BORN TO BE LOVED
Natural Childbirth
SILAS ALAN
Silas' Birth Story
I am not sure where to begin with my home birth story, because it would take forever to write it all out, but let me just start with saying that I am not a likely candidate for a home birth.
I am not an “all natural” kind of girl, I am not against hospitals or epidurals, but I half jokingly started exploring the option of a home birth after I saw what it would cost for health insurance. It was ridiculous to me to have to pay so much in health care costs for a birth and when I looked at the numbers I realized how much extra I would have to work and be away from my family just to pay for that epidural. I also had watched “The Business of Being Born” on Netflix when I was pregnant with Solomon and understood that it was a better option for the health of my child as long as I had a low risk pregnancy.
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So I mentioned it to Josh, presented the facts and then slowly convinced him to let me try it. I didn’t know of any midwives in the area and so I googled Oklahoma Midwives and found Faith Morie, who’s entire business was based on God. Bingo. That’s all I needed to see.
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I booked an appointment with her and began going to prenatal visits in her apartment in Tulsa. Of course, my first questions were things like “How many people have had to be rushed to the hospital? Has anyone died under your care? C-Section rate from complications?”, things like that. She could tell that I was skeptical and my manly, coach husband was not super excited about this strange thing I was trying out.
I had lots of fears with this home birth process. LOTS. The pregnancy didn’t really help either, this one was totally different than my last and I struggled with lots of emotional blues, slight depression and waves of crying.
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As my 40 weeks ended I began to be frantic with my fears of delivering a 10 pound baby, not being able to do it once I was in the throws of labor and having no other option for the pain, etc…
I tried for a week to induce myself and things just never worked out. Castor Oil twice, cumin tea, walking, jogging, etc…
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Everyone kept reminding that it was all in God’s timing, but I was so unfaithful to believe that God was going to pull me through.
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I was an uncertain, crying mess for a week, like 4 hours of crying per day. It was scaring me and making me wonder about my mental state after I had Silas (which I’m completely back to my sunny mentality again, thank you God!).
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I needed my Mom. She was planning on coming up the weekend after I was due to help, but I still hadn’t had Silas. I needed her though and so she decided to just come although I hadn’t had him. It was a God thing, because I went into early labor while she was driving up!
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We went on one last family date the night before and I went jogging after Solomon went to bed to try again to get things going. I was feeling so much more relaxed that night and people had been telling me that the stress of trying to have him was probably keeping me from having him. Once I finally relaxed, gave the timing and the fears of home birth to God then it actually started!
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So I went on another walk to try and get it going full blast Sunday afternoon and even walked bleachers. I started having pretty hard contractions that were about 30 minutes apart for a few hours and then they began to increase. I had had several nights of false labor and just couldn’t decide if this was the real thing or not, but it was! I started timing them and contacting my midwife and she decided to wait a while before coming from Tulsa.
They began to be 3-4 minutes apart and very strong and so she packed up and came around 10 PM Sunday night. When she got here they were still 3 minutes apart, but only 30-40 seconds in duration. I was sad and thought that it was false labor. She had me walk around the town with Josh for 20 minutes and come back and had me lean forward during contractions to make them work harder.
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It was at this point that I had to start breathing out loud and blowing out my breaths through each one. My midwife was so calm and collected, she had seen this process over 200 times, which comforted me… and my mother.
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When she finally checked my progress I was at 4 ½ cm and she said that we could start working on setting up the birthing pool. I was excited because this was the only way I was going to birth, I had thought of no other backups besides being in the water.
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It took an hour to boil water (our water heater really stinks) and fill up the pool before I was able to get into it. She had me eating lots of high protein snacks during the entire process, which was awesome, because at the hospital you can only chew ice chips and not eat anything. I ate more cheese and turkey that night than any other time in my life! The contractions stayed at 3 minutes apart for forever. They were very manageable while I was on the bouncing ball, but when I tried to lay down on my side they were almost unbearable… another reason to never have a non-medicated hospital birth (laying flat on your back for the whole thing!).
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I was a 7 ½ when I got into the birthing pool and once I got into the water it was incredible. I would say that it was 30% less pain than while I was out of the water… truly incredible.
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About 45 minutes later I felt a pop and knew something had changed. I had a slight freak out moment and Faith said that it was probably my water breaking.
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Right after this the contractions were much longer and much stronger… not stronger as in more painful, but much more effective. I felt Silas moving down… which took me into the out of body experience…
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So I began to get ragingly hot and made Josh fan me with a book, the moment that he stopped fanning me I felt crazy, “FAN ME!!!!” I would say. He kept on doing it.
I then began to feel the need to push and this is when I felt like I stepped out of myself and my natural instincts took over. I closed my eyes the entire time after this and began to make some pretty weird noises (which up to this point were nothing but talking, smiling, eating and blowing out breaths) and saying some pretty weird things. Three contractions later I pushed Silas out… and then felt totally dazed.
I was worried that I was going to drop him in the water after Faith handed him to me and that he was going to drowned. I was so loopy for several minutes. I was so excited that it was all over!!!
He had an APGAR score of a 9 right when he was born, had a very high pitched scream and was perfect! He latched on right away and being in the care of two midwives at my home was the best experience ever. They knew everything about childbirth, nursing, post partum care and how to make a pregnant woman feel like there was nothing to worry about.
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It was the perfect home birth.
Silas was 9 days overdue, weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 inches long and was born 9 hours after I started timing contractions. The only time I felt overwhelmed was during pushing, but like I said, that part was an out of body experience. The pain was super manageable with the birthing ball, a caring midwife and a supportive team at home.
2 days after having him, I would say that yes, I would probably do it again. You just can’t get this level of personal care and comfort at a hospital!! The contractions at the hospital hooked up to pitocin WERE in fact much worse than most of those that I experienced during the home birth. It really isn’t a joke! They both radiated down my thighs, but these were much less intense and never triple peaked like they did when I was hooked up to the pitocin. The pain is bearable. It really is, you just have to have a good mindset.
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So if you decide to do a home birth in Oklahoma, call Faith Morie with Born to Be Loved Childbirth and you won’t be disappointed!!
