Future birth story
- Thread starter PeanutBean
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rachiedata
Toddler & TTC
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It would be so nice to labour in a sunny garden or meadow, on a pleasantly warm day with a nice breeze, OH on hand with cool lemonade and lots of cuddles, a pool to cool off in... that would be nice labour or no labour really... talk about perfect (improbable!) birth!
Here in the inner city I'm looking forward to getting the birth ball on to our balcony and giving the neighbours something to look at haha! I'll probably have them ringing the police but I'm grateful to have just a little outside space to clear my head, get some fresh air in me, so all I need now is some sunny weather in late May
Here in the inner city I'm looking forward to getting the birth ball on to our balcony and giving the neighbours something to look at haha! I'll probably have them ringing the police but I'm grateful to have just a little outside space to clear my head, get some fresh air in me, so all I need now is some sunny weather in late May
PeanutBean
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I half planned for a May baby, the best weather! But we caught first time so there it is! Enjoy your exposure on the balcony! 
KandyKinz
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Thought I'd take your idea PB and put into words and share my future birth story. 
KandyKinz Future Birth Story
It's March 25th, a cloudy day with the occasional light drizzle outside. It's payday so I wake the kids up early so we could head to town with my husband so we could do our biweekly grocery shopping and spend the day with my mother. I'm two days beyond my due date and am feeling quite well with a little more energy than usual and allow my son to push the shopping cart around the stores as I don't feel it necessary to lean on today. He's thrilled as am I. We finish our errands and I squeeze myself and belly into my vehicle and try to adjust the seat in such a way that I can maximize my ability to touch the pedals while trying to avoid squishing Baby Peanut too much. We head to my mothers and I notice a few tightenings on the way to her home. Inside I feel great excitement that perhaps this could be the beginning of something but I decide to keep it in as I don't want to become disappointed. I arrive at my mothers and we talk and I drink red raspberry leaf tea. The tightenings are no longer as frequent as they were in the car but they are still there and continue to occur irregularly throughout the day. Some are more painful than others.
4:30PM rolls around, so I gather up the kids and their belongings and head to the other side of town to pick up my husband from work. I don't tell him about the increase in tightenings and I do my best to conceal my excitement during the 45 minute drive home as they seem to be getting more regular. Dealing with my own disappointment would be enough, so I still think it's best to keep it to myself. They're not very painful by any means but they are certainly noticable and are accompanied by a strange pressure sensation that wasn't present with most of the BH's I've experienced in the past.
We arrive home and hubby and I prepare supper. Something quick yet still appetizing. It's 5:45PM and I start to notice as we're preparing our meal that the tightenings are beginning to feel slightly painful resembling menstrual cramps but they are not so painful as to stop me in my tracks. I let hubby know, but tell him it's still too early to know for sure whether this is it or not.... But I tell him to top up the birth pool with air just in case and I do some last minute clean up of the house to ensure it's presentable for the midwives arrival should it actually soon be time to call her.
7:00PM rolls around and I'm still getting the somewhat painful tightenings though they're still rather irregular and are only really noticable when I'm not doing anything else. I debate as to whether or not I should refrain from using up any hot water just in case I'd need to soon fill the pool and tell the kids they don't need to have showers that night. By this point in the day I'm feeling the need for some quiet time so I tell they kids they can watch a movie tonight before bed in their room. They're quite pleased and I settle on the couch with a cup of red raspberry leaf tea.
