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Archive for the ‘Birth’ Category

Birth Story – names changed.
Natasha Rieder, birthing Jade

19th January 2009
Sleep last night was poor due to overactive /negative mind getting angry, sad, frustrated, disappointed, and more, about the fact that nothing has happened – no birth – and that the time pressure factor was going to kick into play. I couldn’t see how I could possibly land back in the situation of having another c-section. Surely the Universe, you (Little Jade) and my body could give me the one thing I want to experience – natural childbirth – considering how much I invest in parenting consciously and with awareness?

23rd January
As you can see Monday the 19th was an emotional day – I was tired from lack of sleep, feeling pressure due to time and generally very ‘the hell in’ and not interested in doing anything to induce labour anymore as it clearly wasn’t doing much. I wasn’t yet ready to give in to a c-section and have one booked, but I was tired of trying too hard and pushing too much. I almost even cancelled my ante-natal visit with Gladys cos I felt even that was too much involvement. But I went – I’m still a responsible mother & wanted to check Little Jade was still good & fine.
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This is probably the biggest fear factor when it comes to birth – just how sore is it going to be??
Once that little baby is in there this thought consumes you – I think every mother has that moment of realisation and blind panic that now that baby is in – it has to come out – “turn back the clocks!”.
It is probably for this reason that pregnancy becomes so uncomfortable towards the end, so that you can reach that space where you no longer care whether birth is painful or not – you just want baby out.

Here is a clip from 60secDoulas discussing this topic – Read the rest of this entry »

Posted this the evening of 11 July, 2009, several hours after Nienke was born:

Nienke was born at 18:00,weighed 3.45kg,10 hours of labour. Wanted epidural at 10am,long story-Didn’t get one.Wont lie-it was HELL. I think l begged DH at one stage to kill me.She suckles like a champ, latched immediately! Sleeping now with me in bed, am just staring at her. Will post later!

The birth story, fresh from the press the following day:

I had cramps throughout Friday evening, but thought it was the lovely potjie we ate the evening.

The cramps were mild and about 15 minutes apart. After 7am, I felt something leaking and saw I had my show. About 15-20 minutes after that my water broke. It was STREAMING down my legs.

Didn’t know what to do-were walking around with a pad in one had, my doctor on the line in the other hand, asking my hubby if I can first have a shower.

Took a shower, went to hospital. The contractions were already about 4 minutes apart, but felt like period pains. At hospital they weighed me-I gained a whopping 21 kg’s! (Lost 7kg during birth.)
I was put on an antibiotic drip, because apparently if your water break then you can become infected, they also monitored baby and then I was free to “walk” and do everything the way I wanted. O yes, had an internal exam by nurse and was not dilated yet! But the contractions were becoming stronger and longer. Still about 3 min. apart but felt like SERIOUS period pains.

Was walking on the grass outside with my drip in the one hand, hubby timing my contractions, me saying “it’s not that bad” and sitting in the sun in-between.
Got REALLY bad, so at about 10am I considered an epidural. Told nurse and she said I must first dilate 4cm’s. They did internal and I was only 1cm dilated! Thought I was going to die. Went for walk again outside but couldn’t keep it up. Was taken to delivery room (o yes, somewhere in between I received a nice enema as well) and had a catheter inserted. Here it is all a bit fussy. Was VERY strong contractions, little did I know it was nothing compared to what was to come.
Another nice internal-only 3cm’s-had to wait one cm more. Then the dr who gave the epidurals first had to do a c-section. I had some pethadine, which did NOTHING to relieve the pain, only made me go into a trance during rest-periods between contractions.

By this stage I was screaming like a crazy person and breathing like crazy and nobody was allowed to touch me, only held hubby’s hand.

While telling the nurse I was dying (I really did lose all dignity and did not care about ANYTHING apart from getting relieve from the pain) she did another internal and I was 8cm’s! THEN the dr who did epidurals strolled in. I wasn’t myself by this stage. So the nurse asked me do I still want one and I remember yelling at her “hy het mos nou gesê dit is te LAAT!”

I then shouted some more and told her to let my dr. come because this baby is coming. It irritated me that she kept on asking me questions a normal person would be able to answer, but I was not a normal person at that stage.

She would ask me “hoe voel dit” or “ons moet dr bel as jy 10cm ontsluit is”. I mean, HELLO! The baby was coming!!!

I could feel her pressing down with her feet at the top of my abdomen. It was the most amazing feeling and so empowering to feel how my baby was working with me.

I shouted at nurse to GET MY DOCTOR.

