Vera's Birth Story (Part 2)

This episode is part 2 of the 2-part episode about my daughter Vera's birth. Listen to last week’s episode of the first part if you haven’t had the chance yet.

Despite all the advance preparation for this birth, things did not immediately go quite as planned. So, if you’re thinking about having a baby, I hope you can learn from my experience.

A Somewhat Chaotic Arrival at the Hospital

Our story resumes as we were arriving at the hospital while contractions were in full swing. Despite some confusion getting in and a brief scare when my water broke full of meconium, I found myself ready to start pushing within minutes.

Nearly an hour later, I was totally exhausted. But Vera had still not arrived. Remembering some positioning strategies I had studied, I moved into some different positions. I believe that this helped open things up and made it easier and quicker for Vera to arrive.

At one point while pushing, I finally felt Vera’s head come out. A moment later and she was all the way out.

Reflections on a Natural Birth

Over the following days and weeks, I was still in a decent amount of pain. Even given that, I feel very strongly that avoiding medication helped me bond better with my child, and get breast-feeding established, and I’m very glad I did it that way.

Perhaps more than anything else, this experience taught me how to find a balance between trusting my own intuition and knowing when to ask for help. While I felt as prepared as I could be for this birth, I know that I could not have done it all on my own.

How did you prepare for birth? How did the preparation help you and what came as a surprise? Leave a comment on the episode page!

In This Episode

A chaotic arrival at the hospital [3:45]
Finding the right position to push [12:15]
Putting my research into action and advocating for what I needed to do [20:00]
Vera finally arrives [29:20]
Reflections on an unmedicated birth experience [35:15]

Quotes

“You can do as much preparation as possible and you can’t be fully prepared for what’s going to happen.” [2:45]

“There was such a big difference between the pushing on my back versus the pushing on my knees. It was like night and day.” [27:19]

“There’s a balance in my life that I need to learn how to hit between knowing what’s right and doing what I think is right and following my intuition and also letting people help me.” [38:06]

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