By 7:30 those slighlty painful tightenings become painful and start to occur consistently every 4 minutes. It's still early and I cope quite well. I decide to check my cervix just to see and after alot of maneuving I'm just able to touch my cervix. Baby's head is still very high up at -3 station and it feel 2-3cm dilated, fairly thin, but is soft and stretchy and could easily stretch to 3-4cm. So I'm on the cusp of "is it labour or not labour".... not a lovely assessment but I'm hopeful. At 7:55 I decide to track down my sister just in case as finding a 15 year old on a Friday night could prove to be difficult. Luckily, she's found at home and I tell her to get ready to come over because I might be in labour. I then get my husband to call my fil to go pick her up and bring her to my home. At this point while the contractions continue I'm still feeling slightly reluctant and nervous to be telling people just in case it fizzles out.... I've seen labours fizzle out at 2-4cm before and then not re-start for days and after my training I'd feel like an idiot to have succumbed to "false labour". But now I'm finding myself needing to stop during the contractions which makes me more
than anything else. At 8:15, the contractions are hurting. I inform hubby to start filling the pool as I sway on my birth ball in the living. It's around that time my kids come out of their room to inform us the movie is over and start asking questions in regards to Peanuts arrival. I tell them both it will still be some time and my daughter readily accepts such answer and proceeds to the bathroom to do her bedtime teethbrushing face washing routine. My son stays loaded with questions about how long it will take, what the contractions feel like, how I will know when to push the baby out, etc etc... all the things I have answered over and over again in the last 40 weeks come flooding back and I can tell he's very interested but tell him that it would be best that I answer his questions tomorrow as the contractions were getting more uncomfortable to deal with. I sent him to bed and reassure him that when it comes close to the end and it comes time to push the baby out I will have someone wake him so he can come and that this first part of labour can take awhile and is really not all that fun to watch. I ask my daughter if she'd like to be woke up as well and she says no as long as we tell her in the morning whether the baby came out or not... I sent them both to bed and agree to let them play on their ds's as it's not a school night and both are feeling the excitement in the air. I then decide it's time to page the midwife and hope that my favorite midwife (the student) has gotten her registration sorted earlier in the day so she could be the one to attend. Unfortunately, that's not the case and it's the other midwife but my fav one will still be able to attend as a second so I'm quite pleased anyways. My midwife arrives at 8:50 just moments before my sister and we head to the bedroom for the initial assessment. Baby's heartrate is lovely, though baby is still high up despite all my ball sitting. The midwife is pretty sure baby is cephalic but each time she touches my belly I get a tightening and she feels it best to do a vaginal exam just to ensure baby is head down due to the history of unstable lie. I find that reasonable and the V/E reveals that I'm 4cm dilated, fully effaced, and baby is still at -3 station. Technically an unengaged head in active labour is reason for consult, but as this is still really the beginning we discuss it and decide to give it more time before consulting. My sister arrives during the assessment and as I walk out I see her sitting on the couch. I point her to the camera and tell her that her most important job is to wake my son up before the baby is born because he'd be really disappointed if we didn't. Hubby is now filling pots full of water to boil to top off the pool. We had indeed run out of hot water but the pool was already slightly more than half full so we didn't need too much more water. Good thing I didn't allow the kids to have a shower. At 9:45PM the contractions are really starting to hurt. I'm getting somewhat angered at hubby for paying more attention to boiling water then to me but the tub is finally ready for me.... I get in and notice instant relief. I spend the next hour in the pool. I find myself frequently needing to change position but am overall quite content in there. I block my surrounding out and just focus on the contractions one my one. at 11 the midwife suggests that it would be a good idea to check on the baby's descent to see if it has engaged yet. She's having to go lower and lower to auscultate the FHR and I really do not want to get out of the pool so I decline at that point and tell her to give it another hour or two. She then requests that I go pee and that mentions that just the act of getting in and out of the pool and walking can help with labour some.... I agree so I head to the bathroom and spent a few contractions on the toilet which were extremely unpleasant. I make my way back to the pool but find that the urge to go #2 was becoming too much to take. Although I know it's more likely than not just the baby's head coming down I feel more comfortable on the toilet with that sensation so I head back to the bathroom. Unfortunately the contractions on land hurt much more so I find myself repeatedly going from the bathroom to pool and back to the bathroom again. I'm starting to feel like this has to be transition and if it's not that I'm not to sure I can actually do another med free birth. It's 11:45 and I wonder to myself whether this baby will be born on the 25th or 26th... I pray it will be the 25th. Midnight rolls around and it feels as though there's no breaks in between contractions. I can't get comfortable at all and the nausea sets it. I'm in the pool and vomit over the sides and feel a gross sense of relief afterwards. The pain is intense but thinking back to my previous labours I'm feeling a sense of reassurance that it should soon be over.... though there's apart of me that is feeling really skeptical of my ability to go on. I trudge on on my hands and knees in the pool.. My knees are starting to ache but I don't give a damn. Someone is applying sacral pressure on my lower back and hubby's in front of me holding my hands. At around 12:30AM I notice that the contractions are starting to space out. Same thing happened last time before I was fully and I prayed that that's what it meant this time. I didn't comment on this change in pattern I just enjoyed it and I'm sure those around me likely noticed the change anyways. At 12:45 I start feeling pressure though there was no uncontrollable urge to push. I decide to just do my best to breathe through it and not mention it. I want to get baby down as low as possible before even thinking about pushing. 