Birth story - Ayelet and baby boy

*Trigger warning* - Mention of Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), fetal heart distress and past labor complications.

My body in general is hyper reactive to pitocin, caused fetal heart distress in my first delivery in 2019. Had another induction in 2020 where I was induced due to IUGR again and managed to keep up with the up breathing until about 12 hours in, then got epidural and it turned out to be life threatening for me… and then followed by a week of being paralyzed in bed from a spinal fluid leak. This time being induced and getting an epidural was simply not an option for me.

October 3rd I felt my contractions amp up, after 2.5 weeks of prodormal labor. Decided I was going to call my mom and tell her to get the next flight in, rest and call my midwife in the morning. I went to my midwife’s office to be assessed, I was 5cms and 80% effaced. She did a sweep, told me to go get lunch and go for a walk by the beach and then meet her at the hospital.

I checked in around 12:30 and by 2:30 my surges started amping up. I got on a ball, walked around, did some nipple stimulation/hand expressing and then got another sweep. Labor started getting very intense very quickly, but I kept to up breathing and tried out the gas and air machine and by 8:24 pm baby was in my arms.

When surges felt like they were taking me over I kept reminding myself “every surge is bringing me closer to meet my baby” that, with visualizations helped so much. It was also very important for me to let all the staff with me there know that I absolutely did not want an epidural and not to offer it even if I begged.

This course helped me so much with being familiar with the parts of labor I was experiencing and identifying them. I’d have a weak moment and remember, oh! This is common during transition phase to feel like we can’t do it anymore- that means I’m getting there, I’m making progress. I felt like I needed a tiny reset and took gas and air on the bed to rest my body.

Then the “moo”ing sound started coming out of my mouth and I knew it was time, even though I was being told otherwise. Nurse told me to stop pushing and I told her that I literally could not stop my body from doing what it was doing.

Grateful for that wild experience!