When my dr. arrived, I was 10cm and he was fantastic. By this stage I was completely out of control and he kept me grounded. He would tell me calmly what to do and to push when he says etc.

The one nurse held my one leg and helped me push by pushing my chin on my chest. The pushing was quite hard, dr. said it was a “tight squeeze” and that she came out sideways. She hadn’t even crowned yet when I told him they must “suck her out”. I just felt I wouldn’t be able to do it.

He then used the vacuum thingy.

I didn’t really feel that extreme urge to push everyone seems to have. I actually didn’t WANT to push, because I felt she was too big. So I did it sort of half-heartedly.

Anyway, she came out beautifully and I only got one stitch. Did not feel a thing when dr. cut me, though I heard it. She was very blue when she came out but then she starting crying and all was well. My hubby went with her to have her weighed etc but I told them to bring her right back, because I wanted to breastfeed straight away and do kangaroo care.
She was born at 18:00.

So I was cleaned up, taken to my room, they brought her to me, all naked and not yet bathed. She latched immediately and was happy doing just that. My DH and I both kangaroo cared and I dressed her at about 21:00 for first time. She slept with me, I did not sleep a wink, cant sleep in hospitals, the nurses kept waking us up and checking her blood pressure etc.

Anyway, I am glad in the end I did not get epidural, because I had the birth I wanted. I just did not know it would be that HARD and sore. The great thing is, the memory faded the next day and my cute baby was the only thing that mattered.

Would DEF. go prepared to be in the right state of mind to handle the pain better.

It was the night of the 15 February 2010, and in the midst of another perineal massage I was pondering the possibility of doing this forever and changing my profession to Gynaecology.
We were 10 days overdue and nothing seemed to be happening, so that evening we decided to watch a movie, and finish up with some “passion” (which sometimes started things) before hitting the sack. Now our first child (Seth) was 17 days overdue so we were not worried just waiting, and waiting some more.
I was woken up at around 11:30 to Seth crying and asking for Mumsie. My wife got up and settled him. She came back to the room and said she was getting a hot water bottle as she was having a few contractions and her back was sore. This was nothing really out of the ordinary as we had been through a few nights of strong Braxton Hicks before.

Read the rest of this entry »

We were pregnant with our second child and had decided on a home waterbirth.
According to my ovulation dates our baby was due on the 5th Feb 2010, but as with our previous pregnancy the date came and went, while our friends and family harassed us about whether we’d forgotten to tell them if the baby had arrived.
I’d been having painful Braxton hicks at night for weeks and we had one night where we were convinced labour was starting but after a bath and some time it all just petered off again. The BH were painful, but irregular and always disappeared in the early hours of the morning. I found they were most powerful after sex, so we tried often to kick start labour with “passion”, but I was getting frustrated and exhausted from the sleepless nights that passed with no result.
On the night of the 15th Feb we were discussing waiting another week for our baby, and I was contemplating asking my midwife if we could try the castor oil and orange juice route the following morning when I was due to see her. As time was getting on I was worrying more and more that as the pregnancy was so similar to Seth’s that this labour was going to be similar to his too. We decided to give the passion another go and finally turned out the lights sometime before 11pm.

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The story: At about 10 pm on the evening of th 15th January, I started getting a funny feeling in my tummy area. It didnt feel like contractions, neither did it feel like cramps. It was a slight, constant, pressure kind of feeling. A bit like someone was touching a bruise. I thought it was a bit of nerves as I knew I had to be induced in 2 days time.

One and a half hours later, the feeling was not funny anymore.

I could not sit or lie down and I’d want to scream. The only comfortable position was bending forward slightly with my legs apart. Persperation was dripping from every single pore of my body and now i was worried that I might have some kind of infection. The thought still hadnt crossed my mind that I was in labour. I decided to have a bath and see if it would ease the pain. It was a big mistake. Like I said, the only comfortable position was standing wide legs and half bent.

At 01:56(I know this because we argued about the time later and I went back to my phone to check) I SMS’ed my midwife aunt from the bath to ask what could be the matter. She phoned me back immediately and asked me to explain what I was feeling. I told her “it’s not contractions but it feels like my fanny and butt is going to fall off”.She said that I must leave for the hospital immediatly to get checked out.

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Seth James Pearce’s Birth Story

This is the story of how Seth, our firstborn son, was born.

It was my first pregnancy and all went really well. We had tried to conceive for a while and even before I finally fell pregnant we had decided we wanted as natural a pregnancy and birth as possible, which led us to seek the services of a midwife rather than a gynae.

