re: my home birth

That's amazing. I wish I had the strength to do that. That truly is an amazing birth story.

Quoting Mara:“ there is a sense of "nothing can eff w/ me now" that i've gained from this experience. no matter how ... [snip!] ... it's also made me a bit more "fearless" ... i mean, i did labor so what's the world possibly got that can compare to that pain?”

Oh i had the med free labor.

I bit the hell out of a nurse.

I just never laboured at home.


and will someone please tell me why i am switching between the american and british way of spelling labor\labour????

Quoting Prenita:“ Oh i had the med free labor. I bit the hell out of a nurse. I just never laboured at home. ... [snip!] ... home. and will someone please tell me why i am switching between the american and british way of spelling labor\labour????”

so how was your labor (labour) easy??

and you bit a nurse??

That was awesome! What a great story! Its an awesome feeling of empowerment that you did it yourself isn't it? I still look at my kids and cant believe I did it 4 times! Congrats again Mara!

Quoting Mara:“ so how was your labor (labour) easy?? and you bit a nurse??”

lol. ok i will tell ya.


With my first daughter i was 17. We lived 70 miles on a VERY windy river road from the nearest hospital.So it was like two hours if you were driving anywhere near safely.

I thought i was having contractions very late in the afternoon and just to be safe my sister and her husband set up mattresses in the back of their canopied pickup truck.

All the way to the hospital i felt weird...not a ton of pain but tightening and strange small pains that i hadn't felt before. I remember thinking oh god as long as i don't die in the river i will be fine.

So we got to Yreka Cali and passed the stupid hospital and my BIL took a waaay too sharp U-turn and a cop pulled him over...when the cop was alerted to the pregnant girl in the back of the pickup we recieved a police escort the rest of the whole two blocks back lol.

ok so we get to the hospital and i find out i am only dilated to a 2...keep in mind that at this point i am two weeks past due....and extremely tired of being pregnant.


So they send me home and instead of driving the two hours back home i go to my sisters house.
We walk up and down...and up and down the stairs in front of her house...(so believe me i totally commisserate with the "stairs o' doom" part of your labor story.

anyway...we do this for several hours.....i sleep in her guest bedroom with a freaking plastic bag under the sheet i was sleeping on JUST IN CASE my water should break.


The next morning i go to the hosp. and find i am dilated to a 3.5. YAY right? no.

They keep me but tell me to walk. and walk. and walk. i hate that hospital more than anything in the world now other than spiders and clowns lol.

ok so i keep walking till i just am in TOOOOO much pain...
Finally a nurse comes in to check me and she tells me i am dilated to a 5..i say "can i PLEASE get an epidural" she asks the doctor and he says i am too young to make such an important decision for myself. Yes he actually said that.

Ok sooooo i am in bed labouring and crying...my BIL is driving to Chico Cali to get the baby's father who is attending college...and i feel like everything is waiting for him.

Late in the morning the next day around 8 am he arrives...and lo and behold i am at 10...its a miracle since pushing has been foremost in my mind for HOURS...

so i push ans push and push and the doc uses vacuum and vacuum and forceps....for SOOOOO long. a STUPID nurse KEEEPs on fluffing my pillows. I tell her to stop and she does it again. So i bit the HOLY SHIT out of her arm.

The Fantastic feeling fighting back has given me gives me a new burst of strentgth and Nikole Kaitlyn is finally born.

at 12:20 pm. FOUR HOURS AND 20 MINUTES of pushing.

37 hours of total labor.

but it was all worth it.
she is now my perfect....scarily intelligent 13 year old.

and that is why epidurals are my friend.
(not as well written as yours....but oh well LOL)

Quoting Prenita:“ lol. ok i will tell ya. With my first daughter i was 17. We lived 70 miles on a VERY windy river ... [snip!] ... intelligent 13 year old. and that is why epidurals are my friend. (not as well written as yours....but oh well LOL)”

oh... so "easy" was tongue in cheek. yikes.

damn. your story is much more interesting than mine.

honestly, reading all the hospital labor stories on here made me 100% positive that i wanted a home birth.

the preponderance of doctors, nurses, and assitants who just disregard the woman in labor as some sort of helpless insane patient, made me feel like a home birth with an experienced mid-wife (she's been doing it for 26 years and over 3000 healthy births) would greatly increase my chances of laboring normally-- in tune w/ my body... and w/out undue medical interference. there was no way in hell i was going to let some doctor cut into me b/c my labor was "taking too long."

