Sarah, Julie, and Blooma Staff,

I wanted to share a little bit of my daugher’s birth story—especially since it began at Blooma!

My water broke—just a little bit—Saturday, October 23rd during Meredyth’s prenatal class.  There was really not much action until that night around midnight, when my water broke again (that can happen, right?) and contractions picked up and became almost regular.  We tried to get some sleep, and assumed things would pick up some more in the morning.

The contractions actually became less frequent the next day, and we did a bunch of things to pass the time—went to Target, baked cookies for my brother, and went to the mall.  We were supposed to go to the hospital Monday morning since my water had been broken so long, but Sunday evening I realized that what I had thought was the world’s largest mucus plug might actually be meconium in my amniotic fluid.

We rushed to the hospital and I was induced Monday morning.  Obviously I had wanted to avoid induction, so that was hard (my midwife says: “Wow, this was a really nice birth plan…”).

When I started laboring through the more intense contractions, my midwives and doula could not believe how I was able to listen to my body and move into good laboring positions.  I’m sure I would not have been able to do that if I hadn’t attended so many classes at Blooma.

In the end, Natalie never changed positions and was almost totally posterior when she was delivered after a long, difficult, and painful labor.  Regardless, I am so glad I was introduced to Blooma early in my pregnancy, for so many reasons—staying healthy (me and baby), general education about pregnancy and birth, meeting other pregnant women and commiserating about the things we’re all going through together, etc.

Check out Natalie's supta baddha konasana!

Natalie had a rough start—for one thing, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, causing her heart rate to drop every time I pushed.  Then when she was born she had a lot of meconium in her lungs and it took some time before she was able to breathe.  She recovered quickly though, and is doing fantastic now.  My husband and I are totally in love with her.

Also, my husband and I can’t say enough good things about the Healtheast midwives and St. Joe’s hospital staff.  I ended up with an episiotomy, but I think at most places I would have had a C-section with all the complications (her being posterior, the meconium, and heart rate issues).

The midwives were also amazing about helping me process my birth experience, which I felt pretty traumatized by immediately after.  So, if anyone is looking for a hospital, we would absolutely recommend St. Joe’s and the midwives.

Take care, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing some of you again at BYOB!

Rhiannon