In this birth story, Christina, who is one of my doula clients and is going to be sharing her induction birth story where she had an unmedicated birth with a vacuum assist. Christina and her husband worked with me throughout their pregnancy to prepare for birth, took the MamasteFit Childbirth Education Course, and navigated an unexpected induction after her due date when she started to develop some hypertension. Christina shares how she confidently made decisions throughout her birth because of her education on her birth options and felt empowered to have had an unmedicated birth.
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In this blog post, Christina is going to be sharing her induction birth story, and it was an unexpected induction towards the end of her pregnancy due to potentially some complications with hypertension. And then also she was past her due date.
For a lot of us, if we are planning to have an unmedicated birth, our goal usually is to have spontaneous labor, labor at home as long as possible, and then eventually show up at our birth location. So, when you’re told that you need to have an induction or you’re presented with the option of an induction, it can be really hard to navigate that and sometimes can be really scary.
And so, things that I found really helpful for myself during my first birth when I was navigating a potential induction and things that Christina found really helpful while navigating her unexpected induction was understanding what all of your options are and understanding what those options mean. And so sometimes there’s a lot of fear associated with Pitocin. Sometimes there’s a lot of fear or unknowns associated with different interventions during induction.
And so having a better understanding of how these different interventions are tools that are available to you to help you start labor–and they’re not evil or they’re not good, like there’s no morality attached to these interventions–can better help you navigate your induction, so understand how your hospital navigates induction. You understand what your options are, the risks and benefits of each of them and how effective are these different inductions methods.
And so having a conversation with your provider to get to a point where you feel confident that induction is the best option for you, and then asking questions along the way and being very patient with the process can be a really good way to approach an unexpected induction and still make it a really positive experience.
So let’s get into Christina’s birth story!
So to start, can you tell us how your pregnancy was and how you prepared for your birth?
Christina: So, my pregnancy actually wasn’t too bad. I never actually had too bad of nausea or anything. I had tons of food aversions and then just kind of lots of headaches and fatigue. You know, I feel like that’s pretty common. So overall, wasn’t it wasn’t too bad I think in the grand scheme of things, I think you hear a lot about really rough, rough, rough pregnancies.
But mine wasn’t too bad. So, when it came to kind of preparing for birth, I felt like I really had to prepare myself because you can’t expect what your pregnancy is going to be like. I don’t think you can really expect what your birth is going to be like. So for me, a big thing is researching your options.
Researching what can happen. What kind of interventions happen, and then what your pregnancy kind of look like in those last couple of weeks, especially when it comes to monitoring at your doctor’s office and things like that and how quickly it can kind of turn into an induction or maybe like a C-section, depending on how babies are doing and how you’re doing.
So for me, a big part of that was hiring a doula and kind of getting involved with MamasteFit so that you guys were a resource for me. And having not only you kind of on-call but everything that you kind of post for content and all of that was super helpful, preparing me for birth and kind of any issues I was having in my pregnancy when it came to kind of pelvic pain or back pain. A lot of those videos are super helpful.
I tried to stay relatively active through it. I mean, I was so tired in my first trimester now it was just so difficult to really get in a workout every day like a solid workout. But I did stay kind of. I’d go on walks every day. I’d go on hikes with my husband.
And I think that really helped. And yeah, so having you guys kind of around helped me a lot. Your birth class, I feel like it’s not one of those “traditional birth classes” that you would see at a hospital. I think it was better and provided a lot more information for me and my husband.
Like he really needed to know what was going on. He needed to know what kind of options there were, what was going on with the baby, what was going on with my body. Because I can’t imagine just going into that without that information for me or my husband. I mean, if he’s going to be a support person while I’m in labor, I’d hope he’d actually be doing something to support me instead of, you know, God forbid, you just sitting there wondering when the baby was going to pop out.
So I think all that was integral into going into my birth and kind of mentally preparing me for what could happen because, as I said, you never really know what’s going to happen. Getting induced is never my plan. I definitely wanted to labor at home for as long as possible. We live so close to the hospital, we live about 5 minutes.
So that was my ideal going into my birth. I would love to have labored at home for a really long time and then kind of when it came time to it, we would go to the hospital, hopefully just kind of be there for delivery. Gina would be with me pretty much any time during that, and so that was kind of what I thought would happen.
