This was my third baby, and my second Hypnobabies birth. This pregnancy and preparation for my birthing time were very different than my other two. I was induced two weeks early with my first baby, and never had any Braxton Hicks or anything leading up to the birth.
With my second, I had prepared for birth using Hypnobabies and followed the schedule religiously. I had a few Braxton Hicks before my birthing day, but nothing major. I felt well prepared for birth and when it actually started, it was very textbook. Pressure waves started light and far apart then became more regular and I knew it was time. My birth with my second child was perfect and wonderful.
For this baby, everything was different. I could NOT find time to listen to my scripts with any regularity. Braxton Hicks started at about 20 weeks and got more frequent as time went on. By 30 weeks I was having so many and they were pretty intense, that I began to wonder if they were the real thing and if I would know when my birthing time was starting. I also had a lot of anxiety going into this birth because my second child got stuck on the way out and at one point my midwives wanted me to consider having this baby in the hospital “just in case”. An ultrasound at 36 weeks showed that this baby was much smaller, but I still had a lot of fear about another dystocia.
About two weeks before my guess date, I started having some pressure waves that were not Braxton Hicks, but didn’t feel like the real thing either, and I started to worry that I wouldn’t know the difference. On May 2nd I had my 38 week appointment. I laid out my plan to kick start labor around 39 weeks. My midwife offered to do an internal, which I declined.
That night while I was getting ready for bed I had about 4 Braxton Hicks in rapid succession, then just as I was catching my breath I had a pressure wave. There was no question in my mind that it was The Real Thing. I had another several minutes later. I went to the bathroom and saw some bloody show. It was about 10pm, and my husband had just gone downstairs to play video games. I let him know that baby might be coming tonight and not to stay up too late. He decided to just come to bed.
I laid down listening to my pregnancy affirmations since I hadn’t had any more waves and tried to sleep. My pressure waves woke me up off and on all night. Each time, I woke up, I started another track. At about 4 am I noticed that the waves had become more regular, and I told myself that with the next one I would wake my husband so we could start timing them. I still felt ok, just getting a bit tired from the interrupted sleep. The next thing I knew, my two year old was climbing into bed with us at 7am!
After breakfast, I logged onto my favorite message board and posted a whiny post about false labor and went on about my day. I was still having pressure waves, but only about once an if that. They were not intense at all for the most part. I even gave my 2 year old a piggy back ride through a few of them. By 10:30 I realized I hadn’t felt baby move at all since my last pressure wave at 4am. I ate, drank and laid on my side a while and still felt nothing. I decided to try again in a bit, thinking she might just be tired after all of the squeezing she’d gotten the night before. After I’d given my kids lunch, I tried eating, drinking and lying down again and still got nothing . I called my birth center to talk to the midwife on call. She told me to come in to get put on the monitor for a bit.
I got to the birth center at about 2, and as soon as I put my car in park, I got hit with a pretty intense pressure wave. While waiting to get put on the monitor, I had another. The midwife on call was attending a birth when I got there-in fact MOST of the midwives were, and I was seen by the clinical director. While I was on the monitor she let me know that they were very busy-3 of the 4 birthing suites were full and they had two women who thought they might go today. I was on the monitor for about 15 minutes and had had two pressure waves.
I looked at the tape, and noticed how LOOOOONG they looked on paper and asked the midwife to give me a time check. They were 8 minutes apart, and about 1 minute-1 min, 15 secs long. They had been intense, but nothing major so I asked the midwife is she thought they were the real thing. After looking at me like I had two heads, she said “only YOU can tell ME that!!!”. The waves stayed that regular for the whole 30 minutes I was on the monitor. The midwife asked if I wanted to stay, or at least get an internal check, which I declined and decided to go home.
On the way home I had to pull over several times to relax through some pressure waves. But when I got home-they stopped!!!!! At 5 pm they started to pick back up, and I told my husband that I really needed to take a nap. I started dinner and had to stop a LOT to rock or squat through the waves. I still felt ok-like I had HOURS to go. I got dinner to the simmer point and went to lay down.
I called my mom to let her know that the baby might come tonight. She asked me if she should cancel her 7pm hair appointment and I told her I thought it would be later than that. A few minutes later I had a pressure wave that made me change my mind and I called mom to let her know to come soon. My mom got there at about 6 and fed the kids dinner. My husband came to check on me and I told him to start packing up the car. I got another pressure wave as soon as he left our bedroom, and I started to shake afterwards. I started to get nervous because I remember that once the shakes started last time, I met my baby VERY soon afterwards.
My waves still were not regular, but I called the birth center anyway since I knew they were filling up. They told me they were full, but the pull out couch was still open. I lied and said my waves were 5 mins apart. We left the house at 6:50 or so.
On the way out the door I asked my husband to grab a bucket-just in case. Good thing, too! As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I threw up. We got the the birth center at 7:10 and I slowly made my way to the family room. While my husband and midwife made up the pull out couch, I went to the bathroom. I had a pressure wave and at the end I felt a little pushy. They checked me and I was at 6cm. We filled up the tub, and I got in.
With my next wave I felt REALLY pushy, but declined a check. The nurse who was with me commented on how calm I was several times, which was amazing to me since my anxiety was through the roof, I was terrified of another dystocia. I had another wave and told them I needed to push NOW!
I got out of the tub and got checked again and was only 9cm. I was on the verge of a panic attack at that point and said that I had to push NOW. My midwife told me she would push my cervix out of the way so I could and let me know that it would not be fun. I told her to go right ahead. As she reached in, my husband said “release!!!” and started whispering “relax” as I began to push. About a minute in, I asked the midwife to stop, and she told me that I would have to stop pushing and I couldn’t. I felt I needed baby out right NOW, so we kept going and my cervix was out of the way in a few more seconds.
As I felt baby crown, I did begin to relax. I was super focused and very relaxed as I pushed her all the way out. After a whopping 5 minutes of pushing, Sinclaire Elise was laid on my chest at 7:40 pm. She was beautiful and perfect-just like her birth!
Thank you again, Hypnobabies!!!
