With all three of my children, my hopes were to have a natural labor. So many times someone said to me, "Are you sure you want to go natural?" Ever so confidently I would say to them, "Well of course I do," not knowing exactly what I was in for.
My first child was born in June of 2002, I was a very young girl at this point, but still had my hopes of having a natural childbirth. I went into be induced on June 20th early morning. Having no idea what is going to happen I sit around and wait for this pain that everyone is talking about. Well the day then changes and it is June 21st, and still no pain. It wasn't until late evening that I Felt this pain, that everyone had been telling me about for the past nine months. I was still at this point determined to have a natural childbirth. About 12 hours into hard labor I gave up. I went ahead and had the epidural, but in the long run was extremely glad I did. I was in Labor with my daughter for 29 hours. That was my first attempt at a failed natural childbirth.
My second child was born in December of 2006, I had already experienced labor once and knew what I was expecting. So I then start telling everyone that I WILL be going natural for this child. I had many problems in this pregnancy. My due date would never stay the same, I didn't have enough amniotic fluid and she just wasn't growing right. After waiting if out until I was 35 and ½ weeks, my midwife tells me that I have to be induced. Mind you this was after they had changed her initial due date from the 25th of December to the 27th of January. I had to be induced with her early to get her out and growing. Well I go into the hospital to be induced on the 21st of December, everything seems to be going well. My body remembers what it is supposed to do and I go into labor pretty smoothly. I am able to walk around and relieve some of my pain that way. Well My midwife then comes in and says she is going to break my water, and if I am going to want any type of pain relief, now would be the time to get it. But me wanting to go all natural, declined. My water was broke and almost instantly, I was screaming for an epidural. The pain was so bad I could move. So I received my epidural, and yet had another failed attempt at a natural childbirth.
My third child was born more recently in April of this year. Now I was bound and determined to have a natural childbirth. I started watching as many baby shows, as I could to try to help better prepare me for a natural childbirth. I knew what I was looking forward too, having 2 previous children. This time when I went into see my midwife, I told her that I did not want to be induced, unless there were serious problems. I wanted my baby to come on its own. Naturally my midwife agrees, I am watching all of these baby shows. Women are able to go into labor quite easily, and many of them go naturally also. I was very jealous, I started asking my midwife if I could labor at home. Well of course until my contractions were fairly close together.
It was the early morning of the 30th of April, I wake up to make one of my many trips to the bathroom. Surprisingly my husband is already awake with a toothache. I sit up with him for a few minutes, and start feeling some small gas pains. I have this pains for about a half an hour and we decide to go back to sleep. I told him that if I thought that it was anything I would wake him up, I had experienced Braxton hicks a lot in this pregnancy. The pain starts to get a bit worse, but still feeling only like a gas pain. I lay in bed and toss and turn for about an hour, until I finally wake up and start moving around. At this point it is about 3 am and my father in law is up and ready to be leaving for work. I make my way down the stairs and the pain is very strong now. Still not believing I am in labor I just walk around a bit thinking that the pain is going to go away eventually. My father in law happens to say to me "Oh today might be the day", I brush it off. At that point I was starting to feel the worst pain I had felt in a while. I then go upstairs and tell my husband and mother in law. They get up and we call my midwife, she tells me take a warm shower, if this isn't labor the pain will stop but if this is labor the pain will probably get worse. I take my shower and the pain starts to become less frequent but more intense. I get out of the shower and within ten minutes of getting out of the shower I am in hard labor. Everyone is then timing my contractions, they start coming between 2 and 3 minutes apart. I continues to walk my house, not realizing that the walking is helping the labor. At one point I even said there is no way I can do this without drugs. We head over to the hospital around 4:30-5:00 in the morning.
We get there and I change into my gown and get ready to be checked, as I am starting to have another contraction, my nurse thinks I am in labor, just not knowing how far into labor. Well to everyone's surprise I am already 8cm dilated, and I am thinking I am ready to push. I am then transferred into a delivery room where I have to wait for twenty minutes until my midwife gets there. I was in such a rush to get to the hospital I forgot to call her and tell her I was coming. The entire time I am telling everyone that I have to push and am freaking out. Since I was already to far along there was no chance of any type of pain relief, which at that moment I wanted. I am guided through the process, with the help of my nurse telling me to blow like I am blowing out a hundred birthday candles. You know what it really works, I made it just fine until my Midwife gets there, I start to push almost instantly, and my Beautiful baby girl is born at 5:40am on April 30, 2008. She weighed in at 6 pounds 5 ounces. I was finally able to have my natural childbirth.
I waited so long to have a baby the natural way, and I am so glad that I am. It is really worth all of the pain and struggles. I have made a vow to go naturally from here on out. There is my story of going through natural childbirth. It may have been difficult, but was well worth it.
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