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A Natural, Medication-Free Birth Story… the Bradley Way!
By Kitty | January 10, 2010
Almost ten months ago when Garrett and I first found out we were pregnant (Yahooo!) we had no idea what was involved in giving birth… other than having a baby at the end of 9 months. Fortunately, a colleague of Gare’s from work gave him the book “Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way”, which opened the floodgates to all that there is to know about preparing for and giving birth.
After reading the book and making the decision that we wanted to give birth as naturally as possible, we signed up for Bradley Birth classes in our area and started researching more. We then got “Husband-Coached Childbirth”, which is actually written by Dr. Bradley and Dr. Sparrow, another “expert” on natural childbirth. Reading these two books and taking the Bradley Birth classes really did a fantastic job in preparing us both for what we were in for.
We both read up on all of the emotional and physical stages of labor, and we practiced the husband-coached guided relaxation every night for months before the due date. I did all of my exercises diligently, including tailor sitting at every opportunity, pelvic rocking (which also worked wonders for relieving digestive issues and indigestion/heartburn), squatting, butterflies, and lots of walking. I also maintained my usual level of fitness, practicing yoga (primarily Ashtanga) 2-3 times a week and swam with my mom about once per week for the two months leading up to my due date. I attribute our fantastic birth experience to being so prepared, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Both of us knew (as much as possible without having already experienced a birth) what we were getting into, and we both were vowed to work together to have as natural and medication-free of a birth as possible.
One last side note before I share our birth story. Dr. Bradley compares giving birth to swimming quite often, which was awesome for me since I have been a swimmer since age 2, and was a competitive swimmer from age 8 through college (with the competition much more serious in high school and college). Imagine this: You don’t know how to swim and someone tells you that in 9 months they are going to throw you in deep water. Only a fool wouldn’t go out and learn how to swim in those 9 months. However, many women get pregnant and then do little or nothing to help prepare themselves for the experience, despite the fact that they have never before given birth. Dr. Bradley explains that if you make every effort to prepare, educate yourselves about giving birth, do your exercises, and practice before the “big day” (when you will be thrown into deep water for the first time in your life), then you will be able to keep yourself afloat. The same is true with giving birth. If the effort is made to prepare yourself and educate yourself about what the event will be like and what to expect, it will allow you to, at the very least, keep yourself afloat during the birth. If you practice diligently and train enough, who knows–perhaps you will smoothly sail across the deep water with a strong, even freestyle, and be able to have a wonderful natural birth like I did. Either way, it makes complete sense to me to make every effort to prepare yourself for an experience as life-altering as giving birth. And without further ado, here is our birth story (Please note that I go into detail describing the birth, so if you are not interested in the details of a live, natural birth, please do not read further):
Madeline Joyce Wilkin was born on December 23rd at 9:51pm. She was 7lb 5oz and 20.5 inches long at birth. I was able to have a completely natural birth and even got to pull Madeline up and out into my arms! My husband Garrett cut her cord and was an amazing coach throughout. Maddie came out with her eyes wide open, and has been alert and active since!! The holidays were busy with lots of family visiting, but now we are starting to get the hang of being a family of 3. We are loving being parents!! Here’s the story about how it all happened…
I went 5 days past my due date. I had an appointment with my OB, Alissa, on the morning of the day that I went into labor. During the appointment she found that I was dilated 3cm. This showed progress from a week earlier when I had been 1 cm dilated. At this point I still really hadn’t felt any of the practice contractions (just a questionable hardness of my belly). So my dilation began super early, without me feeling anything at all, really.
My labor started (real contractions) on the 22nd of December at around 11pm, but I didn’t wake up Garrett because the contractions weren’t too strong yet and I knew if I told him something was starting, he would never ever get to sleep. This turned out to be an excellent decision because it would have been much harder on us if he had also been without sleep. I should note that my labor started ‘coincidentally’ after trying one of those natural labor inducing methods with my husband. Wink wink nudge nudge.
I slept between contractions and got a bit of sleep that night, and nothing was really too bad at that point. It just felt like a tightening sensation, and I had absolutely no trouble breathing through the contractions comfortably and sleeping between. When Gare woke up for work at 7, I told him that I had been having contractions through the night. Although I thought he should go to work just in case these contractions went on for days, he stayed home. I’m glad he did!! He coached me through the contractions, and started keeping track of spacing and duration by around 8 o’clock in the morning. At the time, I thought it was way too early to be doing either of these things (the contractions were really easy and manageable) but hindsight, I’m glad he did what he did. His voice ended up being a guiding light throughout the rest of the day and birth experience. Starting with his calming guided relaxation so early set the stage for the rest of the day. The contractions were regular, but around 10 min apart and lasting around 30-45 seconds for most of the day. We ate breakfast and lunch, but mostly just relaxed in bed with Gare coaching me through each contraction. I’d say that the day was characterized by a kind of relaxed anticipation. We alerted our family members, OB, and doula through text messages as the day wore on.
