An honest and open review about the demonstration. I remain skeptical that any doulas were consulted or had a seat at the table, despite our numerous meetings and phone calls. There are only so many people one can speak to before realizing they all seem to lead back to the same individuals.
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I had one LONG and INTENSE contraction the whole time I was up and quickly went to go lay back down. I was feeling pretty sick and started to wonder if I wasn't going into the transition phase as I remembered feeling that way with Hayes. But I thought that surely it couldn't be the case as my contractions were still so inconsistent and not quite 2-3 minutes apart. I was definitely starting to lose control of my emotions. Nate was airing up the birth pool and I was feeling pretty concerned about everything that was happening. Just as I was having another contraction, my sister stepped in the door. I felt my water break, which I immediately told her, and I felt the baby’s head drop.
For as long as I've lived in Okinawa I should be fluent in Japanese now. Sadly, I am not. Over the years I've learned to understand and pick up on what most conversations are about. But don't ask me to speak it back. So far I have been able to maintain with my version of "Janglish", a terrible combination of broken English mixed with small phrases in Japanese.
On Thursday at work before HypnoBirthing class, I was pretty sure I lost some of my mucus plug and was experiencing light cramping. I had an ob appointment scheduled for the next day so I decided to wait and ask them unless things got worse.
On Friday, I told my midwife what happened and she asked if I’d like my cervix to be checked. She said it wasn’t necessary but if I was curious then I could know. I did want to know just to see if I should possibly be prepared for labor sooner than later. Sure enough I was 2-3 cm dilated and 50% effaced, but she said this could mean I’m having a baby in a few days or a few weeks. She said I didn’t have to come to the hospital until I couldn’t talk through a surge.
On Saturday and Sunday I was still experiencing some mucus like discharge but no real changes in terms of surges or pain. But then when I went to bed on Sunday night, I woke up a few hours later at midnight having surges (felt like back cramps) . They weren’t super strong and there wasn’t a clear pattern to how far apart they were, so I practiced my breathing we learned in the class and even listened to the script from the last class again. This really helped and I was able to get some extra sleep (on and off).
By 4 am they were getting stronger, so I took a shower to help and to get ready for the hospital. After my shower I woke up Jimmy around 445 and said he should probably get ready to go. We didn’t rush out the door, just took our time, and I think my water may have broken around 530. I went to the bathroom and it looked like my bloody show and lots of watery discharge.
We were on our way to the hospital by 6am and got checked in by 630. At this point admittedly, my HypnoBirthing practice went out the window a little bit. I had told Jimmy I was open to an epidural when we got to the hospital to help the pain and my breathing was not great.
When we went into triage my midwife checked me and I was at 8 cm. She told me we probably didn’t have time for an epidural and sure enough we didn’t. We got moved to a room shortly after and I could feel the pressure to push already. My midwife instructed me on what to do (I will say my mind was resisting the instruction to push when my body wasn’t telling me to at certain points but most of the time it was naturally coming with the surges anyway) but I powered through and with 3-4 pushes our baby was born!
I give all the credit to what Amanda taught us that allowed me to labor at home for so long, making my labor and delivery very short at the hospital. So thank you Amanda, and cheers to hypnobirthing! I wish you all the best with your upcoming deliveries. You got this mamas!
This year went by so fast. I can honestly say I feel like I blinked and here we are. January 1st, 2022.
There were a lot of very big changes for my family in 2021. We were barely coming out of 2020 and recovering from what seemed like a rollercoaster ride after my husband lost is step mom and the beginning fo 2020 and within a few short months, he unexpectedly lost his only brother. We kind of floated through the remainder of 2020. Keeping our lives a bit on the quiet side after my husband underwent a pretty big surgery in the fall of 2020.
Enter 2021.
We knew the first of the year would be a little slower and gave us a little breathing room as we knew once the end of spring came around it was time to jump on the freight train and hold on tight.
Our oldest daughter got engaged at the beginning of the 2021. We had a feeling it was coming. But I’m not sure if a parents heart is ever quite ready for trusting a young man with your daughter. It took my husband a little longer to accept the fact his daughter was growing up. I knew she was and ready to start watching her blossom into her womanhood. I am very proud of the young woman she is becoming.
My son graduated from high school and left for college in the fall. I am so very proud of him. He has really blossomed and is becoming such a respectable and honorable young man. I want to tell my clients to snuggle their little ones as long as they can, because time truly does go by quickly. I do miss him a lot. He will always be my little boy even though he towers over me by at least two inches. AND I AM 6’2”!
From that point it was non stop. Probably some of the biggest milestones of our lives happened just within a month of each other. My husband hung up is uniform and retired from the USMC after serving 29 years. This has been a huge transition for us. I have spent 23 years of my life traveling the world with him. It’s the only life our kids have ever known. And I probably wouldn’t be where I am at today as a doula and childbirth educator had the military of not provided opportunities to experience different duty stations and living overseas for the majority of our time in the military. We knew it was a long time coming and it was time to move onto the next season of our life.
Remember our daughter getting engaged earlier in the year? I forgot to mention they set their date for Nov 2021.
So not only did we have a retirement to prep for, a wedding was on the schedule.
I see why people hire a wedding planner. We didn’t. We should have. We will know better for next time. But I am ok if that is NOT for awhile.
On Nov 13th, 2021, we celebrated the union of our daughter and her new husband. It was a whirlwind and I feel like we are still trying to come down from it all.
Of course, in true doula fashion, I had a client on the books and she delivered a beautiful baby boy just a few days after the wedding.
