Karen and Jake

We went in for the usual weekly appointment on Tuesday the 9th. My blood pressure had slowly risen and was at an unsafe high that day. So my midwife wanted to see me again on Friday the 12th. So we went back on Friday. It was still getting worse. So, we started inducing labor naturally. She really doesn’t like to do any drugs or anything if at all possible. So Friday she put a catheter in my cervix and filled it with water. What this does it dilate the cervix to a 4. Kind of sounds weird, but it worked. It didn’t put me in labor, but it dilated me. Saturday night I still wasn’t in labor, so she started giving me a drug. I think it was called Dynatec? I’m not sure. It is a mild drug that you put right in the cervix and it helps ripen it and then it should start labor.

All night Saturday I took doses of that. Sunday, I was still not it labor. Naturally, my body wasn’t ready to go into labor! So she gave me a stronger dose of the drug on Sunday. My midwife figured by midnight on Sunday I would definitely be in hard labor. I wasn’t I was having some cramps starting on Saturday night that lasted all through Sunday. Not really bad, just annoying enough to where I didn’t sleep Saturday night or Sunday at all. Midnight
came on Sunday, and nothing was happening. So we had to decide if we wanted to break the water or go to the hospital and take pitocin etc.. Well, we decided that breaking the water would be the best bet. She broke the water about 12:30 am on Monday. By 1 o’clock I was having contractions 2 and 1/2 minutes apart. Because I had been having cramps throughout the whole day, I was already having some pain. We did try the HypnoBirthing the whole time, but I think because there was already pain there, it made it hard for me to relax. I did use the breathing throughout the labor and it did help.

Labor was just over 3 hours long. Of course, it wasn’t like I expected because we could not take advantage of the HypnoBirthing.  I still have faith it it however. We had the tub set up in one of the rooms in my house. That helped a lot too. It was very soothing and relaxing. We had a beautiful baby girl born at 4:16 am Monday, December 15th. Her name is Claire. And she was 6 lbs, 8 oz. and 21″ long. She was 100% healthy. No one really caught her, she just kind of floated out. I got to pick her up out of the water. And she was screaming when I took her out. I’m sure it was cold!! Her nose didn’t need to be unplugged or anything. She stopped crying as soon as I held her close to me.

We kept Claire until Wednesday when her new family came to pick her up. That was a very difficult time. But her family is so wonderful and we are so happy with our decision to place her with them. She will be so very happy. She was a good baby when we had her. She didn’t hardly cry. She did like to be awake sometimes. But just to look around and investigate. Her parents tell me that she still is a great baby. Only crying when you take to long to feed her. I think the HynoBirthing has something to do with that. Well that is the story.