It was really good to have gone through with you guys about what kind of options there were when it came to induction, why you would need to get induced if you just chose to get induced, what kind of interventions there are when it came to it, depending on like your bishop score, all that kind of thing. I feel like so many people don’t know what that is.
And so when my plans changed and I got induced, I knew what my options were. I knew what I could do. I knew what I could say no to. I knew what I was comfortable with. My husband knew what was going on.
My husband was able to support with that decision the whole time because he learned about all this with you guys. So I think that was a really big part of my prep.
So can you talk about the end of your pregnancy and then get into your birth story?
Gina: So let’s get into the end of your pregnancy. So things kind of change from wanting to labor at home as long as possible to suddenly needing a medical induction.
Christina: Yeah. So the end of my pregnancy, I went over 40 weeks. That is not surprising, I think. But they kind of had me going two times a week for appointments and just to monitor everything. I got that ultrasound that would check everything on my 40 week. They said Everything looked great, baby was in position, and everything was on track.
Like I said, I had a really pretty easy pregnancy, healthy, and no issues. But then I went in for an appointment when I was over 40 weeks and I had a high blood pressure reading and they pretty much didn’t even finish the appointment. They just said, “Hey, you got to go into the hospital right now. We need to monitor you for the next couple hours, expect to get induced tonight.”
So I said, “wow, okay.” I had my bag packed. I was ready to go, you know, pulled my husband home from work. We get to the hospital, I’m monitored. They run labs, you know, urine, blood. They’ve been there, checked me for my blood pressure pretty much every 20 minutes. And we are there for hours.
The doctor finally comes in and said, “Hey, look, you never had another high reading, but if you had one more, we would be inducing you right now for gestational hypertension.” So they said since everything looked okay, I could go home, but they still wanted to schedule an induction. They were really busy that night, so Saturday. Well, first off, we kind of thought about it because, you know, you do have options and it was one reading.
Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad if I waited. So, there were a couple of other things that were kind of like, well, you know, maybe we should go on Saturday, go for induction. I felt okay with it. Like in my gut I was, you know, so tired of being pregnant at that point. I was like 41 weeks.
My husband had to go out of state training. He’s in the military, so he had a really hard date where he would be leaving like come hell or high water and would be gone for a month out of state. So, it would have been more beneficial earlier than later that had this baby that was on Thursday that had that high blood pressure reading. And I feel like things can change so fast.
Those last couple of days, I really wanted to avoid any kind of more serious complications and high blood pressure. So we scheduled an induction for two days later. I went in that Saturday and by that point, I was three centimeters dilated, so they didn’t have to do any kind of cervical ripening at all.
The only problem kind of was that I was GBS positive. So I needed a round of antibiotics before I could start Pitocin. And that kind of delayed, I guess the initial starting time. So I got there at 8PM initially they wanted to do an induction because when they measured me a couple of days earlier, I was only one centimeter. So, they wanted me to go in at night. But by the time I got there, I was kind of in early labor looking at the monitors.
So they decided to just do a membrane sweep, kind of see how my labor progressed while I had that first round of antibiotics. And then after that, we were starting Pitocin. So we can really get into it now. But the times are kind of difficult for me to remember. I mean, you got a little where you’re…
Gina: Time is magic during labor?
Christina: Yeah, I really had no concept of what was going on, but I can tell you we got checked in at eight and to kind of spoil the ending, he was born before 8 a.m., so things kind of move quickly. I had that first round of antibiotics. They started Pitocin around midnight. I think the nurse said, “Hey, we’re going to increase this by one every hour as long as everything kind of looks okay.”
If you’re okay with it, I’m like, Yeah, sure, of course. It sounds great not knowing, not knowing what pitocin contractions are going to feel like. Hit me like a bus like 2 hours later. So it kind of felt like you know, mild cramping wasn’t that bad. I was trying to sleep. I was texting Gina about it, so she was aware of where I was, what was going on. Maybe give her an idea of when she would need to come in.
Around midnight, I think they started, you know, everyone says gets some sleep, try and get some sleep. I tried nurses coming in every 20 minutes, so just the monitor because kept slipping off. So that was kind of rough. And then also we had Mexican food, so I was really reflux like there are all these things like I’m not sleeping.
It was awful. The Mexican food before an induction. Meanwhile, my husband, who can sleep through anything is like passed out on the couch and I’m like, okay, this sucks. So finally I think around three I was getting contractions about enough. I couldn’t sleep. I brought my book, I was reading my book, kind of letting things progress by like 345.
