps I wasn’t in transition and this was just going to go on forever.  When my Mom and the nurse said “you’re probably going through transition, we’ll see” – that’s when I began to panic just a smidgen when I thought “if this isn’t transition, I don’t want to know what is!!!”

Last of all, without medication I was able to dig deep for other things to rely on.  First, I hung onto Andy for dear life.  The sweet guy almost never left my side – except for a quick moment that he started to faint because he hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink in hours and hours!  He was an awesome coach.  My Mom was also incredible – I turned to her for advice and for help with breathing and pushing and positioning and just trusted in her experience.  Finally, I dug down deep and laid bare everything before God, clinging to him for my strength to do this for my baby.  I knew that with him, I could do it.

In the end, I had a calm labor.  I didn’t want the tv, I didn’t want music.  All I wanted was to focus.  I could hear Ida’s heartbeat the whole time, and that also gave me a lot of peace and strength.  The nurses were surprised at how quiet I was.  It’s not that I was never tempted to flip out.  But when those moments came and I wanted to just wig out, all that I could think was how far it would set me back.  A moment of indulgence in panic or screaming would only tense my muscles, fight the contractions and hurt my psyche – so I hung in there.

To prepare for labor, I employed the Bradley Method.  I wasn’t able to take a full class (although it would have been awesome), but I relied on their website and on the book by Susan McCutcheon, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way.  It was a great resource to learn a lot about labor, to learn techniques, and to refer to for practice.  I highly recommend it if you’re hoping to go natural.  The other thing I recommend is to say that you WILL go natural.  If you tell yourself that you’ll see how it goes, that you might get the medicine if it gets too rough, you’re likely to get it.  Decide if you want to commit to it, and if you do, hang in there!  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it!!!

The hardest part for me, in the end, was pushing for two hours.  A lot of this was due to my own expectations.  All that I had really prepared for was the laboring – I expected that to be the toughest part.  My Mom pushed all six of her babies out in ten minutes or less, sometimes in only one push, and especially as I watched my labor going exactly as all of hers had, I really expected that that would be how my pushing would go as well.  I was excited when the time came to push because I thought “yay!!!  it’ll all be over soon!!!”

Nope.  There came a moment in those two hours of trying various positions and agonizing that I began to doubt that I would ever have a baby!  I lost focus and I doubted my own ability to do all of this.  In this time, my doctor was incredible.  He really helped me work on my pushing, he was so calm, he assured me that I would be able to deliver vaginally, and he was just patient and relaxed.  He didn’t make me any false promises or any ultimatums on length of pushing.  It is because of my pushing experience that I am hugely thankful I went naturally – I could have been pushing for much much longer or ended up with a c-section if I hadn’t been going natural.

At almost 4:30, I hit the two-hour pushing mark.  My doctor then laid out my options.  He said I could continue pushing as long as I wanted, I could get an epidural and take a break for a while, or he could help out with a vacuum extractor.

I really appreciated his attitude through this.  I’ve heard lots of stories of mandatory c-sections after a set period of time, but my doctor didn’t even consider that option and was completely comfortable with letting me keep pushing if I wanted.  He explained that he was just giving me these options because after two hours, the woman can get so tired that her pushing becomes less and less effective, and he wanted me to know what the possibilities were.

Well, I turned down the epidural, as he expected me to.  Then came the most agonizing decision that I made – to keep going or to work with the vacuum?

In the end, I chose a vacuum assist.  I felt very guilty about this at first, as I felt it wasn’t completely “natural”.  But I’m glad I made that decision.  First of all, my doctor only used the vacuum to hold the baby in place as I pushed her myself down the birth canal – not to actually pull her out.  The reason pushing was taking so long was because she was stuck behind my pubic bone and he just used the vacuum to keep her from sliding back after each push.  Secondly, I was losing faith fast.  I was losing the end goal.  But after I agreed to the vacuum assist, suddenly everything changed – the room was flooded with nurses, things came out of the ceiling, the baby warmer was ready to go, and suddenly I was renewed with confidence.

This fantastic nurse joined the room at this point, and as they got the vacuum ready, she helped me work on my pushing.  She was awesome, and I regret that she wasn’t there the whole time as I pushed more effectively than ever under her guidance.  It was especially helpful because I felt that I was really doing most of the work getting the baby out even after they added the vacuum, and after the whole experience, I feel more prepared to push for my future babies.

Ida was born at 4:37 pm – about ten minutes after they began prepping the vacuum.

I cannot describe to you how fantastic that final push felt.  The relief, the joy, the accomplishment – it was wonderful.  And this was the best part of the whole natural birthing process – my baby was incredibly alert.  Her huge, bright eyes were wide open, and she was looking up at me when they tucked her into my chest.  She remained alert for about three hours.  She was so calm – they had to work pretty hard to get her to cry!  But she was definitely not sluggish – she was taking in the world and very shortly began rooting and sucking her fists and getting ready to eat.  I also felt so wonderful – no effects from any medications, just me and my baby.

Ida was in great shape.  Her cord was wrapped around her neck and her shoulder got stuck on the way out, but the doctor handled it seamlessly and I didn’t even know any of that was happening.  She had a little bit of wet lung and had to be given oxygen, but otherwise was the healthiest, perkiest little newborn that there ever was.

After I was stitched up (her shoulder tore me) and we were both cleaned up, we were left alone with just a nurse to help with breastfeeding.  After helping me out with that for a bit she left too and we just had an hour or two to enjoy the baby.  My Mom and Dad and sister were all there, and we just reveled in baby’s sweetness and big bright eyes.

A few hours later, and we were settled into our recovery room and all alone again.  It was the oddest feeling – me, Andy, and baby – three.  We couldn’t take our eyes off of her!  I finally went to sleep around 5 am, after a wonderful evening that was only disrupted by a near faint on my first trip to the bathroom.  I ended up surrounded by nurses that appeared from nowhere waving ammonia under my nose and being cradled by the nurse that had been assisting me.  It was a bit obnoxious because I couldn’t take a shower that night or go to the bathroom by myself after that.  We also had a bit of trouble nursing and ended up giving baby a pacifier after she finally decided to exercise her lungs.  But really, all I did for the next two days in the hospital was just stare at my baby!

And that’s it.  Sunday afternoon we brought her home, and the birth was over!!!