Ruby Jolene’s Birth Story
Let me begin by saying that Rocky’s birth was a tougher experience than I expected, even though I had an epidural. To sum up his birth story quickly, It started with my water breaking about 1:30 in the morning, followed by beginning pressure waves. We went to the hospital about 2:30 in the morning. I immediately was put on pitocin. I also received the epidural pretty early on, I think around 4 in the morning. I was able to nap for about 3 hours due to the epidural, which was nice. But Rocky’s heart rate was fluctuating and i had to be on oxygen off and on. Finally, around 12 in the afternoon, I was ready to push Rocky out. He was in distress and it took almost two hours of me pushing with all my might to get him out, and the doctor had to use the suction tool to help. Rocky came out blue and not breathing, and had swallowed meconium. A team of doctors surrounded him while I got stitched up from a second degree tear. I also felt a lot of the last little bit of pushing and felt the tearing. My blood pressure had been very high ever since arriving at the hospital. When he was finally breathing a bit, they put him on me for about 15 seconds, then whisked him away to the NICU to monitor him for a while. When they took him, i burst into tears and was left alone for an hour (CJ had gone to the NICU with him) not knowing where he was or how he was doing and it was torture. Basically, his birth was not the wonderful thing I had hoped it would be.I had a feeling that all the “drugs” I was on during the birth might have had an effect on that. I also want to note that he got all his “NEWBORN SHOTS” and his blood sugar was lower than they liked it to be, which I have since read can be a side effect of the hep b shot.
On to Ruby’s story!
I had an unshakeable feeling that if I handled Ruby’s birth differently, everything would be okay for her. Less drugs, more natural. That’s how Heavenly Father designed us. Women are MEANT to give birth. It is probably the most amazing gift that we as women possess. But birth has been portrayed in our society as something scary and painful and dangerous. While it is an undertaking and no small feet, we were made to do it. This is something I had to train myself to accept. I also had to trust in my faith that because we women were designed to give birth, Heavenly Father would make it possible for me to do it without so much medical intervention.
I decided to use Hypnobabies to prepare myself and give myself the mental tools I felt I needed to handle birth without the medication. Hypnobabies is an all-encompassing birth education course. It not only teaches the tools for self-hypnosis, but it covers everything you would need to know from a medical procedure standpoint, as well as after the baby is born and beyond. I had decided to go with as little medication as possible FOR MY BABY’S SAKE, not for my own. If it were just myself involved in the birth, I would 100% still get the pain medication. I have read many hypnobabies birth stories and I felt encouraged that this would be my best choice to have a non-traumatic, unmedicated birth.
The full course is 6 weeks long, with the remaining weeks before birth used for practice and maintenance. I started the course at about 27 weeks. I also want to add that I decided to employ a doula to help me realize my birth goals and help my husband with tricks and tips to help me through my birthing process. As it turned out, our cousin’s fiance Morgan had just started her own doula business, so I was excited to ask her to be my doula! She was kind enough to read some of my hypnobabies material so she would know what to expect and help with hypno-wise.
I began my birth education and hypnosis process. I listened to 2 hypnosis tracks almost every day, did some reading from a manual, listened to pregnancy affirmations, and met with Morgan a couple times before Ruby’s birth to go over techniques and plans. It wasn’t too tricky to do all of this, I would mainly do my listening at night before bed. It WAS difficult for me to stay awake during the relaxing hypnosis tracks, but that was part of the process.
My goal was to have as natural a birth as possible, with little to no intervention. Ruby was measuring small though and doctors were worried about her nutrition levels. I went in twice a week for Non Stress Tests, and had an extra ultrasound, and everything was looking good, accepting her small size. The doctors wanted me to get induced at 39 weeks and I REALLY didn’t want that, as there was an increased chance that I would not get the unmedicated birth I wanted for Ruby. As the induction date grew closer, I talked to a midwife at the practice I go to and she decided we could push my induction date to the day after my guess date.
Saturday night before my guess date, which was the following Wednesday, I started having pressure waves. They never got very close together, I had about 2 per hour all night. I listened to the hypnosis tracks designed to help cope with this part of the birthing process. When Sunday rolled around, I was exhausted from having these regular waves, but they died out during the day and I only had a few. This happened every night until Tuesday night, and Tuesday night I had some pretty powerful waves. During the day on Tuesday, my mother-in-law encouraged me to take a walk and we walked around the block and during that time, I lost my mucus plug. I decided to leave my little boy Rocky with my in-laws that night in case my birthing time was actually beginning. My waves still weren’t close together tuesday night, but they were pretty strong, and I moaned through a lot of them. Wednesday morning, the waves were inconsistent, but happening more often. When I would stand or walk around, they happened a lot. When I sat down, they slowed down. It was hard to know if CJ and I should head to the hospital or not. I kept my doula informed and on standby. I want to mention I had been regularly visiting the chiropractor for a few weeks to make sure my hips were well aligned, and had seen him Tuesday afternoon.