1:00AM comes and the pressure has increased dramatically but still no urge to push. The midwife comments that the contractions are spaced out and that it might be a good idea to walk around. I tell her about the increasing pressure and we agree to just let things be for awhile. I change positions so that I'm semi-recumbent (not the best pushing position) but it just seemed like a natural position to be in. With the change in position I feel the intensity of the contractions build and a sudden urge to push. It's not something I can control and I just push. I put my hands down and I can feel baby's head. There's seems to be a rather large pause before the next contractions but baby's heart rate is still sounding lovely and I'm feeling a sudden increase in adrenalin. I turn to my sister to tell her to go get my son but then realize he's already there in the background. Another contraction comes and I push through the intense burning and the head comes out much faster than I had expected or wanted. The midwife puts her hands over mine and asks my husband if he'd like to catch but I quickly push her hands off and hubby declines. I think to myself that I didn't think I tore but the whole area was kinda numb. There's another long wait that seems like forever but than the next contraction came and I push the rest of baby out and I pull 'him' up to the surface (I keep envisioning a boy.....). He's lovely, not crying but breathing and I pull him up to my chest. The cord is just long enough. The midwife rubs he's little wet head gently with a receiving blanket and he lets out a few small cries and his color is starting to noticably pink up. I'm in absolute awe and my son runs over and immediately grabs his new siblings hand as he smiles ear to ear. The midwife asks if I want to get out of the pool now and I tell her yes but not until the cord stops pulsating and it's cut and clamped. A few minutes go by and my husband cuts the cord. I stand up feeling amagingly well. There's a blanket on the couch layed out with a shower curtain underneath close to the pool but I decide I'm feeling well enough to just walk to the bed so we go there instead. I lay down with baby and he's already rooting around so we take the oppertunity to start breastfeeding right away. I'm feeling a tad nervous about it at first, but baby latches on wonderfully. While nursing I start feeling an increase in pressure and the placenta is quickly delivered. I remind them to just put in the fridge because I want to make placenta prints. After baby finishes the first feed the midwife checks to see if I have torn at all. There is a first degree tear and the midwife states that she could easily just let it heal naturally or just put one stitch in. I opt for the one stitch which took very little time at all. Upon finishing that they do the newborn exam on the bed beside us. My son's still there and seems to be very intrigued by his new little sibling who was weighed to be 7lbs 6oz. A decent size but much smaller than my previous babies. We then all cuddle into bed together and fall asleep as the midwives tidy up.
KandyKinz Future Birth Story
It's March 25th, a cloudy day with the occasional light drizzle outside. It's payday so I wake the kids up early so we could head to town with my husband so we could do our biweekly grocery shopping and spend the day with my mother. I'm two days beyond my due date and am feeling quite well with a little more energy than usual and allow my son to push the shopping cart around the stores as I don't feel it necessary to lean on today. He's thrilled as am I. We finish our errands and I squeeze myself and belly into my vehicle and try to adjust the seat in such a way that I can maximize my ability to touch the pedals while trying to avoid squishing Baby Peanut too much. We head to my mothers and I notice a few tightenings on the way to her home. Inside I feel great excitement that perhaps this could be the beginning of something but I decide to keep it in as I don't want to become disappointed. I arrive at my mothers and we talk and I drink red raspberry leaf tea. The tightenings are no longer as frequent as they were in the car but they are still there and continue to occur irregularly throughout the day. Some are more painful than others.
4:30PM rolls around, so I gather up the kids and their belongings and head to the other side of town to pick up my husband from work. I don't tell him about the increase in tightenings and I do my best to conceal my excitement during the 45 minute drive home as they seem to be getting more regular. Dealing with my own disappointment would be enough, so I still think it's best to keep it to myself. They're not very painful by any means but they are certainly noticable and are accompanied by a strange pressure sensation that wasn't present with most of the BH's I've experienced in the past.
We arrive home and hubby and I prepare supper. Something quick yet still appetizing. It's 5:45PM and I start to notice as we're preparing our meal that the tightenings are beginning to feel slightly painful resembling menstrual cramps but they are not so painful as to stop me in my tracks. I let hubby know, but tell him it's still too early to know for sure whether this is it or not.... But I tell him to top up the birth pool with air just in case and I do some last minute clean up of the house to ensure it's presentable for the midwives arrival should it actually soon be time to call her.
7:00PM rolls around and I'm still getting the somewhat painful tightenings though they're still rather irregular and are only really noticable when I'm not doing anything else. I debate as to whether or not I should refrain from using up any hot water just in case I'd need to soon fill the pool and tell the kids they don't need to have showers that night. By this point in the day I'm feeling the need for some quiet time so I tell they kids they can watch a movie tonight before bed in their room. They're quite pleased and I settle on the couch with a cup of red raspberry leaf tea.