Here we are eating lunch five and a half hours before leaving for the hospital.
At 3pm we thought it was as good a time as any to venture out since the sun would be setting soon. After being cooped up in the house all day, we knew it would be good to get up and move around a bit and even get some fresh air. We didn’t walk more than 200 or 300 feet from our door and it was very slow going. As soon as I was walking, the contractions became much closer together, and strong enough to demand my attention. When they came, I would put my arms around Garrett’s shoulders and we’d sway until the tension subsided. We thought this was a sign that labor had really kicked up, but when we got back in the house, the contractions slowed down again. They were back to 7, 8 , 9, and up to 14 minutes apart. I had so many plans for the rest of the day, and even asked my mother-in-law, who was staying with us, to get the frosting ready so that I could frost our gingerbread cookies! Somehow those plans fell through! I had been sitting at the computer after the walk, but the contractions were particularly hard while sitting upright. After some persuasion from Garrett, we moved back to the bed so that I could more fully concentrate and relax through the contractions.
By around 5pm, the contractions were about 7 minutes apart and lasting a full minute or more. They still were manageable though, so we didn’t ask our doula to come over yet. We had been in contact with her over the phone along the way. She encouraged us with each new development saying “This is what we want. This is a good sign. It means that labor is moving along!” The advocates of natural childbirth say that for your first birth, you should labor at home as long as possible. My OB also suggested that I labor at home as long as possible, and only go to the hospital when my contractions are 5 minutes apart lasting at least a minute each for an hour. I wasn’t yet at this point.
Just a little while later, the contractions began to come on quickly enough that Garrett was no longer able to check the stopwatch to effectively time them while also rubbing my back and helping me to relax. He tried to get his mother involved in helping to time them, when all of a sudden they kicked it up a notch and were rapid fire, double peaking with very little rest between. It was constant work trying to relax through them. We had about 7 or 8 contractions lasting a about a minute spaced about 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 2, and five minutes apart. Before we knew it, my body had decided that the baby was coming and coming soon! In hindsight, the start of transition was marked by a distinct sensation. I turned to Garrett and said “I feel tingly.” It wasn’t just a little tingly, either… it was my entire body. My face, my chest, my arms, hands, belly, legs… everything felt tingly! Those magic words caused a sudden and clear realization in Garrett: “I need to get this woman to the hospital!” He told his mother that it was time to go and she started gathering our things. This part of the night was a little worrisome for Garrett, but he got me to the car and coached me non-stop from our walkway to the doors of Overlook hospital without missing a beat. During the ride, he told me things like “Everything will be okay. We’re going to be fine. We’ll be there soon.” At this point, I was not really with it, since my entire body was still tingly and my eyes were pretty much closed the whole time as I tried to relax and manage the rapid-fire contractions. All I heard was his voice, and the steady even words helped me tremendously. He told me later that these words were as much for him as they were for me! When we were about a quarter mile away, I told Garrett that I was ready to push. He tried to sound reassuring and said “Not yet honey, but soon!”
We got to the hospital at around 7:30pm, and I was still all tingly and going through crazy contractions. Garrett offered to get a wheelchair for me so that he could whisk me up to the maternity unit. The thought of having to sit through more contractions ruled out that option for me, and at the time I imagined myself walking much more quickly than he would wheel me. So I insisted on walking there on my own. I went through several contractions on the way to the elevator, causing concern on the faces of passersby. One woman asked Garrett if I needed a wheelchair and he gave her the honest answer saying “She wanted to walk, thank you.”
When we arrived at the maternity unit, the nurses and technicians still had to get all my medical history along with vital signs and even start a hep lock. This whole rigamarole took around 40 minutes but before all that, the on call obstetrician (Gary Kaye, my doctor’s father and the guy who delivered my 3 siblings) examined me as soon as I got to the bed. He told me I was fully dilated: ready to push, cleared for take off!
