| Baby Aidan Michael is here! | |
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Here’s the long, lazy story of our wonderful birthing day . . . August 21, 2006 I woke up Monday morning the at about 5 a.m. feeling absolutely thrilled and energized. At 39 weeks, I’d been losing parts of my mucus plug for days now and had a hunch that this was my birthing day. I couldn’t stay in bed . . . got up, did some great journaling, finishing with the words “Well right now I need a peaceful, safe, joyful birthing time.” Almost immediately I got a nice intense birth wave. Yummm. That was around 7 a.m. The rest of the morning I had a variety of different kinds of waves . . . some intense, some mild, some close together and some further apart. I called my sister (who lives across the street from me) who had agreed to watch my little son Elijah so I could concentrate. From around 10 to around 11 we had a good set of increasingly frequent, increasingly strong waves. I called the birthing center to let them know I was in my birthing time. Asked them to hold while I had a “contraction”, turned my lightswitch off and was silent for a few moments, then came back on the line to fill them in on the rest of the details. We were on for a while and the pace of the waves seemed to slow down considerably, and I could imagine the person on the other end of the line saying in her head, “yeah, sure, it’s going to be a long time.” The break in the waves continued long enough for me to have a good snack, then resumed when I was ready. I had great relaxation and easy waves with my husband Rob cueing me. I would feel a wave coming on and drape myself over my birth ball and he would put his hand on my shoulder and say “relax . . .” and pain would subside but the pressure would remain. Sometimes waves would last for 5 to 6 minutes with a break of about 2 minutes between. While this seemed impressive to both me and Rob, I wondered if much was really getting done because the release from pain was so complete. (?) I felt Rob being so wonderfully present and connected with me, and me so open and receptive with him, I told him that it felt like a honeymoon. Midday my parents, who live 3 hours away, came through town – they were coming home from a trip to New Mexico and came through our town on their way, so they dropped by my sister’s house. It is always wonderful to see my mom and dad. I didn’t want to miss them. I went across to visit with them a little while and say hi to Elijah, and had a pretty good break from waves while I was hanging out with them. They got to see me do my finger drop maybe twice and fortunately Rob was there to explain to them why I wasn’t talking to them. My mom walked me back to my house and I showed her my garden . . . and we discussed my concern that maybe not much was happening since I wasn’t experiencing so much pain. She’s had all but one of her 9 babies naturally, and I consider her quite an expert baby-haver with a very good and open attitude. She regretfully admitted that she thought maybe not much was happening. We hugged goodbye, and I got back to the business of having a baby. As soon as Rob and I were alone again with our bubble of peace extending out into our peaceful loving neighborhood the waves started up again with increased intensity. This time there were some pretty good “owie” ones. I didn’t like the thought of continuing like this for long. After a few of these, I called up my niece Tara, a trained doula, who had been supporting me in my prenatal care with emotional clearings as well as helping me practice my mini script. I asked her if she’d see if my body needed an emotional clearing – any reason why I’d be creating an experience of more pain than I felt like dealing with. She tested me and I think we found and cleared something that I can’t remember now, but what made the difference was when we talked through it some and I remembered my little conversation with my Mom. Once I made the connection between my conversation with her and the increased pain, I went back to my comfortable easy birthing waves. Tara went home. A couple hours later I was getting curious again about whether I was progressing much with all these comfortable waves. I called Tara and she told me over the phone how to check my dilation. I tried it and figured I was doing it wrong, since I couldn’t feel my cervix. (:)) About 6 p.m. I decided to call my midwife Kim. The pressure waves weren’t gaining in intensity or evening out in frequency; there was still a good assortment of different kinds of waves. I was getting more than curious about where we were. Kim was happy to come by and check me. After I got off the phone with her, it just hit me – “Rob, this has been a great day, nothing has been more than what I’m willing to do . . . but I really don’t want to do this anymore!” and I sobbed like a baby for a few minutes. Then I was fine and felt ready to do whatever needed to be done. [note: although I was a little embarrassed at the time to admit that I suspected it, I’m guessing this is when transformation happened. ] Kim was there at about 6:15. We chatted a little, I admitted that I was a little concerned about the possibility that she would check me and I’d only be at 4 cm and would feel discouraged, but what the heck. So she slid her gloves on and checked . . . was silent for a moment and then gave a little laugh. “Trina, I don’t feel anything. When you’re ready to push, I’d say go ahead.” I laughed my head off . . . felt so relieved . . . and was laughing still when Rob came in and I told him the news a few minutes later. He said “oh good, I was about to go across to Toni’s house and get some lasagna,” and I said “no you don’t! I want you here with me.” He persuaded me that he’d be quick and I told him he’d better be. Turned out he could have taken his time. The next leg of the journey was maybe the most challenging for me, and although Aidan came out really fast once I started to push, it was a few hours before I even felt like trying. Turned out that I did still have a small lip. Good thing I didn’t try to push against it. But by this time I had gotten tired of using my lightswitch and wasn’t focusing all that well. Kerry’s voice in the “pushing baby out” track was somewhere in the background but I wasn’t feeling very open to it. For some reason I found a huge deal of resistance in myself to accepting the possibility of an easy and painless passage for baby through my birth canal. And so like the rest of my birthing time, the trend seemed to be – if I needed a break, I got it. No urge to push; just a pressure wave here and there. Somewhere before 9 p.m. I asked Tara to come and check me for another emotional clearing. She checked and what I needed to clear was some grief from when I was a newborn baby, hanging out in an incubator for 2 weeks, wanting my Mom. It was a relief to clear that one. Then suddenly I got tired of waiting. This baby was going
to come whether my mind could comprehend how or not. So I gave a little
nudge . . . and baby responded with what felt like one powerful lighting
quick movement from mouth of cervix to crowning. My one scream in my whole
birthing time ended with this baby’s head moving out into the world
– I called out “I need support, please support my perineum!”
