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My first birth with Haley was very traumatic and
I won't go into details. All as I can say is I
was very naive and made many mistakes that my
daughter paid heavily for. But I would like to
share Alyssa's birth that healed all the wounds
I endured from Haley's birth.
I had a home birth with Alyssa. My midwife was
Marilynn Steinberg. I went into labor on my due
date at 2 am. Contractions were very strong and
close together, so I thought this is going to be
quick. Silly me. I labored for 12 hours, I feel
it took this long because I chickened out about
walking and being active. Finally at about noon
Marilynn said it was time to start walking
because I hadn't moved past a 5 in 4 hours. So I
started walking and every time I had a
contraction I would stop and hang on my husband
and Janice (Marilynn's assistant) would rub my
back in a way that took away the pain magically.
I had been doing this for about 45 min. and
still thought I wasn't making any progress
because there was no bloody show and my water
had not broke. But I was making this funny
sound. My midwife looked at me and
said are feeling like pushing? I had no idea (I
never had urge with Haley, so I had no
experience.) Well my husband and friends started
franticly filling up my birthing tub while
Marilynn checked me. I was a 10!!! So we got the
tub filled and I started pushing like crazy, I
was shocked by how strong the urge was. I had
been pushing for about 20 min. or so when
Marilynn told me to reach down and break the
sack which had still not broke and was now
bulging out. So I did it (I hope I'm not
grossing anyone out.) Alyssa basically shot out
with the
next push and went for a swim in the tub while
we fished her out. It was quite funny. She never
crowned or anything so Marilynn was caught off
guard. She was so beautiful and peaceful. She
started nursing right away. I was so amazed. I
felt so empowered by the experience. I did have
some complications afterwards that in retrospect
were very scary but were handled very well by my
midwife. I cant recommend home birth more
highly. This birth was no shorter than my
hospital birth and I had no drugs, so I felt
every bit. But I would do it that way 100 times
again before I would hospital birth with all the
drugs and intervention. Sorry this is so long.
Liz Hayashi
Haley (3/8/96) Alyssa (3/30/01) |
