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| Contractions! The perfect time to snap a pic ;) |
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| This moment...wow. |
Felix Ames Bushong
1/26/15 @ 2:30pm
7lbs 9oz
Home Birth: Success. And wow...it's been sort of hard to describe just how amazing of an experience it was to have our little boy at home. Very personal, loving, and natural. It sounds cheesy, but it was just so special and all about us and bringing our babe earthside. Now that I've experienced both a natural hospital birth and a home birth it's really crazy how different the two were. The hospital was very business like. I was a name on a list of people to be seen. I tell yah, after this home birth experience I would love to do it again (but I am not crazy sooooo) ;)
Now, onto my little guys story. After a night of absolutely zero sleep due to our loving little toddler, we were up for the day at around 6am. I don't know what it was, but I just knew. I knew it was going to happen on a day when Silas chose to go buck wild at night and not let us sleep a wink. And there we were. Around 6:30am I had my first "holy shit" contraction. Now, with Silas I had horrific back labor so this felt like a minor little blip on the chart compared to things with him. But I knew it was the real deal so I told Nick I didn't think he was going to go into the office that day. So, what does he do? He goes ahead and starts getting ready to go to the office. After my "WTF are you doing look?" he took me seriously. I decided to get into the shower to alleviate some of the pain and once I was in there Nick definitely knew that this was going to happen. We called my midwife Heather and put it on her radar that it was going down! Nick started setting up our birth tub and I chilled with Silas and kept track of my contractions every so often. Around 11am I put Silas down for a nap. Yes...ME. It was sort of hysterical because I was willing him with my mind to fall asleep ASAP while clutching his headboard during my contractions. He actually fell asleep pretty fast and after that I finally felt I could relinquish control to my labor and I think that's when it really started getting intense.
There are two things that I tell myself during contractions. 1) Allow yourself to feel this pain. This is normal pain. Accept it. 2) Don't fight it. I really try and allow it to spread over my body and do it's thing. Every contraction gets me just a little closer to seeing my baby. And every contraction has a purpose. I really believe in positive affirmations. It's amazing how much your mind set can affect your labor.
Of course, this is hard to do when you feel like you can't take it anymore, but that is why I cannot stress enough how important it is to have people on your support team. We had two doulas; one for Silas when he woke up and then one for myself. Between those two ladies, my two midwives, and Nick, I could not have asked for better support. Yes, I said out loud a few times that I couldn't do it, but I was reassured that I was doing it and it was what I wanted.
Around 11:30 my midwives and Doulas showed up and set up their supplies, monitored the baby and myself for a bit, and then I was told I could get in the tub. I was in active labor now so the water was absolutely glorious. Let me mention that it was a blue sky, gorgeous day at 63 degrees. So we had the window open above the birth pool and between the breeze flowing over my face and the water I could not have asked for a better way to manage my pain. And this is where it ends kids, it went fast. At 2:27 my water broke and holy sh*t if that baby didn't just fly out. Seriously, I immediately needed to push. I pushed for exactly 3 minutes and at 2:30 I lifted our sweet little angel out of the water and held him for the first time. It was the craziest, best experience of my life. When Silas was born I was so exhausted at the end and this time I felt so alive and energetic. It was truly amazing and special.