Positive Birth Stories

Women can overcome the fear surrounding labor and birth by hearing or reading Positive Birth Stories. I have asked a number of my Bradley Method® and Prenatal Yoga students to write their experiences down to share with other couples. Most of these stories on my blog http://prenatalyoga.wordpress.com are stories of natural birth. A couple of them are not, but these mothers were able to turn their baby's birth into an empowering experience and bring their babies into the world in the best, safest, and gentlest way possible.

"Women need to hear positive birth stories. Sadly, women who have positive, transformative, challenging but amazing births usually don't tell their stories. They may think it's not normal, or may not want to make other women feel inferior. Women need to share their birth stories, both positive and difficult, and when they're difficult, we should examine why and what could have changed. These stories have the power to transform how society looks at birth, to dispel the myths and relieve the fear." Debra Pascali-Bonaro

Prenatal Yoga Classes Help With Birth

Post Date: May 19th, 2013

Below is another natural birth story with some valuable opportunities to point out lots of things Michelle did right that helped her achieve the natural birth that she wanted.

I want to thank you so much for the great Prenatal Yoga class that you offer at Babies In Bloom. I took your Wednesday and Saturday classes to help with my varicose veins in my left leg, and consequently, I also found out how much I enjoyed yoga and all of its benefits.  I had pressure and pain in my leg due to my pregnancy related varicose veins, until I discovered your prenatal  yoga class.  

I felt improvement after the first class that I took and the pain went away after the second week of classes. There was one week that I had to miss two consecutive classes and I could feel the pain and pressure in my leg come back due to being on my feet all day at work and missing those classes.  It was really amazing how the stretches and breathing practices helped my circulation.

Your prenatal yoga classes definitely helped me with the actual natural birth of my daughter, as well.  I used your breathing techniques to ease and get through my contractions, your helpful natural birthing advice gave me knowledge and confidence to reach my final goal of a natural birth. And your pregnancy-catered yoga positions gave me the strength in my legs to squat during the actual birth.  We had an amazing birthing experience with the help of you, Dr. Nick Capetanakis and the Scripps Memorial Encinitas staff!

Liza- Prenatal Yoga allows expectant mothers to relax and explore their emotional selves. By getting in touch with our emotional selves in preparation for labor and birth, we can learn how to view pregnancy and birth in a less factual or rational way. It opens the door to the idea or concept of trusting their bodies to not only grow their babies but also to birth their babies. Give my free 25 minute yoga class a try.  The physical benefits are a nice bonus too.

Here is a short version of my birth story…  I woke up at 2:30am with menstrual-like cramps and the contractions progressed from there. We labored at home as long as possible and we checked into the hospital at 8am.

Liza-Dr. Sarah Buckley says a laboring woman needs three things to progress in labor. She needs to be in a private place, like home, where she feels safe, and she is unobserved, yet supported. As you’ll read in the next sentence, Michelle was able to relax at home and let her body open up so she could birth her baby girl.

Dr. Cap was already there and checked my dilation right away. I was 9cm and he broke my water while checking.  The nurses grabbed a squat bar for the table and I had our baby girl exactly eleven minutes after checking into the facility!!  I barely had to push, since gravity and the natural contractions guided her out. Dr. Cap was amazing and coached me through that final pushing stage. He helped me to slow down and massaged me with mineral oil so that I would not tear like I did during my first labor. I only had one tiny minor tear that healed within a couple of days. Dr. Cap was patient and let my husband, Jeff, catch our daughter and hand her to me right away.  

Liza-What a thrill and honor for a father to be able to “catch” his own child, and be the first person to hold her…He did not have Jeff cut the umbilical cord until my placenta was out and the nurses let me hold and bond with our daughter for a couple of hours until they finally took her vitals in our labor room. It was amazing!  

There are many benefits of letting the cord stop pulsating before it is clamped and cut. You can read about it here. Science and Sensibility and NBC News

Here is a picture of Anna Mary Raiatea Logandro (I mentioned to you that we were going to give our daughter a Tahitian middle name…we gave her "Raiatea" because of its significance to us. Jeff and I went to Raiatea on our Honeymoon and my friend, Riya ("Raia"), introduced us on a blind date.). Anna was born on April 26th at 8:11am. She weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 18-1/2" long.

 

 

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Posted in Labor and Birth Advice, Natural Birth Stories |

Turning around the whole birth experience 180 degrees. Welcome to the world Brooklyn!

