Wow Kylas luv to see the bump progress pics!!
Mrs Eddie was reading thru the story this is going to be my first time, delivery seems to be so scary to me but m not thinking much just wanted to know few things
1. As you said it's better to stay at home as long as we can so how do we know how much to wait?? Can we get to knw how much we dilated at home? Or is there any indication like this is it time to go to the hospital? I also want to time masked really well before going to the hospital so I don't unnecessarily be there at hospital when I am not dilated enuf
2. one my friend had a baby few months back the problem that happened with her was that she was contracting too strongly and she was not getting dilated so she had to go to the hospital and stayed there overnight in pain of such strong contractions and dialted only 2 cm which nurses said can give epidural only after 4 but it took her the whole night to reach to that stage !! What should be done at that time ??
3. Once she got epidural in the morning she got dilated to 8 then 10'very quickly but the overnight pain and stress took toll over her strength to push and she ended up having vacuum which could have gone to c section if vaccum step wouldn't have been successful but thankfully it did
For first timers let's have some tips shared !!
I should preface this by saying that my labor was incredibly quick (I was lucky in that sense) and I also had a midwife who came to my home to examine me.
If you did not have a midwife you would have to rely on timing your contractions. For most people, you are in "active labor" when your contractions start coming about 5 minutes apart, (I believe that's what we learned in our prenatal class). Every person is different though so you would have to base it on your comfort level. If you were to call your hospital once you went into labor they might actually tell you to wait to come until contractions are happening every XX number of minutes before coming in.
The reason I had planned to stay home until I was 5cm dilated is because we had learned getting to that point can be a long process and our prenatal instructor (who was also a doula) and our midwives recommended laboring at home for that period. In a hospital setting you can be required to be on a fetal monitor which means that you're limited in terms of your availability move which can not only stall labor but make it more difficult to deal with contractions. Hence the reason why many people require some type of pain relief which can sometimes lead to other interventions (like your friend experienced). At home you're in a relaxed environment, can move around freely, etc.
I would say that resting when possible would be key as pushing is hard work. Also, you are more in control of your pushing if you don't have an epidural (you feel contractions more acutely) and your body very instinctively knows what to do to get baby out, which is actually pretty awesome.
As I said, everyone is different and everyone's labor is different. I had an incredibly positive experience, (water broke at 12:45 am, went back to sleep until 5 am as my Midwives had told me not to call until the morning if water broke in the middle of the night, was contracting every 5 minutes by 6 am, fully dilated by 10:30, pushed for 20 minutes, had my daughter).
I did drink raspberry leaf tea and took evening primrose oil, not sure if they helped or not. I was also pretty physically active throughout my pregnancy and did lots of yoga (I actually used a number of the poses during labor). I used the shower and bath, as well as my exercise ball, which helped when contractions were tough. I really also enjoyed sitting on the toilet
I also had visualizations and positive affirmations that I repeated to help me stay focused.
I think the thing to remember is labor is not something to be frightened of, it's the most natural thing your body can do. I think it's important to have an idea about the type of birth you would like to have but understand that things can change during labor and that's totally fine.
Hope that's helpful and apologies for the novel