I didn’t want to tear like I did last time – needed 10 stitches.
Kim supported my perineum and I heard her saying intensely “Trina,
that’s not gentle!” (if I could have laughed right then I
would have -- I didn’t experience having a choice. He was just coming
out.) followed by “Ooooh, you are stretching beautifully!!”
Rob caught our baby’s head with one hand and with the other hand
continued to offer me cues. Kim helped support and catch our baby. Elijah came in a few moments later and climbed up on the bed and started nuzzling his tiny brother saying “Aidan, Aidan, Aidan” over and over again. He was beautiful and tiny: just 5 pounds, 18 ¾ inches long. Happily I did not tear at all – just a tiny surface abrasion, in Kim’s words. All in all I'd say there were about 5 or so pressure waves that were of a discomfort level that I would rather not have had. The placenta was small but it took me a while to push it out. I just didn’t have much urge to push in me, not then or at all during 2nd stage except for when Aidan came out. I hadn’t had any difficulty at all pushing Elijah’s placenta out so this came as a surprise to me. Fortunately Toni was there to help shield Elijah from anything too graphic. Finally Aidan nursed. I was bleeding more than Kim liked to see so the attending physician, Elizabeth, offered me the choice between some herbs and pitocin. I chose the herbs, and she gave me some drops of shepherd’s purse tincture and red raspberry leaf tea, which brought everything to normal pretty quickly. **************************** October 21, 2006 Aidan is now 2 months old, beautiful and almost double his birth weight. My feelings took a little while to come in, but more and more I’ve been growing in love and appreciation for this tiny angel. My mom came back up and took care of our family for 3 days; then after a small scare Aidan and I spent the night in the hospital for 2 days. That is another story but all ended well. In Gratitude I have so much gratitude for the amazing support I have received in my pregnancy, birth and postpartum journey. I loved all the learning and support I got through Hypnobabies home study program – thank you Kerry – and the hypnobabies yahoo group. I’m grateful that I got to work with Kim James, a wonderful midwife who offered me a powerfully healing space of acceptance and connection (and who helped me not tear!). I’m grateful for my niece and co-conspirator Tara, for her friendship as well as generous acupuncture, emotional clearing and doula support, all of which helped me access a higher octave of experience, and Tara’s mentor Doc Kim Fite who gave me excellent chiropractic care and counsel. I'm grateful to midwife and belly-dancing instructor DeeDee Farris-Folkerts, who supported me in having a great pregnancy. I am grateful for my wonderful birth partner and husband Rob who, in addition to listening to me at times when I needed a good listener, made space and time for learning & practicing the mini script with me despite a cramped personal schedule; and taking in the “Birth Partner Be Calm & Confident” CD; and has fiercely pursued his own inner work and healing, allowing for a more conscious and present intimacy. I’m grateful for my sister Toni and nieces Allia and Aniqa who swept Elijah up in their loving attention during my birthing and postpartum time, and I’m grateful to Elijah for initiating me into the sacred work of mommyhood. I’m grateful for my Mom’s love, presence and support for the last 35 years, and most recently during my 3 days postpartum with Aidan. I’m grateful to myself for asking for, working toward and receiving a beautiful experience, and I’m so grateful to Aidan for co-creating it with me, and coming to be with us. I’m grateful to all the angels and guides who contributed in unseen ways. And most of all I’m grateful to Spirit who created this dance to begin with. My personal birthing
time affirmations Through birth, I find healing. |
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