Post Date: August 3rd, 2011

My contractions started on Sunday night after a long day with the family @ Sea World. Even though Garrett pushed me around in a wheelchair all day, I was still exhausted when we got home and started having contractions around midnight that were every 5-7 minutes apart. I woke up on Monday morning and the contractions had pretty much died down, maybe one an hour off and on throughout the day. This continued on until Wednesday afternoon when I had my prenatal appt. @ Dr. Cap's office. He checked me and I was 3 cm dialated and contracting about 4-6 times an hour. We discussed how I could start labor at any time but it may takes days or even weeks. We decided that he would just "stretch" my cervix a little bit and see if it helped moved things along. I was OK with this idea because it had been a long week already and I was VERY ready to get the whole thing going. Dr. Cap assured me that if the baby wasn't ready to come out, then the "stretching" wouldn't do anything, but if she was…. then we might have a baby soon :)   By 9:00 that night, my contractions were getting stronger and more regular. I was able to download a contraction app. on my sister's I-phone (highly recommended!!!) and could soon tell that things were progressing along and that I was in the first stages of early labor. I was able to relax through them and began packing my bags and preparing the house for the baby's arrival. I tried to lay down and sleep from about 11-2 AM and was able to get some rest in between the tightening in my uterus. At around 2 AM I woke Garrett up and told him that I was definetely in labor and that we should probably get out all of our worksheets and handouts from class (which I had organized in a binder and put in the suitcase for the hospital). I was surprised at how well I was able to relax through each contraction and how minimal the pain was compared to what I thought it was gong to be. My doula and i texted back and forth all night and she offered to come over to help me but I was totally fine and told her I would call her when we felt it was time to go to the hospital. Now this is when it got a little tricky….. we kept going back and forth about when we should leave the house!!! The most helpful thing to us in making our decision was the hand out you gave us early on in the class that described the physical and emotional signs of true labor. Even though my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart, I was still talking, laughing, and was even able to braid my hair! We decided that we could probably hang out at home at least until I couldn't talk through the contractions so I hopped in the bathtub. I was probably in the tub for about an hour and Garrett was massaging my back when my water broke. Immediately after that, things definitely started to pick up and I could feel myself getting more serious and unable to form complete sentences! the contractions were getting stronger but I was still definitely able to handle them and relax through them by leaning over the counter and kind of squatting my legs (not sure if that's an official Bradley position but it worked for me!).   We headed for the hospital around 6:00 AM and the car ride was NOT FUN! I ended up sitting backwards on the seat holding onto the headrest with a pillow under my rear end for support. You were right when you said that there is no way to  be comfortable in the car! Every bump intensifies labor but my race car driver husband was able to get us there in no time and I made it through. By the time I got to the hospital, my doula was waiting out front for us to help us get our things and get checked into labor & delivery. She took one look at me and knew that we didn't have much time! I had 4 contractions on the way into the hospital and was cussing like a sailor in the hallways probably scaring all of the other patients. I have to say that the last hour was really the only part the threw me for a loop. The contractions were bearable but everything seemed to get much more intense in that last hour. I got into the delivery room and the nurse hooked me up to a few monitors while I sat on top of the bed on all fours. She checked me and I was already @ 9.5 cm! I have to admit, I still begged the nurse for an epidural :) My doula reminded me that I was in transition and that it is very common to doubt yourself at this point in the labor. I really didn't believe her but didn't get much of a chance to argue because it was time to push! The only problem with pushing was that my doctor wasn't there yet!   I totally forgot to mention that in all of the time I was at home, I was in constant communication with my doula. I even let her know when we were in the car on our way to the hospital. We were about 10 minutes from the hospital when I realized that we forgot to call Dr. Cap. and let him know that we were on our way! Luckily for us, he lives less than 2 miles from Scripps Encinitas and came in just as I started to push. This was probably the scariest part of the whole labor for me because it was something my body was doing on it's own that I really seemed to have no control over. The only way I can describe it is that it is the most REAL LIFE feeling in the world! The intensity of the whole thing scared me and each time I had a contraction, I remember thinking how there was no way that I could do this! I guess I kept saying it out loud, because my doula kept reminding me that I was already doing it! My husband was amazing through the whole process and was such a great support. He held my hands, rubbed my back, and just kept telling me that I was doing a wonderful job and that the baby would be here soon. Garrett held my hands while I pushed little Brooklyn out into this world and it was the most amazing feeling in the world to hold my beautiful baby girl!!!!  Thank you Liza for helping me change my whole birth experience 180 degrees!!! I will always be greatful for finding you and for the wonderful information you provided to help us make the right decision for our family :)



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