It was bad enough that I couldn’t even focus on my book anymore. I had stopped breathing through the contractions. My nurse came in, she was so, so sweet. She’s like, Oh, do you want to come to help with, you know, pain management? They knew I didn’t want an epidural. They knew that I had to do a lot. They were all super supportive of that.
They’re kind of excited, honestly, that there was going to be a doula there with us. She brings me this comb, I swear it probably only helped for like 10 minutes. And after that I’m like, Screw was comb. And so we end up on the birth ball. After that, I had to get out of bed, kind of start moving on the ball.
My husband’s up at 345 and contractions are coming. I think she said every two or 3 minutes. I honestly could not tell at all, but they just felt like they were pretty much constant, which I’m sure they were. And he looks at me and he’s like, Oh, how are you doing? Like, not great. Like, not great. Do you think I’m doing well right now?
My gowns are falling off, like I got an I.V. in my arm and I’m barely like, I’m just surviving at this point. And he goes, Hey, did you call Gina? I was like, No, no, no, no, I don’t want to. But it’s four in the morning. She’s got her kids sleeping like, I don’t want to bother her.
And then probably less than 15 minutes later, I think I stopped caring that you had a family because I was like, This is definitely active labor. I cannot sit. I’m not having a good time right now. I wanted an epidural. My husband’s like, No, you got to wait for Gina. And I was like, okay, okay, okay, we’ll call her. So we get her on the phone at 415 in the morning and I think I just said, Hey, come help. And that was it. She’s like, I’ll be there in 30 minutes.
So I’m watching the clock like a hawk. I think that’s the slowest my labor felt because I was just like waiting, waiting, waiting for this professional support because my husband’s so supportive. But he’s also, you know, has never been through this before. So I had no idea of what was really going on and what to do. I kept telling him to do like hip squeezes and he kept doing too high.
And I was just screaming out, I’m going to do it lower. This is not what I need. So he kept saying, Wait for Gina, wait for Gina. You don’t want an epidural. It’s like, I know I don’t. That was my intention going in. I did not want one. I really wanted to try and have a natural labor. And even with induction, I really wanted to try and have a natural labor.
And so he kept telling me, Wait for Gina, wait for Gina. Gina shows up kind of like an angel in the, you know, the light of the middle of the night. And it was like such a calming presence. She comes in, she, like, took my gown off because it was hanging on by a thread, guys. And you don’t care.
You really you don’t care if you’re naked in front of a bunch of people. It was a bunch of women and my husband. I’m wearing just like a bra. I still had my mask on. She, like, just gently took my mask off. Like, it was very gentle. And then from there, it really gets blurry. It really got blurry. So I know I got checked a couple times for my cervix.
At one point it was six. I think another time it was like later on it was seven or eight, but there were some like milestones in between there and pushing. So at one point they said, we can have the doctor come in and break your water. That should move it faster. So I said, yes, you know, that sounds great.
I’d love to get this thing moving faster because it was rough. I was having a bad time. I knew at some point in there, I think probably when I was in transition, I was like, I mean, even if you wanted an epidural, you know, 4 hours ago, you wouldn’t have been able to sit still for it anyway. So, you know, you’re just in this and this is what’s happening and you’re going to get there and it’s going to be okay.
And so, I at some point, my doctor broke my water and then at another point, Gina said, hey, you know, they can probably look at the Pitocin and turn it off if you want. And I was like, I had no idea I could do that. Hell, yeah, turn this thing off. It sucks. I was getting no breaks between my contractions at all.
It was so intense. It was like one on top of another. I could not rest between them. It was so exhausting. And then once we turned it off, I actually got some breaks between my contractions and it was amazing. I could breathe, my body could relax, and which I think was so key. Like, if you’re just constantly tensed up, there are other points that, you know, Gina looked at me and she’s like, You’re tensing up.
You need to, like, relax, which is so hard to do. Your whole body is screaming, just relax. Yeah. Why are you having a bad time right now? So she, like, kind of had some techniques to help, which they did. I was able to do, like a low moan because at some point I think my screaming because I was just screaming my contractions to deal with the pain was really high pitched.
So she’s like, No, you got to do the low like and I heard somewhere it’s like I’m doing you moo like a cow, which is just an awful analogy, but it helps, you know, it’s supposed to relax your pelvic floor, right? That was, that was great. Her and my husband were always giving me like, water sips, which is super helpful.
