A determined mama worked through about eight hours of active labor at home before heading to the hospital, thanks to a bit of banana bread baking and her supportive husband. Read all about this family’s birthing journey in the words of new mama, Hannah. Congratulations!

Love,

Alisa, Sarah & the women of Blooma

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{By Hannah B.}

Louis Clifton was born at 4:18 p.m. on Wednesday, May 9th weighing a healthy 8 lbs, 11 oz.

I started feeling the “crampy” contractions around 10 p.m. on May 8th, just as Brady (my husband) and I were going to bed.  I didn’t want to alarm him, so I kept the feelings to myself until about midnight when I was certain this was it!

I woke Brady and told him I was going to go downstairs and make some banana bread and wait for the contractions to intensify.  I told him to go back to bed.

Strangely, from the very beginning, my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and they remained that way all the way through to Louis’ birth, so it was only the changing intensity that told us things were progressing.

By 2 a.m., the contractions were strong enough that I had to hunker down and really breath through them, so I went back upstairs to get my coach (Brady). From 2 a.m. until 10 a.m. the next morning, Brady and I worked our way around the house, trying various positions and strategies learned at Blooma prenatal yoga classes or in the fabulous Birth Intensive class.

Leaning on the bed, kneeling, in the bath, in the bed, on the exercise ball, we did it all (animal noises included)!  The best position we tried was lying in bed!  We laid on our sides, with Brady spooning me from behind.  Every time a contraction came, he’d press a hot compress on my lower back and push on my chest hard to force breathing and I’d lift my top leg in rhythm with my breath.  It was great – we stayed this way for almost 2 hours and got some intermittent sleep.

Around 10 a.m., we were getting anxious.  And the contractions had intensified so much, that Brady became useless.

I was REALLY dreading the hospital, especially the whole check-in process.  But I finally caved and we decided to head in for fear that as time went on, it would get even tougher to leave the house.  Luckily the hospital was 7 minutes away, so I hustled to the car between contractions and sat in the backseat on all fours the whole way there.

We were delivering at Fairview Southdale, we had no doula and I was Group B strep positive and was planning to decline the penicillin IV (I wanted NO medical interventions if at all possible).  So I was very concerned how the experience would be.  To my amazement, the hospital experience was not so bad!  The nurses were totally understanding about my decision to have no medical interventions.  They checked us in – I was already at 6 centimeters!! – and then we went about our business in the bathtub in the room with very few interruptions for the next couple hours until it was time to push.

Now here is where I went wrong!  I thought because I was in good shape, the pushing would be the easy part.  Around 1 p.m. I was getting anxious for this whole thing to get over with, so I decided to start pushing on my own.

The nurses checked me and I was only 8 centimeters.  They told me to try and stop pushing, but I figured I could push through – what was 2 more centimeters anyway?  So they called my doctor in.  We pushed for about an hour.  I made progress during the first 3-4 pushes, and then the rest of the hour was pushing with NO progress.

Louis was “sunny side up” which also did not help since his head was getting stuck on my pelvic bone.  After that first hour, everyone seemed to lose hope.  The nurses were less supportive, my doctor even left the room for a half hour or so, and my contractions were so far apart (still 3-5 minutes) that I also mentally gave up and sort of half rested, half pushed for the next hour or so.

This was by far the hardest part of the labor – the mental state I was in – a very low place where I had NO IDEA how this baby was going to come out.  And I was exhausted.  So after two hours of “pushing,” the doctor and nurses suggested pitocin or at least giving me fluids through an IV to help me regain some energy.

I agreed to fluids, but was really dreading an IV.  They dragged the IV in next to my bed, and that was all it took.  I suddenly decided to give it all I had.  I knew I was the only one who could get the baby out and getting an IV or any medical help at this point would only slow things down.

So I pushed and pushed and pushed as hard as I possibly could!!  And about 45 minutes later, little Louis was born.

Aside from my mistake of pushing too soon, I really believe my labor was perfect!  Without the medical interventions, I felt like I had control of the situation the entire time.  The contraction pains were tough, but the breaks in between were heavenly which made it all manageable.

I’ve heard that the baby crowning can be very painful, but it is nothing when you are that close to meeting your little baby!  The hardest part was most definitely getting over the mental block that hit during the pushing.

For the most part, I was alert with a sense of humor through nearly my entire labor.  My body was beat up, no doubt, after the delivery, but I think me and my baby were as healthy as we could be because we didn’t intervene with the natural process with medicine. … Thanks so much for everything Blooma and see you soon at the BYOB classes!

Hannah

*{A little note from Blooma: We joyfully share birth stories sent to us by Blooma families, however, Blooma does not claim responsibility for and does not endorse individual choices made by families or their care providers. We seek to share any array of birth stories to showcase a wide range of experiences.}