By 7:30 those slighlty painful tightenings become painful and start to occur consistently every 4 minutes. It's still early and I cope quite well. I decide to check my cervix just to see and after alot of maneuving I'm just able to touch my cervix. Baby's head is still very high up at -3 station and it feel 2-3cm dilated, fairly thin, but is soft and stretchy and could easily stretch to 3-4cm. So I'm on the cusp of "is it labour or not labour".... not a lovely assessment but I'm hopeful. At 7:55 I decide to track down my sister just in case as finding a 15 year old on a Friday night could prove to be difficult. Luckily, she's found at home and I tell her to get ready to come over because I might be in labour. I then get my husband to call my fil to go pick her up and bring her to my home. At this point while the contractions continue I'm still feeling slightly reluctant and nervous to be telling people just in case it fizzles out.... I've seen labours fizzle out at 2-4cm before and then not re-start for days and after my training I'd feel like an idiot to have succumbed to "false labour". But now I'm finding myself needing to stop during the contractions which makes me more
than anything else. At 8:15, the contractions are hurting. I inform hubby to start filling the pool as I sway on my birth ball in the living. It's around that time my kids come out of their room to inform us the movie is over and start asking questions in regards to Peanuts arrival. I tell them both it will still be some time and my daughter readily accepts such answer and proceeds to the bathroom to do her bedtime teethbrushing face washing routine. My son stays loaded with questions about how long it will take, what the contractions feel like, how I will know when to push the baby out, etc etc... all the things I have answered over and over again in the last 40 weeks come flooding back and I can tell he's very interested but tell him that it would be best that I answer his questions tomorrow as the contractions were getting more uncomfortable to deal with. I sent him to bed and reassure him that when it comes close to the end and it comes time to push the baby out I will have someone wake him so he can come and that this first part of labour can take awhile and is really not all that fun to watch. I ask my daughter if she'd like to be woke up as well and she says no as long as we tell her in the morning whether the baby came out or not... I sent them both to bed and agree to let them play on their ds's as it's not a school night and both are feeling the excitement in the air. I then decide it's time to page the midwife and hope that my favorite midwife (the student) has gotten her registration sorted earlier in the day so she could be the one to attend. Unfortunately, that's not the case and it's the other midwife but my fav one will still be able to attend as a second so I'm quite pleased anyways. My midwife arrives at 8:50 just moments before my sister and we head to the bedroom for the initial assessment. Baby's heartrate is lovely, though baby is still high up despite all my ball sitting. The midwife is pretty sure baby is cephalic but each time she touches my belly I get a tightening and she feels it best to do a vaginal exam just to ensure baby is head down due to the history of unstable lie. I find that reasonable and the V/E reveals that I'm 4cm dilated, fully effaced, and baby is still at -3 station. Technically an unengaged head in active labour is reason for consult, but as this is still really the beginning we discuss it and decide to give it more time before consulting. My sister arrives during the assessment and as I walk out I see her sitting on the couch. I point her to the camera and tell her that her most important job is to wake my son up before the baby is born because he'd be really disappointed if we didn't. Hubby is now filling pots full of water to boil to top off the pool. We had indeed run out of hot water but the pool was already slightly more than half full so we didn't need too much more water. Good thing I didn't allow the kids to have a shower. At 9:45PM the contractions are really starting to hurt. I'm getting somewhat angered at hubby for paying more attention to boiling water then to me but the tub is finally ready for me.... I get in and notice instant relief. I spend the next hour in the pool. I find myself frequently needing to change position but am overall quite content in there. I block my surrounding out and just focus on the contractions one my one. at 11 the midwife suggests that it would be a good idea to check on the baby's descent to see if it has engaged yet. She's having to go lower and lower to auscultate the FHR and I really do not want to get out of the pool so I decline at that point and tell her to give it another hour or two. She then requests that I go pee and that mentions that just the act of getting in and out of the pool and walking can help with labour some.... I agree so I head to the bathroom and spent a few contractions on the toilet which were extremely unpleasant. I make my way back to the pool but find that the urge to go #2 was becoming too much to take. Although I know it's more likely than not just the baby's head coming down I feel more comfortable on the toilet with that sensation so I head back to the bathroom. Unfortunately the contractions on land hurt much more so I find myself repeatedly going from the bathroom to pool and back to the bathroom again. I'm starting to feel like this has to be transition and if it's not that I'm not to sure I can actually do another med free birth. It's 11:45 and I wonder to myself whether this baby will be born on the 25th or 26th... I pray it will be the 25th. Midnight rolls around and it feels as though there's no breaks in between contractions. I can't get comfortable at all and the nausea sets it. I'm in the pool and vomit over the sides and feel a gross sense of relief afterwards. The pain is intense