I didn’t know how hydrated I would be because you guys just posted a video about, you know, peeing during labor. I was just on the bed peeing during labor. I was not there’s no way I was able to make it to a toilet. That was not happening. Contraction was sitting and things were just happening. And, you know, it’s fine.
They had so many things and I was on the bed. It wasn’t like they had to mop up the floor or anything, so it wasn’t that bad. But that was not something I would think would happen. Everyone talks about like pooping during labor and for some reason I didn’t think about peeing myself during labor. I don’t know why I didn’t. Of course, you’re going to pee during labor. Why wouldn’t you? But they were giving you water there a couple of times. You know, I don’t remember who it was. Either you or my husband were giving me, like, hip squeezes or massages, or at some point there was like a cold compress. I saying this because my eyes were not open.
I do not know who was doing these things. Could have been a nurse.
So, we will give your husband credit.
He did have a very strong, firm hand to squeeze. I squeezed a nurse’s hand at some point and it was not it was not good enough. Yeah. Too small to too delicate, so nice and soft. And I was like, I need like a boulder for a hand.
That was my husband. So that was very helpful. Yeah, you’re very firm. That wasn’t going anywhere. It was almost like an arm wrestle, like he wouldn’t let me move it too much. This is what I need it. I need, like, a point of contact where I could kind of move my body off of because I was pretty much on the bed on all fours. And at some point I had my face against, like a peanut ball.
I felt my nose kind of hurt the next day from like pushing my face against it. So that was interesting. But I was on the bed pretty much the whole time, like all fours. I had an I.V. in this whole time, which I obviously completely forgot about. I had a bruise for like two weeks on my arm from just like kind of ripping that I.V. around.
And they also kept trying to keep a pulse ox monitor on my finger and it kept slipping off. Oh. So at one point they were just like, it’s okay, it’s okay. You can you don’t need that anymore. And apparently, throughout the entire time they were trying to monitor baby’s heart rate and there was no way a band was staying on my belly at that point.
I was moving so, so much. And my nurse again, “angel, that’s okay, Mama. You just move however you want. It’s fine. It’s fine. Don’t worry about us.” I was like, okay, cool. Give me that green light. I don’t care about you guys. I’m just going to do me. It’s fine. You can figure out the rest because I’m really phoning in on this.
So she was, like, holding the monitor. They took it off at the strap and was just holding on my belly the entire time she was the nurse. I was telling your friend this and she’s like, I wouldn’t want that. I was like, I had no idea she was there. It was like a hand constantly in the corner of my vision.
She wasn’t touching me. She wasn’t like obstructing anything. But they wanted baby’s heart rate. That was the best way they’re going to do it while I was laboring the way I wanted to. Labor So that was really helpful. She was just moving around with me and it was good they had the heart rate monitor because when it came time for me to push, I had no idea how long I was pushing at all.
My husband thinks it’s about 40 minutes, but of course he’s not watching the clock. So all I remember really is at some point he moved from holding my hand to holding one of my legs. Gina’s holding her, and the nurses are kind of telling me what’s best for me to push, how I should hold my legs. It was super helpful and like had a bear down.
And while we’re doing that on my last three contractions, when the by the time the doctor came in for me to actually deliver my baby’s heart rate drops on three contractions, I think his head was like right there. It sounded like, according to my husband. And the doctor looked at me and he goes, “I’m recommending to get a vacuum to help him out.”
He had to go through the side effects, obviously, which I already knew like I remember in the moment for the only time I really made eye contact because I was like, I need him to know that I’m focusing and I’m hearing him. He’s going through the side effects. And you know what can happen. And I recall I remember when that was happening I wanted to yell at him.
I already know what they are. I went through the class!
Gina: You did yell at him.
Christina: Poor, Doctor Nance. He’s a good doctor.
Gina: You’re like, I know, I know. Just do it. I just do it. It’s fine. Get this baby out.
Christina: Cause I was like, I know. I know what they are. I was in a class. Like, you don’t have to tell me you’re wasting precious time. Just get him out. I don’t need to hear that explanation. I educated myself. So, yes, I definitely did scare him. And I remember my husband at first I started with a nod and my husband just looks at my doctor and goes, Oh, she said yes.
And I was like, Yes, yes. He really wanted him at that point because it was a lot of pain. And so he goes, okay. So I never even thought that I could look like next contraction. Apparently it was hooked on this, my little guy’s head. Next contraction, I start pushing and I just felt him like pretty much yanked out is what it felt like because after that, you know, pain kind of stops.
