Amy and Pedro came to my Confident Birthing class this summer. Here is Aurelia’s birth story. Enjoy!
Aurelia’s birth went really well, we were very lucky. I had a very long prelabor – started getting light contractions on the evening of Saturday the 8th but was able to get some sleep and did not experience any real discomfort. The contractions picked up Sunday and by Sunday night they were about 9-10 minutes apart and fairly strong. We thought for sure we would be having her Monday but my contractions remained about 7 minutes apart all day and night. Not the most pleasant time in my life, I did not sleep at all and was very uncomfortable. We used many of the methods we learned in your class and they certainly helped to get through the two days and even worse the two nights. By Tuesday I was just plain tired and truthfully a bit scared since I had not really heard of early labor going that long – my contractions were still 7 min apart and quite strong.
We had our regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment at 12 on Tuesday and when I was checked I was at 4 cm, the doctor recommended we go ahead and go to the hospital to get fluids and see how that effected my contractions. We took the advice and went – by the time the initial hospital nurse checked me, 45 min later, I was 6 cm and an hour and 15 min later I was fully dilated! I stayed in the hospital bed on my side when we were in the birthing room, but that was by choice, I found a good spot that really worked for me. Pedro was an awesome coach and helped me to focus on the goal rather than the pain.
Apparently the long prelabor really paid off because 2 ½ hours after we checked into the hospital we gave birth to our little girl. I only pushed for a half hour and boom she came sliding out = the doctor barely made it in time! We were able to go completely drug free and the active labor was much less intense then I had been expecting. Aurelia was 8 lbs 6 oz and 22 inches long and very healthy! I felt great and was able to be up and moving around with in hour or so of giving birth. The whole process was all we could have hoped, again we were very lucky that there were no complications!
Thanks again for the great class – we will recommend it to anyone else we know who is interested in natural birth.
~ Amy and Pedro
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