Photo Credit to Jason & Kate Photography, LLC.
To say the least Christmas was pretty low key this year and we tried our best to just relax. Until we all got sick the day after Christmas. But thank goodness we are on the mend and finally feeling better.
I am now just taking the time to reconvene and start envisioning what 2022 is going to look like. By nature I am a planner, I like things in order with some structure and a plan. It has been a very big adjustment letting go of some of those things. More so on the business side this past year. I did have quite a few births throughout 2021 and there were some that really took every skill I had as a doula to support these parents as they had to fight for their birth. There were times I didn’t feel like I met everyone’s needs because of everything we had going on. I am truly thankful for the wonderful families I did get to serve. And that they were very understanding of the shifts and adjustments we were going through as a family.
I do have some apprehensions as to what is to come in 2022. Things have just not quite been the same since covid. But I will keep pressing on and lean on God as we navigate the road ahead.
Our birth was beautiful, wild and unexpected but we would not have been able to peacefully surrender to it had we not worked with you both. We will forever be thankful for you women!
At 33 weeks I started experiencing surges that began to progress throughout the week. One evening the surges became more intense than usual and we decided to start timing them. When we realized they were 2 minutes apart for over an hour we decided to go to the hospital to be seen. My OB diagnosed me with gestational hypertension and confirmed that I was in prodromal labor. Due to the diagnosis our OB requires a mandatory induction at 37 weeks and bed rest up until then. We left the hospital with an induction date set for 27 April.
Initially I was upset and felt very defeated. I felt that my body had failed me despite how much mental/physical work I was doing to prepare for birth. My heart wanted a natural birth but my body was trying to tell me it had other plans. I took the rest of that weekend to allow myself to feel all the emotions. My husband and I agreed that although it wasn’t the birth we had planned, we still would be able to lean into the Hypnobirthing methods.
Leading up to the induction date I would listen to the recorded scripts twice a day and would spend time each day picturing a positive birth scenario with our new circumstances. When the induction day came my husband took me to the beach (my place of peace) and we listened to our Hypnobirthing and Christian Hypnobirthing scripts on repeat. The Hypnobirthing method not only helped us prepare for birth but it strengthened our relationship.
Day 1:
We checked into the hospital at 1030 PM still with a plan to go as natural as we could but also ready to accept change. I received my initial cervix check at 1130 by a resident OB and was told I was 3cm and that they would not be introducing any induction methods that night to see if my labor would progress. 4 hours later I received another check and was told I was at 4cm and was offered a membrane sweep (this was painless so I became skeptical) and I accepted. Up to this point I was still having irregular surges but was comfortable.
Day 2:
At the 8am shift change I received my third check and unfortunately was told I was 0cm and the resident must have been mistaken from the other night. Instead of a fearful or angry reaction to the news my husband and I were able to calmly make a choice in how we wanted to proceed with induction.
We decided to begin with Cytotec which was given to me orally with increasing doses every 4 hours to help ripen my cervix. The first dose I was met with intense surges that came every minute for 4 hours. I spent that time listening to the scripts or worship on my birthing ball and getting up at the top of every hour to take a lap around the hospital room. The second dose the surges seemed to let up but I was experiencing severe nausea and vomiting that did not let up until I was off the Cytotec. We proceeded with the Cytotec for 4 doses before moving to the next induction method. At the end of the 4th dose I was at 4cm and received a true membrane sweep. (Totally felt that one!)
Prior to starting our induction our doctors and us agreed that mechanical manipulation of my cervix was completely off the table. I had been fearful of this method and knew in my heart I would need more assistance with the pain than I was ready for. However we knew after the Cytotec that most likely the use of a balloon to ripen my cervix would be the next step. Our doctors kindly let us have a 4 hour break after the Cytotec to 1. See if my body wanted to continue ripening on its own and 2. Let us rest up. At the end of the 4 hour break my cervix had not changed and we agreed to begin the mechanical ripening.
At this moment is where I truly felt my Hypnobirthing experience beginning and felt God truly working along side us. Without either of those I do not believe I would have had the ability to peacefully surrender to what my birth journey was going to be. After the ballon was inserted the nurse would come in every 30 minutes and rotate the ballon 10 times (5 each way) until the ballon fell out on its own. Our nurses did this a total of 5 times until the ballon fell out and I was 6cm.
After that procedure my surges became more frequent and stronger so again the nurses decided to see if my body could continue on its own for a few more hours. At 10 PM I was at 7.5 cm and my nurses offered to break my water. After talking it over with my husband we agreed to have my water broken but had also decided it was time to get an epidural. At 11pm I was given an epidural and shortly after the nurse broke my water although it was just a small trickle.
Day 3:
At 4am I received another cervix check and during that time I had a massive gush of fluid which is just what my body needed. At 8 am I was at 8.5cm and the nurses decided to start me on Pitocin. At this point I began to develop a high grade fever from my water being broken for so long so they started me on additional medication. Every hour until it was time to push my husband and nurses would help rotate me from side to side while utilizing the peanut ball. I reached 10cm at 11 am and began pushing. Our sweet Lola Jean was born at 12:43am on April 30th at 7lbs 7oz 20.28 in. She spent 2 days in the nicu for fluid in her lungs and was a fighter from the very start.
Although my birth was not what we had originally planned, we would not have had such a positive experience in a unknown environment had we not worked with our doula using Hypnobirthing methods.
Things that really helped me:
Recorded scripts
Christian Hypnobirthing app
Worship music
Birthing ball/peanut ball
Aroma therapy
The MOST supportive partner
The MOST amazing doula team