I didn’t really notice the pain of a tear, really, because you’re just like it all. It all hurts. You don’t really know what’s going on, but they put them on my chest and I remember the sun was up. So that’s the only way I know what time it was. The sun was rising at this point. Apparently, they put him on my chest, and he pooped immediately; meconium poop all over my belly.
So the nurses were trying to clean it up. I didn’t know that he did this until I’m holding him. He’s on my chest. It’s very nice. I look at my hand and I said, Is that poop? And Gina said, Oh yeah, he pooped on you. Oh, listen, it’s so wonderful, everyone. There is so much poop.
Luckily, they clean it up. I feel like the nurses didn’t want me to know because who wants to know? They just have poop all over them. No one does. But I mean, you don’t care. I didn’t care. I was. Yeah. And I’m just like on cloud nine. On Cloud nine. So happy that he’s out, that I’m not in labor anymore.
So happy I’m not feeling those contractions. So, like, overjoyed that he made it safely because there is so much anxiety for me in the last couple of weeks about his movements and making sure that there were kick counts were hitting where they should, that he was doing his normal movement patterns. If I had a cold drink and I didn’t feel him, what does that mean?
Like, do I need to go to the doctor? Because they always say go. If you’re not sure, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You hear like one bad horror story and that’s all that plays on repeat in your head. So he was here, he was happy. He was safe. And Gina, part of her doula experience is birth photos.
And you can read it all over my face in these pictures like the relief, the happiness, like the pure joy and love is so amazing when he finally made it. But like I said, I never saw that vacuum. I was 100% on board my doctor, you know, is doing his due diligence, telling me what was going on for me.
Very happy that that was that got him out. That got out safely. He didn’t have any kind of mark on his head. Nothing. I don’t even think he had kind of a cone head. Yeah. By seven, by 742 is his birth time. Placenta was delivered a couple of minutes later and again, doctor just kind of like yanked it out, didn’t feel anything at that point.
And then I had a second-degree tear. I do remember again very focused on him when he was telling me how much I tore because that’s, you know, big, I think, in your postpartum healing. And he was looking at me, he goes, it did not tear through your rectum. And I immediately said, okay, great, that’s all I really want to know.
Now, don’t tell me more about how bad it is down there. I’m just glad it didn’t go that far. And my husband was definitely listening more than I was because later someone asked Oh where they had dissolvable stitches and I said, I honestly have no idea. I don’t know, I wasn’t listening that well. And my husband goes, Yes, yes, there does.
All while I was paying attention, I was like, at least one of us. One of us was listening to the doctor. Yeah. It’s kind of hard to focus when you’re a brand new baby that you just went through like hell and back to get into the world is on your chest and you’re trying to bond and get to know him.
And the first thing I said to him was, Oh my God, hi. And my husband’s like, you’ve known him for all this time. I was like, No, no, no. But now he’s here. I don’t think you understand how that transition feels for a mom is that they’re finally here and you can actually meet them, you know? Yes, they’re inside you and you kind of get to know them and you feel connected and bonded.
But when they’re actually there and you can look at them and you can touch them, it’s just you’re finally meeting this full person that was just like the best feeling in the world. So of course, I was listening to my doctor what kind of stitches I had. I had no idea. And but he was amazing. Made sure I did not feel a thing when he was stitching me up.
He was so great. And then he was pretty much like, You look good. I’m going to go. Congratulations. And I was like, Thank you. So that was one thing I didn’t really know is that most of my labor delivery was with nurses. I was pushing with nurses. That was another thing that happened. I looked at at one point different nurse.
There was a shift change in the middle of my delivery, so I had a completely different nurse looking at me. Obviously, I did not care. She was another angel, all these nurses so well, and they also looked so pretty. All their hair was done.
Roxanne: She was a day shift nurse!
Christina: Yeah. She said that was the first time she curled her hair.
In a while. I was like, Well, damn, you look amazing. I, on the other hand, do not buy it for me. I mean, you don’t care. I don’t care. Gina also redid my bun a couple of times while I was in labor.
Gina: My claim to fame is the birth hair.
Christina: And so helpful because I don’t think my husband would know how to do that. And I don’t want my hair on my face. I know it’s disgusting and sweaty and hot and I have a lot of hair, so I really didn’t want my face. I mean, I was definitely very helpful, was like she was in my head, which is what I wanted.