We finally found Xoli, our midwife, and decided to have our baby at Linkwood Clinic as we couldn’t find a midwife we were happy with to help us with a homebirth.

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This is the story of the birth of my little miracle baby – Andrew Roy Cross, (older brother to Birth story of Michael Cross)
born on 24 June 2004.

I found out that I was pregnant on 2 December 2003. My due date was 10 August 2004. It was so exciting to tell everyone. My sister was the first to know and then I told my mom and my grandmother. My mom and sister were flying to visit my brother in Canada for the month that evening and I called my brother from the airport to tell him the news. Everyone was very excited, with it being the first grandchild on both my and my husband’s side of the family.

My pregnancy was great, except for the nausea, which lasted the whole way and was not only confined to morning sickness. I really felt like I was glowing. I love being pregnant.

I don’t know when exactly I began leaking amniotic fluid. I was feeling dampness downstairs for a week or so. I had been ill with bronchitis for a few days and had really been coughing a lot. I just assumed that the dampness was due to incontinence because of the pregnancy and that this was just worsened due to the coughing. I wore a pad and though nothing more of it.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the story of the birth of my precious baby – Michael Albert Cross,
born on 29 July 2006

I found out that I was pregnant on 2 January 2006. My due date was 8 September 2006. I had a lovely (textbook-like) pregnancy and the baby was growing very nicely, although a bit big – but that I would only worry about later.

On Wednesday, 26 July, I woke up the morning with contractions. Not being sure if they were false ones or not I started timing them and sure enough they were regular, meaning it was the real thing! This concerned me as I was only 33 weeks pregnant. I went off to the hospital and was admitted with premature labour, which my gynae (tried to stop. After some drugs for the pain and others to stop the contractions I made myself at home for a bit of a hospital stay.

I remained in the hospital for 2 nights and was discharged on Friday, 28 July with some medication for in case the contractions started up again and told to take things easy (mild bedrest). All was well until 5am the next morning (29 July) when the contractions started up again. I got up and did some washing and packed a bag for myself and the baby, just incase – instinct must have taken over then – had some of the medication to stop the contractions and waited to see what would happen. By 7am I was in a lot of pain so I woke my husband up and we all (my eldest child too) made our way to the hospital again. I got to the hospital at about 8am and was told that I was indeed in labour again and that the doctor would be called. Unfortunately my gynae was not available as it was his weekend off, so I was introduced to the on duty doctor. He examined me and told me I was already 5cm dilated and therefore they would not be able to stop the labour process and that the baby would be born that day. As you can imagine, I was in a lot of shock (and pain) and had to quickly mentally prepare myself for this as it was really the last thing I had expected!

We called the parents and my mom (who happened to be in town) came over to the hospital. We also called my husband’s mom to come fetch our other child, who was still with us at that stage (terrorizing the people and the poor fish in reception, but luckily I was the only patient there that day).

After being prepped, I was moved into the labour suite. Things started to get a bit hectic then and pain-wise I was not doing too well and the baby was lying posteriorly, making labour a bit worse than anticipated. I asked for an epidural as pain relief at about 10am and the anesthetist arrived shortly before 12pm to come do the procedure. It was quite quick and painless with the only challenge being to sit perfectly still during a contraction for him to work on the spine. The epidural kicked in quite quickly and the midwife did a sweep of the membranes and my waters broke at 12h25.

Before I knew it, I was 10cm dilated and was told to hang on for the doctor before starting the next phase of labour. The gynae arrived just in time and about 10 minutes later Michael Albert Cross made his appearance at 13h35! HE screamed when he was born and wee’ed all over the nurses. He had an apgar score of 8/10 and 9/10 and I managed to hold him for a few minutes before the paediatrician took him off to the NICU. He was fine with the birth, weighing in at 2.39kg. He only needed a little bit of oxygen, which they administered by holding a tube close to his nose and mouth.

Michael spent 11 days in the NICU before coming home

Gestational age when born 34 weeks
Weight when born 2.39kg
Reason for premature birth (eg. Pre-term labour, pre-eclampisia, placenta praevia etc) Pre-term labour (I had a bladder infection)
Baby’s age & weight at time of writing 23 months (June 2008); 13kg

My role is not central to the birth but more as a background support to the key players so that they can each focus their energies where they are most needed at any given time.

1. What is a doula?
A doula is a trained, non-medical, birth support person (labour companion). Her function is to provide emotional and informed-choice support to the parents before, during and after the birth. The focus of the doula falls on the mother’s emotional and physical needs, wants and best interests. Her aim is to help the mother (as far as possible) achieve her ‘ideal birth’ as opposed to the ideas held by those present (doula included).
The doula’s support complements the medical care-giver and assists a birth partner in participating with confidence.