Back to Wednesday morning, my husband and I decided we might as well go to the hospital and get checked out. We arrived at the hospital about 9:30 and were admitted because I was about 3 cm dilated and was going to get induced the next morning anyway. We were put into a delivery room pretty quickly, where I was hooked up to an IV and the baby heart monitor. Because of Ruby’s size, they didn’t want me to be off the heart monitor too much. This was somewhat disappointing news because I had wanted the ability to move around as much as possible if needed. But my pressure waves had really slowed down again, I wasn’t feeling like birth was going to happen any time soon. At one point, there was a doctor, nurse, midwife, and medical student in my room at the same time and that felt a little overwhelming, and the doctor was making a big deal out of the fact that I hadn’t already been induced. After they all left, the midwife came back and talked to me much more calmly and gave me some reassurance that things were okay and Ruby was fine. Then I was started on the lowest dose of pitocin at about 11. I stayed on that dose for about an hour and a half. During this time, pressure waves increased and picked up in intensity. I was still very comfortable through most of this though, I did NOT think Ruby would arrive soon. I had been in the hospital bed the whole time and hadn’t felt the need for anything to help me cope yet. Then, they upped the dose of pitocin by one level and very quickly, the intensity got real. I started moaning quite a bit through my waves, and I got out of bed and onto a birth ball. I used the bathroom a couple times and had to pause on the way to the bathroom, in the bathroom, and on the way back to the hospital bed while coping with waves. I had my hypnosis tracks playing in earbuds this whole time and the reminders I was hearing were helping me get through things. My doula and husband helped with the intensity by rubbing my back in firm, downward motions. As the waves got more intense, my husband applied counter pressure on my hips, which helped immensely.
Around 2:30, my water had not broken yet. I remember the nurse asking me if I felt like I was getting close. Although the intensity had increased, I still didn’t feel like we were close and I remember telling her, “things would have to get a lot more intense, right?” But as I got up from the birth ball, a powerful wave came on and all the sudden, I felt something large down there! I couldn’t believe it, was that her head? The nurse had just asked if I was feeling any pushiness, and I told her not yet, and already, my body was wanting to push! My water had also broken as I stood up, so I got onto the bed on hands and knees and started pushing because my body just wanted to. It was INTENSE, but I honestly wouldn’t describe it as painful. Definitely a powerful feeling of pressure and just PUSHING. The midwife had come in at that point and she checked to make sure I was fully dilated, and sure enough, I was. I pushed on hands and knees for a bit, and yelled quite a bit during this part. I’m not too sure of everything that was happening at this point, but one thing I do remember was the nurse kept trying to find Ruby’s heartbeat with the monitor and that was pretty annoying. After pushing on hands a knees for a little bit, she wasn’t quite coming out, so the midwife suggested I try on my back. I still felt like I had a lot of energy at this point, I hadn’t reached exhaustion yet. I flipped around to my back, but I was more upright than I had been with Rocky. The only difficulty about this position was that I didn’t feel like I could bear down as much as I could on hands and knees. The amazing thing this whole time is that in between pressure waves, I felt so relaxed, I could actually rest. But I didn’t want to have as much tearing I had with Rocky’s birth, so I tried a little pushing in between waves. Once on my back, I said I felt like I was falling and not able to push against anything, so they suggest grabbing my legs above the knee. I did this with just my right leg, and my left stayed down on the bed. For some reason, this felt most comfortable. I remember my husband, doula, and the midwife all encouraging me as I pushed. The atmosphere in the room was very positive, and I was grateful for that.
After about 20 minutes of pushing, I remember saying a prayer asking for strength, and then I started to feel a burning sensation as Ruby was crowning. This was the first time I’d say it hurt. But it was not a level of pain I couldn’t handle, and I knew she was close, so I was motivated to push her out fast. I remember one more big push where I gave it my all, and then she slipped out and they immediately put her on my chest as my doula literally ripped my hospital gown off to allow Ruby and I to be skin to skin. It was euphoric. We did it! I was so happy and so ecstatic and delighted and everything wonderful. My little girl was here and with very little intervention, and she pinked up and was so healthy! She was indeed very tiny at only 5’ 3”, but she was so healthy and she started nursing almost instantly. Total push time was about half an hour and she was born at 3:33 in the afternoon. We had only been at the hospital for 6 hours! Another fact I couldn’t believe, because that morning, I felt for sure we would be waiting a long time. It was just wonderful. Her cord stopped pulsating very quickly, so it was clamped soon after she was born, I knew I still needed to push the placenta out, but my baby girl was on my chest and was adorable, I wasn’t worried about anything else. Luckily, my midwife had been gently massaging my perineum, so I only had a minor tear that did not need stitching. After a few smaller waves, I pushed and my midwife gently removed the placenta. That part was absolutely easy! Then my hubby and I were left to love our baby for several minutes and I was just on this incredible birth high that I can’t fully explain! I am beyond happy with Ruby’s birth experience and would use hypnobabies and go without an epidural again in a heartbeat. I am grateful for the lessons I learned from both births and would definitely want to help others in their birth journey! I hope someday to become a hypnobabies instructor and/or doula.