i did a massive amount of research on birthing and labor once i decided to do the home birth route.

despite the ungodly pain of real labor, i learned that the problem w/ the epidural being administered is it tends to impair a woman's ability to labor effectively and often serves as a catalyst for a sequence of medical interventions which i would not have wanted.

i'm not on here to advocate home births per se, but there is no doubt that the nearly 50% c-section rate in america is a by-product of and driven by unnecessary medical interventions made in the name of medical convenience (and b/c doctors are trained to pathologize their patients even when it's a perfectly healthy normal laboring woman).

sorry, i didn't mean to rant... but the birthing process is such a huge and amazing part of our experience of being women and mothers and i think it's almost a tragedy how unprepared most of us are ... and as a result-- how much our physical and psychic autonamy is disregarded by modern medicine for their "convenience."

I would have loved to have tried it.


And actually....No the first time you read through you were right.

I said easy and meant it....the three that came AFTER nikole were virtually painless. I think sometimes i mentally block the memory of how difficult that first time was....which is made a bit easier by the fact that it was 13 years ago now lol.
I was lucky in my choice of hospitals AND my choice of doctors with the boys and Gianna.

I was afraid of having a C-section....but i was afraid of the pain worse.


I really am just a giant cry-baby.

I'm getting closer and closer to my homebirth... I have no anxiety... I KNOW in my head that everything will be ok... i take comfort in the statistics and in my body...

your story was so detailed and eloquently written... but i have to admit... the pain part and the second guessing the medication makes me a little nervous for myself...

If you could do it all over again, would you?... would you do anything differently?

Quoting Mara:“ it's taken me five weeks to work up the courage to post this story. i don't know precisely why i've ... [snip!] ... placenta in our freezer. I really don’t know what to do with it. At the very least, it’s an interesting conversation piece.”

I agree completely on this being the best labor story ever.. You are awesome!

Quoting Sadie700-[SHIB]:“ I'm getting closer and closer to my homebirth... I have no anxiety... I KNOW in my head that everything ... [snip!] ... makes me a little nervous for myself... If you could do it all over again, would you?... would you do anything differently?”

absolutely...

the one thing i might do differently is to have a water birth in a jacuzzi where there's definite water pressue. i can say from personal experience now that the warm water pressure from the shower relieved the contractions in a major way.

but as my midwife noted, being relaxed in warm water tends to slow labor down and since my water had broken, she felt we were under a 24 hour deadline.

also, b/c of my personality and coping mechanisms, i had a really hard time sitting down for any period of time, so i don't know how much i'd be able to handle sitting in a tub of water for very long.

if i ever have to do this again, i will do it at home, w/ an experienced midwife, w/out a drop of drugs.

the time after labor was so worth it. i was elated and full of energy in my own space w/ all my personally chosen food at my disposal and my own lovely bed to sink into at the end of the night. and i didn't give up my personal autonamy for anyone-- which, ultimately, is what drove this entire decision.

sure, the pain is intense but in a way it's one of the most enlivening validating experiences to endure... for days afterwards i was living on the endorphins. i think i'm back to normal, but it almost makes me want to go through it again when i remember the high i was on-- despite intense sleep deprivation, stitches in my labia, and just generally feeling like my butt was going to fall off, i was bouncing around taking care of max.

it might well be that going through the physical pain of labor goes a long way towards combatting post partum depression on a chemical level. i was tired and achy but i was defintely riding on some chemical high for that first week post partum.

Quoting Prenita:“ I would have loved to have tried it. And actually....No the first time you read through you were right. ... [snip!] ... and Gianna. I was afraid of having a C-section....but i was afraid of the pain worse. I really am just a giant cry-baby.”

i'm a cry baby too -- when the pain gets like that at least.... buuut i'm also a wee bit of a masochist.

Quoting Mara:“ absolutely... the one thing i might do differently is to have a water birth in a jacuzzi where there's ... [snip!] ... on a chemical level. i was tired and achy but i was defintely riding on some chemical high for that first week post partum.”

you have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that... the only demon i have to battle with this labor and delivery is the pain (other 3 were in a hospital with epidurals)...

the two governing factors of my decision to have a homebirth is that I want to labor and deliver in my own home, at my pace... and I know the recovery time will be quicker with an all natural birth...

Thank you for your response, I really appreciate it  

Mara that was amazing! You had me in tears. I am so happy that everything worked out for you. Max is one strapping young lad.  

Wow, what a great description of something so wonderful! It borught tears to my eyes.