2. Why would you need a midwife/doctor and a doula?

says gail J Dahl. “Many women think their doctor will be there for them throughout labor only to discover it’s just them and their partner in the room for most of the time.”

Though a midwife’s approach is holistic care, their main function at a birth is as your medical caregiver and as such there is always a stage in a birth where their focus out of necessity becomes clinical in nature and the emotional needs of the mother become secondary. The doula’s function does not change – her focus remains the mother’s needs and through assisting the birth partner in how best to support the mother, allows the mother to focus on birthing her baby.

3. Does it really help having a doula?
It has been observed that the support of a doula has a positive impact on a woman’s ability to cope in labour as well as her feelings about the birth experience afterwards. Mothers with doula support are less inclined to feel overwhelmed and panicked. This reduces the requests for medicated pain relief, epidurals and the number of caesareans.
Results from 6 different studies of doula assisted births have been observed that due to better birthing positions and less stress hormones produced by calmer women in labour, there is a:

• 50% reduction in the caesarean rate
• 25% shorter labour (due to better birthing positions and less stress hormones produced by calmer women in labour)
• 60% reduction in epidural requests
• 40% reduction in oxytocin use
• 30% reduction in analgesia use
• 40% reduction in forceps delivery
Information was obtained from Mothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter Easier and Healthier Birth, Klaus, Kennell, and Klaus (1993).

4. How do doulas practice?
In South Africa doulas practice privately and are hired by the birth parents.
Depending on how they structure their package and what extras are provided their costs range from R1500 to R3000 (this will invariably cover 1-2 visits prior to the birth, the birth itself, the settling period after the birth and 1-2 post natal visit).

5. Does a doula replace nursing staff?
No. As indicated the doula’s function is non-medical, though they do assist the staff in terms of taking care of the mothers needs as the doula’s presence at the birth is consistent throughout the birth and they only have one person to care for -whereas medical staff are not present the entire duration, their attention is shared by others on the ward and staff is subject to shift changes.

6. Does a doula make decisions on my behalf?
No – she purely carries out your wishes.

7. Will a doula make my partner feel unnecessary?
No, as said she assists your birth partner in being actively and effectively involved, so on the contrary most birth partners feel that the doula made them feel more comfortable and attending the birth.

8. What do Doula’s do?
• A doula is the only carer who is with the mother consistently for the duration of labour, the birth and till everyone is settled and resting after the birth

• Gives both emotional and physical support and comfort in coping with each contraction through various means such as: words of encouragement, keeping those present quiet through the contractions, touch, massage, aromatherapy, counterpressure, movement, praise and reassurance.

• She guides on position changes, how to relax, prepares and guides the mother through the different phases of labour by keeping her informed of what is happening.

• The doula can assist and guide in the writing of a birth plan, explain procedures and help parents to make informed decisions and assist in realising the birth plan as far as possible – with this as a guide she acts as the voice for the parents with the medical staff and advocates their birth requirements.

• Doulas are informed on all phases of labour and birth and are able to prepare parents through explaining what to expect.

• Doulas assists the birth partner in how to be supportive to the mother and by taking care of more trivial things can free the partner up to concentrate on the birth mother (or by being there to support the mother can give the partner a breather).

• She is able to take pictures at the labour and birth (though it is not practical for the doula to be both the carer and the official photographer).

• The doula is trained to assist with post natal care for the mother and child and provide basic support in the successful initiation of breastfeeding.

9. What is most important to consider when choosing a doula?

Regardless of whether you’re choosing a doctor or midwife, you need to look at personality. “If you feel you’re not being respected by your caregiver, then that is not the caregiver for you,” says Gail L Dahl. “And you can switch to someone new right up to the time you give birth.”

You need to feel that she respects your wants and needs for the birth and does not try to instil her own on you. She is not your medical caregiver (you have chosen that person in the role of your obstetrician or midwife) and will not be attending the birth on her own or making medical decisions on your behalf– above all else you need to feel able to rely on her for support, so connecting with her as a person is important.

10. How can I find a doula in my area?
There are various listing services on the net.
DOSA www.doula.org.za
The Village www.doulas.co.za
Sacred Space www.doulatraining.co.za
WOMBS www.wombs.org.za

Birth Plan Generator

other posts on this topic
Birth Story Friday – Gabriel’s Birth – doula perspective
Women who birth