When I went with a doula, it was exactly what I needed to get to that birth that I wanted. So even though I wasn’t laboring at home and just going to the hospital to deliver and I did my entire labor delivery start to finish in the hospital, having that dialog changed the experience, it 100% made it different than I think if I was just kind of on my own with my husband and the nurses, I mean, they’re kind of there to support you.
But I also feel like most of their job was checking my blood pressure and watching my contractions. And in the baby’s heart rate, they weren’t really focused on my emotional well-being, I should say, and seeing if I was kind of panicking or struggling. There’s only so much that they can really do, as I have no idea how many nurses were in their room.
I knew of my initial nurse who checked me in. I think her name was Amanda, and then another one that was pregnant. And that’s all I remember. But I think there were more. It’s a blur. It really is. And then I remember the nurse after I delivered because she did those massages, that aren’t massages.
Gina: I was like who gave you a massage postpartum? Oh.. the fundal massage.
The fake massage. I know, bro. Yeah. Those were, you know, they’re fine. She was very nice. She’s like, take a deep, cleansing breath. Just let me know when you’re ready. And I was like, I’m not. But do it anyway. You know, we need to get through this. We need to make sure that, you know, I’m not I don’t know what is clotting or?
Gina: hemorrhaging.
Okay? I was not hemorrhaging, which I wasn’t. So then they kind of just kind of shuttle you out. Oh, you can go to parts of your recovery room. And I sat up and almost passed out and she’s like, You need to eat something. Be right back. She comes back with the sandwich. My husband came back and we left to get coffee for this man.
Get like 20 minutes after the baby’s born. The doctor is like “peace, I’m done. You’re good.” Gina laughs and can make it home for breakfast, which is so nice. And my husband goes, Is there a place? I get coffee and it’s like, Are you serious? You actually slept last night and you still are so tired. You need coffee?
I was like, You bet your ass you get me a large, very caffeinated drink. I have not had that much coffee during my pregnancy and go to like this local place, get me scones and I need everything up the wazoo. So he finally comes back because there is some weird thing with visitors in this hospital and the parking lot.
He takes like an hour and a half to come back. By that point, I’ve had, like, my golden hour. It was amazing. I actually think that 2 hours because the nurses went to an emergency somewhere else and I was clearly fine for them to leave. So it was just like me and my newborn. I had no idea where my phone was, you know, so much of that bonding connection and they come back, they can do his way and everything.
But it was too I think it was 2 hours that I had him like just to myself. They really didn’t. They were no rush to do his like height, weight, all that good stuff. I had a blanket, he had a diaper, thankfully, so he wasn’t pooping on me again. Like a lactation consultant came by to kind of help with the first feed. Which was great.
I had to eat, but I did almost pass out when I got up again. So they had me go on this kind of dolly system that you can you can like stand and they will you around while you’re standing. And it looks so funny, but also it was just so hilarious. My husband started laughing and the nurse gave him like a death stare.
She’s like, “How dare you laugh at her right now? She’s in a very fragile place.” And I was like, I mean, it does look really funny. I can barely move my legs just because I’m so tired and you just have so much adrenaline going through your body that when you then lie down for 2 hours, I was just like crashing from all the adrenaline. And so I think that’s why I probably almost I passed out, I got very lightheaded, and had to eat something. But this thing was to make sure that if I did pass out going to the bathroom, that I was kind of protected in this guarded gate. They kind of have like a gate that goes up very funny-looking piece of equipment.
So would you have an unmedicated birth again?
Christina: I think so. My mother in law asked that same thing and didn’t believe me when I said Yeah, I felt amazing after that birth. I don’t know if it’s hormones or I mean, it is hormones, but I was like raring to go. I was so good. Of course, you still have, you know what’s going on downstairs. We don’t want to talk about what that was.
But your swollen and your stitches and your bleeding. But other than that, I was able to walk around after the fainting spell kind of passed and I ate something and got some rest, but I could walk around. I was able to take a shower and they had me leave 24 hours later. And most of that I think, was honestly because he needed my son needed assessments.
They do like 12 and then 24 hours after birth. And then I was good to go. And I think for a next one I would definitely do unmedicated, especially if it is shorter because from act of contractions to when he was born was less than 4 hours. That seems pretty doable. I was very nervous going into it because my mom kept telling me she had a 26 hour labor with my older brother and all I heard was it was awful.
