Marshall's Birth Story: My beautiful unmedicated natural birth in Huntsville, Alabama

Two days postpartum and I am in tiny little baby heaven! My birthing experience with Marshall was a night and day difference from my birthing experience with Jackson.

A little back story on my pregnancy:

Back in September when I was about 3 or 4 months pregnant, we found out about the job opportunity with SAIC in Huntsville. I had every intention of practicing Hypnobabies with this pregnancy like I did with Jackson. I was very diligent with my Hypnobabies practice with my first pregnancy. With the stress of months of waiting on a potential new job and watching after a toddler on top of being pregnant, I only got around to listening to my Hypnobabies tracks a few times.

In Florida, I was receiving prenatal care at a birthing center with midwives and planned to have a beautiful pain medication-free water birth. When I found out that we may be moving to Alabama, I began doing research on my options for prenatal care and very quickly found out, much to my disappointment, that not only are birthing centers non-existent, having a midwife attend your birth anywhere other than a hospital is illegal. And although there was ONE certified nurse midwife (CNM) that delivers in the area, she is retiring soon and will not be replaced. So, after exhausting options like crossing the border into Tennessee to birth in a double wide trailer or spending an arm and a leg renting a house to have a "home birth" in, I began looking into the hospitals and obstetricians in the Huntsville area. I also knew that if I were going to give birth in a hospital setting and if I were going to achieve an unmedicated birth, I would HAVE to get a doula.

I looked for recommendations wherever I could find someone to ask. After talking to tons and tons of people, I found that the most recommended OBs for being the most natural-birth friendly were Dr. Conrad and Dr. Aguayo. People also highly recommended Crestwood hospital for being the most natural-birth friendly. I decided to see Dr. Aguayo.

My due date was February 20th, and I have to admit that I was a little bit sad when I actually reached my due date. After having a pre-term labor scare at 33 weeks and having Jackson 9 days early, I thought for sure baby #2 would come early as well.

On the night of the 20th, I was SO hungry, which was unlike me at that point in the pregnancy. I ate more dinner than usual and even had a late night snack of Spam before going to bed at 11. I couldn't fall asleep because I was feeling kind of crampy, but I was determined to get some sleep so I popped a couple of extra strength tylenol. I woke up a few times to go to the bathroom, but didn't lose any chunks of sleep like I had been for the previous two or three weeks. I woke up at 6:15 and went to the bathroom to find bloody show. Shortly after that the contractions began. I yelled from the bathroom to David, "UM DAVID, I'M PRETTY SURE TODAY'S THE DAY!" We decided that since the contractions were not very painful or regular yet that he would go ahead and go to work until I felt that things were picking up in pace. He went for a few hours and then I had him come home. My doula came over and we walked curbs outside to try and move things along. The contractions started out being short, about 30-45 seconds long and anywhere from 3-5 minutes apart. Then they spaced out to 6 minutes apart and lasted closer to a minute long. I held off from going to the hospital until about 9pm when the contractions started to increase more in intensity. My awesome doula, Bethany Ring, met us at the hospital. I immediately felt awesome about my hospital choice when the first thing the nurses asked me was if I had a birth plan. I had actually forgotten it at home, but the fact that they wanted to know my preferences made me feel like they really cared about helping me have my ideal birthing experience. I told them all my preferences and they assured me that everything that I wanted was their standard of care anyways! They hooked me up to monitors for 30 minutes, which they apologized for having to do at all, and got me free as soon as they could. They checked my cervix and found it to be 4cm dilated, 90% effaced. After getting poked for an IV five times before a successful poke, I was able to get in the shower with the birthing ball. I sat on the ball with my face against the cold shower wall while the hot water pounded on my back until I used up the hot water. I dried off and David, Bethany and I started to walk laps around the L&D hallways. This was around midnight I think. After several laps, we decided to get back to the room and let them check me again. I was 5cm. 15 minutes later, I asked them to check me again. I was 6cm, but could be stretched to 7cm. At this point, I started shaking uncontrollably. The pain was getting so bad that all I could think to say when I felt another contraction come was "Nooo.... I can't do this! It hurts too bad!" My doula was so great though, she knew all the things to do and say to help me relax and to help me tap into my Hypnobabies training, even though I hadn't practiced it in a couple of years. Even though it'd been a while, I totally attribute my level of composure and calmness to Hypnobabies. My doula said she would have never guessed that I was going through transition by how I was acting. The next time they checked me, I was at a 9. I have no clue what time that was. It must have been sometime around 2:15 or 2:30 because I know it wasn't long after that that I was at a 10 and begging to push. My body made me push a few times before they gave me the green light to actively push. It was kind of like when you throw up how your stomach just does it all on its own and it's out of your control. The on-call doctor showed up just in time for me to push little Marshall out! They had me hold my own legs up and push. I pushed for maybe 10 minutes. It was by far the most painful thing I've ever experienced, but it's crazy because even 12 hours after the experience, so much of the memory of the pain was gone that all I could say to describe it was that it hurt really really bad. At this point, only two days later, it's even less clear of a memory. Mother nature is pretty smart that way. Don't worry, I don't have any desire to be doing that again anytime soon.

They put Marshall right on my chest immediately, and I got to hold him for a solid 30 minutes before I chose to give him to someone else to hold (David) so I could get up and try to empty my bladder. After several failed attempts of trying to pee, they finally did a straight catheter so that my uterus could properly shrink without having to fight for space with my full bladder. We got to hold our little baby for TWO HOURS before the nursery nurses came to weight and measure and bathe him. It was so awesome!! They also delayed cord clamping and didn't give me an episiotomy! I tore on my own, but at least they respected my wishes!

All in all, my birthing experience was JUST what I was hoping for! I got to go into labor on my own, I had a beautifully painful unmedicated vaginal birth and got to experience the whole thing from beginning to end, and I got to bond with my baby right away!

A HUGE shoutout to my awesome doula who encouraged me the whole way and kept me focused on my goal of an unmedicated birth, and to my awesome husband who was there by my side the whole time, doing everything for me that I asked. I love that man so much more having been through something so hard with him right there, loving me through it.