After about 40 min of getting the basics down and getting me “settled” it was time for active labor. It was pretty intense. There were 2 points where my dr suggested things, like first… after a while Maddie wasn’t dropping as much as she should, and my water was still intact, so my dr thought that if she broke my water, things might move more quickly. I had read that when your water breaks, the contractions hurt way more so I didn’t want her to do it. We remembered our discussions about this from our birthing class as well! Gare and I decided to use the strategy we had talked about and ask to try a few more pushes and see if I could get her to come down more on her own. On the second push, my water exploded! It seriously popped like a water balloon and sprayed 3 feet all over my dr. She was drenched. It was gross but what are you gonna do? She just took it in stride as if nothing had happened. Then, after some more pushing, my dr said that my hymen was holding the baby back, and with the mirror she showed me what she was talking about. She said that if I wanted, she could cut it so that the baby would come more quickly. I asked insistently several times “But will she come out right away?” (at this point I was very ready to have my baby in my arms and have the labor end)… and my dr replied, “Well Kitty, I left my crystal ball at home….” This made me smile (I think) despite the intensity of labor. Either way, I didn’t really want her to cut, so we tried a few more pushes and I was able to get the baby down past that point. I asked her a couple contractions later if the cut would be bad, and she said, “Well you are doing fine now so you don’t need it”. Throughout the labor, I was really thankful and trusting of my OB. She knew exactly what type of birth we wanted, and she knew exactly what to say to motivate me the right way. She really was fantastic, which is great since I was a little bit doubtful of an OB being fully into the natural birth, despite how much I trusted her from the start. She went above and beyond my expectations and was a key contributor to my successes in having a natural birth.
During active labor, it was determined that Maddie was “sunny side up”–back labor! After all my months of tailor sitting and avoiding leaning back at all costs, she was back labor anyway! For this reason, my dr (or maybe it was our doula?) suggested pushing on all fours for a while. I had started out in the traditional stage 2 labor position of reclined with knees up, then switched to all fours, then eventually went back to the reclined knees up position. All fours I suppose did the trick, although it was a lot harder to relax between contractions that way. I ended up resting in child’s pose, a yoga pose, between contractions when I was pushing on all fours. It must have helped, though, since the labor wasn’t nearly as long as I thought it would be with back labor. Then, push, push, push… and finally I popped the baby’s head out. What a RELIEF!! My dr pulled out her arms and said, “Kitty, reach down and grab your baby”… I was like “I can’t!” and she said, “Yes you can. reach down and grab your baby!” So I reached down and grabbed her slippery body under the arms and pulled her the rest of the way out and onto my chest. Like whoa. It was a truly amazing experience. It was awesome.
Here Garrett helps coach me through the contractions in the hospital.
Honesty, at least from my experience, anyone who says a natural birth is crazy is completely wrong. I wouldn’t do it any other way. Maddie came out with her eyes wide open, alert and awake… I was tired, but completely fine and alert enough to actually deliver my own baby… and well, it was just all amazing. At no point did I even think about having any pain killers and each intervention that was suggested, we were able to discuss it and decide upon it (and ended up not needing any). Garrett was an awesome coach, and without him I really don’t think I could have stayed as focused throughout it… but it all went wonderfully. I ended up tearing at the end (2nd degree tear, I think)…. so I have a bunch of stitches, but they are completely better now, and weren’t all that uncomfortable even the few days afterward. I was slow moving and sat gently, but it wasn’t too bad. We are slowly getting the hang of the parent thing, but loving every minute!!
Here are we are gazing lovingly at our darling baby only minutes after delivery.
Okay, so it was a looooong story, but the whole thing just happened so perfectly, we really wanted to share all the details. We are very glad we chose the Bradley method, and also proud of ourselves for sticking with it no matter what. I wouldn’t change a thing about it, and am even more proud that I actually was able to pull my daughter out. Garrett cut the cord, and between the two of us, there weren’t more ecstatic love-filled people alive that night. After having a completely natural birth, I wouldn’t dream of doing it any other way.
Here are some pictures of our lovely daughter and us, her doting parents. We definitely will want to have more children (at least one more… maybe more?), and I know that I will have a natural birth for them all. It’s the way birth was intended, in my opinion, and it was a miraculous, awe-inspiring experience!
Some Daddy-Maddie bonding time.
Here are some of the many faces of Madeline at 6 days old.
Note that all but the first (eating lunch) and last (Maddie at 6 days old) photos were taken by Brittany Irwin of Lucy James Photography. She’s a fellow yogi and friend and we were lucky enough to have her at the birth to help document the miracle. Her photos are amazing and I highly recommend her to anyone in the NJ area looking for a photographer–for anything! Check out her site at www.lucyjamesphotography.com.
Topics: Pregnancy | 2 Comments »
January 25th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
[...] by [New Parents!!!] Gare and [...]
February 10th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
[...] also full of the “regulars”– including Brittany, who captured amazing photos of my birth experience– as well as some newbies. Being surrounded by such happy, wonderful people really kicks the [...]