It’s awful. They let me have an epidural, blah, blah, blah. Like, I feel like a lot of boomers kind of have the same story, but it was very scary for me to go into that thinking I might have been like a 20 something hour labor. That’s really hard, I think, to go that long. So having like a four hour one was a lot better, especially thinking about another birth.
Yeah, I, I think I well, it was empowering, honestly. I mean, you guys know you’ve done it and after that I feel like I can do it. I could do anything, and I could proudly say that that was, like, the best I have ever done. Like, before that it was, oh, my degree or, you know, this job that I did, this project I worked on, and now it’s like, Oh, I gave birth, like, unmedicated.
It was amazing. I can do anything that, oh, that was like the best thing I think I’ve ever I’ve ever done. It was, yeah, it was great. And I feel like I had a really good recovery because of it. Maybe not directly, but I think it just helped. Mentality of it all was really good going into it. So I think leaving it, leaving my delivery and going into that fourth trimester helped because going into I just wanted to be as natural as I could be.
And I was pretty much, yeah.
Do you have any advice for our listeners who may be looking at getting induced to a complication or electively getting induced but wanting an unmedicated birth?
Christina: Tips for them? Yeah. So for me, a big part of it was knowing what my options were, knowing what kind of knobs they can turn for your induction. For some people, they just need their water broken and their labor kind of goes from there. So for me, knowing what kind of options there were was super helpful so that I wasn’t sitting there confused.
If they were saying, hey, we want to do this, and I didn’t know what it was. So I have after kind of educating myself and knowing all that and knowing that I was supported in going in for an induction, I was very happy with it. So that would be kind of my recommendation. If you have a good support system, if you want to get induced for nonmedical reasons, you just kind of want to you’re done being pregnant and you just want to get induced.
I think if you’re happy with the decision, your support system should be supporting you, should be helping you and agreeing that if that’s what you want, that’s what’s best for you, for your family, for your baby. You got to kind of trust your gut and go for it. That’s kind of the only way I felt okay going in for it, because it wasn’t what I wanted initially, obviously.
But, you know, plans change and I think you have to be flexible and knowing that it’s never going to go exactly the way you want. So for me, knowing my options, having a do over was huge. The biggest the biggest thing I think I could have done for my pregnancy and my birth was my doula, so that I knew I had that support there.
And their focus on me. So yeah, now I’m going through labor in the hospital from start to finish. It could be a really long process. That’s something that scared me too. You don’t know how long it’s going to take. And having that support was just pivotal in me knowing that, you know, I can do this, I can go in and I can have the birth I want, I can go on medicated as long as I have the support.
So a lot of it is mental and knowing that, you know, this isn’t what I wanted and that’s okay, and my plan changed. But I still have all these other tools in my toolbox that are going to get me to the goal I want.
Gina: So well. Thank you so much for sharing your birth story with our listeners and for allowing me to be a part of your birth.
Christina: Yes, I wish I could say I was going to be here for my next one, but there’s no guarantee since we’re military. So my chances are we could be moving again. But I mean, if I am, you already got a job.
Gina: Sounds good. I’m going to hold you to it.
Conclusion
So during Christina’s birth, her provider recommended using a vacuum assist during her pushing phase. And this is due to after three contractions, her baby’s heart rate was down and taking a long time to recover. And this could be a sign that baby potentially is not tolerating that pushing anymore and needed to be born sooner rather than later.
Her provider did a great job of trying to educate her and consent her before using the vacuum on all of the risks and benefits of using the vacuum. But Christina did take our childbirth education and where we went over what a vacuum is and some of the risks and benefits of using it and when they would potentially offer it.
So she felt well informed when it was offered on that decision and was able to make an educated decision on that option. So I always kind of advocate for asking your providers about vacuum, forceps, episiotomy during a prenatal visit so that you can fully understand the risks and benefits. And it’s not during a stressful time of your baby’s heart rate being down.
And you have to decide really quickly if you want to use this as your provider is like spewing information at you, learning these risks and benefits prior to labor starting is really beneficial. With a vacuum, it is important to know they’re not pulling and yanking your baby out, although it may feel that way, they’re just gently guiding the baby, hopefully underneath that pubic bone to help them be born.
You are still pushing during the process of the vacuum or forceps. They’re just helping give baby a little extra oomph when you push. If you have any questions on pushing or pushing interventions, take our childbirth education where we go over stuff way more in-depth or ask your provider.