Erin&Nathan: Rewind!! Anticipation and preparation...

So, in order to give birth at home, Nathan and I did a lot of praying, research and preparing...

After my first birth which and ended up being a Cesearean delivery, I did a lot of reading about C-sections because I heard that after a C-section, you are not allowed to give birth any other way in the future and I also heard that you can only have so many C-sections. AAAH! What if I want more children than that?! Anyway, in reading and talking to people, I learned that those two things are only true with certain doctors and for certain people. I discovered that I am not one of those who ought to have C-sections for the rest of my births and so we set about finding a caregiver who would support me in attempting a natural birth.

It seems to us that the surest and safest way to ensure a natural birth would be to birth anywhere but a hospital, e.g. at home. We then set about interviewing midwives and I also interviewed some my aunts. We live near Salt Lake City and are very lucky to have the choice between A LOT of midwives. After meeting with about 15 midwives, we chose Molly and she began the schedule of prenatal care.

Aunt Becca recommended the book Hypnobirthing, saying that it helped her a lot and made a significant difference for her during labor. I was blessed to find the book in brand new cobdition at a garage sale for the exorbitant price of ... $1! Wahoo! I loved what I read, and then it turned out that our Molly taught a hypnobirth class! What luck! So Nathan and I took the class. There is a list of "Affirmations for Easy, Comfortable Birthing" and Auntie Becca had typed them up for herself and was kind enough to send them to me. I made a couple small changes, to suit them to myself. Then I printed each one on a separate sheet of paper, mounted them on pastel cardstock, decorated them and posted them around the house. I will include the list at the end of this post.

The morning of Nov. 27th, Ivy's due date, I went out with mom to do some after Thanksgiving shopping. I started having contractions at Hobby Lobby. They continued through getting some bread samples at Great Harvest, shopping at Jo-Ann's, and were still going at 11, so Molly came over at about 11:30. I wasn't really acting like anything was very serious, but Molly checked how dilated I was just in case. She found that I was already at 6 1/2 centimeters! So, she stayed and called Sheri, the other midwife who would attend my birth, and started getting things ready for an arrival. I don't remember feeling much until I needed to push, at which point, I remember it being rather painful. I pushed for not quite an hour and Ivy was born with one final push at 8:30 that evening. She came out so quickly and all-at-once that I was torn up pretty badly. The stitching was by far the most painful part of the whole day and absolutely the most painful experience of my life.

I am so, so glad that I could give birth at home and that I was able to give birth yo my baby with no drugs and no monitors and no interventions. I hope to be so blessed for the next one and every birth thereafter.