but thinking back to my previous labours I'm feeling a sense of reassurance that it should soon be over.... though there's apart of me that is feeling really skeptical of my ability to go on. I trudge on on my hands and knees in the pool.. My knees are starting to ache but I don't give a damn. Someone is applying sacral pressure on my lower back and hubby's in front of me holding my hands. At around 12:30AM I notice that the contractions are starting to space out. Same thing happened last time before I was fully and I prayed that that's what it meant this time. I didn't comment on this change in pattern I just enjoyed it and I'm sure those around me likely noticed the change anyways. At 12:45 I start feeling pressure though there was no uncontrollable urge to push. I decide to just do my best to breathe through it and not mention it. I want to get baby down as low as possible before even thinking about pushing. 1:00AM comes and the pressure has increased dramatically but still no urge to push. The midwife comments that the contractions are spaced out and that it might be a good idea to walk around. I tell her about the increasing pressure and we agree to just let things be for awhile. I change positions so that I'm semi-recumbent (not the best pushing position) but it just seemed like a natural position to be in. With the change in position I feel the intensity of the contractions build and a sudden urge to push. It's not something I can control and I just push. I put my hands down and I can feel baby's head. There's seems to be a rather large pause before the next contractions but baby's heart rate is still sounding lovely and I'm feeling a sudden increase in adrenalin. I turn to my sister to tell her to go get my son but then realize he's already there in the background. Another contraction comes and I push through the intense burning and the head comes out much faster than I had expected or wanted. The midwife puts her hands over mine and asks my husband if he'd like to catch but I quickly push her hands off and hubby declines. I think to myself that I didn't think I tore but the whole area was kinda numb. There's another long wait that seems like forever but than the next contraction came and I push the rest of baby out and I pull 'him' up to the surface (I keep envisioning a boy.....). He's lovely, not crying but breathing and I pull him up to my chest. The cord is just long enough. The midwife rubs he's little wet head gently with a receiving blanket and he lets out a few small cries and his color is starting to noticably pink up. I'm in absolute awe and my son runs over and immediately grabs his new siblings hand as he smiles ear to ear. The midwife asks if I want to get out of the pool now and I tell her yes but not until the cord stops pulsating and it's cut and clamped. A few minutes go by and my husband cuts the cord. I stand up feeling amagingly well. There's a blanket on the couch layed out with a shower curtain underneath close to the pool but I decide I'm feeling well enough to just walk to the bed so we go there instead. I lay down with baby and he's already rooting around so we take the oppertunity to start breastfeeding right away. I'm feeling a tad nervous about it at first, but baby latches on wonderfully. While nursing I start feeling an increase in pressure and the placenta is quickly delivered. I remind them to just put in the fridge because I want to make placenta prints. After baby finishes the first feed the midwife checks to see if I have torn at all. There is a first degree tear and the midwife states that she could easily just let it heal naturally or just put one stitch in. I opt for the one stitch which took very little time at all. Upon finishing that they do the newborn exam on the bed beside us. My son's still there and seems to be very intrigued by his new little sibling who was weighed to be 7lbs 6oz. A decent size but much smaller than my previous babies. We then all cuddle into bed together and fall asleep as the midwives tidy up.
PeanutBean
Mumma to B & I
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Lovely Kandy! It's funny to see the differences, I purposefully glossed over all the MW related bits but your training shines through talking of dilation and suchlike!
I think after the medical complications and mess of my first birth I really want to pretend it is all natural and unmonitored. I know in reality I just won't be like that but I don't want to remember those bits!
Did it feel good to write it? I quite enjoyed writing mine.
I think after the medical complications and mess of my first birth I really want to pretend it is all natural and unmonitored. I know in reality I just won't be like that but I don't want to remember those bits!
Did it feel good to write it? I quite enjoyed writing mine.
KandyKinz
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It did feel good to write and yes I do tend to think about the more technical aspects of it. I can't seem silence that part of me lol. I told my midwives that they're either going to have to use a fetoscope or put the volume of their dopplers as low as possible cause there is no way I'll be able to enter into labour la la land while listening and analyzing the FHR pattern every 15 minutes! And should any real indications for EFM arise I think I'd be the one to be the one watching the monitor the whole 
I found that my future birth story somewhat mirrored how things moved along with my first and second labour in terms of progression and length etc but included a sense of control that I didn't have at all with my first and only partly with my second. I really like the idea of being in my space.
I found that my future birth story somewhat mirrored how things moved along with my first and second labour in terms of progression and length etc but included a sense of control that I didn't have at all with my first and only partly with my second. I really like the idea of being in my space.
