Birth Stories

Tesla's Birth Story

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Published Date

by Cheryl

Our first birth, as best I can remember…

I started with early labor around 11 am on Saturday morning. Nothing painful, but enough to notice something happening. We cleaned the house lightly and had some lunch. Surges continued to be between 7-10 minuates apart, ~30 seconds long for most of the early evening. I sat bouncing and swaying on my birth ball and we played Yahtzee for a few hours.

Around 11 pm, things started to pick up in intensity, so I got in a hot tub to sleep a little between each one. By now, the surges were consistently 4-7 mins apart, for about a minute. Around 4 am, I left the tub and started walking around the house. By 7 am my water had broken, so we called Joyce!

Things really intensified for me after my water broke. Baby was posterior for most of this time, so it was very uncomfortable on my back! Sometime in the afternoon I decided to get in the big birthing pool, since we wanted to try for a water birth. It was very soothing and relaxing between surges. Too soothing actually! My surges spaced out to almost 10 mins apart again.

I decided I would rather have a faster, more intense labor than a longer, more confortable one. So back out of the water… I don’t remember a lot of details after I left the birthing pool because my surges became very intense and strong again, and I needed all of my attention to focus. At some point, I decided I wanted to stand in a running shower, hoping that this would comfort me enough without delaying our birth.

Around 5 pm, I remember being done, tapped out! I felt like I couldn’t handle it any more, but I still didn’t have any urge to push. I asked to be checked internally. The extra pressure from the exam finished breaking my water and I felt an overwhelming urge to push with the next surge! Hallelujah!!

I pushed on the birthing stool very comfortably for about 45 mins. Our primary midwife suggested we move to a bed at that point, so we did. In hindsight, I should have listened to my body and stayed on the stool because I was very comfortable there, but the bed worked out okay. I just felt like it was harder on the bed because I also had to overcome gravity to push baby out. I pushed for about another 45 mins on the bed.

I still swear I did not willingly make the final push! My body made that last one for me, and baby was out! About a total of 90 mins of pushing and 30 pushes total. Our beautiful baby girl came into the world on a Sunday at 7:04 pm weighing 7 lbs, 6 oz. and 20.5” long. Just the perfect size!

We had a beautiful birth, and I’m so thankful to Joyce and our primary midwife. Joyce stayed for several hours after the birth - observing baby, recording her measurements, and cleaning. She was also here several times over the next week or two, helping with breastfeeding issues (baby had a lip and tongue tie) and giving a very tired, emotional new Mama amazing support! We are looking forward with delight to birthing our second child with her any day now!