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Quinn's Story

My first birth involved an epidural and a broken tailbone. I was determined to not repeat this experience a second time, so I enthusiastically studied HypnoBirthing in anticipation of the birth of my second son.

I woke up the morning I was 40w6d with a feeling that Quinn would be coming soon. I had surges off and on all day long. I relaxed and chatted with my DH all day. Around 9:00pm I was just *tired* so decided to try and sleep some. Since my oldest son was asleep upstairs, T made up the fold-out bed downstairs and I tried to sleep.

As time went on the surges were getting more intense. Around 11:00 my surges were strong enough that I needed to vocalize through them, but still 6-7 minutes apart. I decided that I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so T and I went upstairs around 11:30pm.

As I sat on the couch I had 3 really strong surges, 1-3 minutes apart. My doula was on vacation so I called my back-up doula. I told her that I was starting to have trouble relaxing through the surges, but that they were still irregular. She told me to try to get some sleep and call her in 2 hours. This wasn't "it".

At this point the surges were coming one on top of each other and I was having tremendous trouble relaxing through them. I was also shaking uncontrollably. I told T to forget it, we were going to the hospital! I called the doula back and told her we were heading in. She asked what I wanted her to do. I almost told her to stay home and I'd call her after I got checked, but instead asked her to meet us. She said that was fine, and that she'd come back when they sent me home with a sleeping pill.

We left around midnight on 9/23 (41 weeks!) As we were driving away I noticed that my mom's dome light in her car was on, so T ran back into the house and got her keys and turned it off. Meanwhile I sat in the car and listened to my Affirmations and relaxed. I had to moan through surges, but I was very relaxed once I made the decision to go to the hospital.

We got to the hospital, met our nurse, K, and got shown to our room around 12:30am. K checked me. She said that I was either totally open, with a bulging bag of waters or totally closed. She wanted another nurse to check. After my next surge was over the other nurse checked. She agreed that I was totally open, with maybe a lip. As she was checking me I had another surge.

As the surge peaked my body had the incredible urge to push and I went with it. My doctor wasn't there yet, but Quinn was coming either way. I remember pushing for 3 surges. Quinn was so close that even with my first push I could reach down and feel his head. K released my membranes as Quinn crowned. Quinn was born at 1:01am. The doctor arrived to catch the placenta.

In the end it was an intense experience, but a good one! My doula admitted that even after watching me have surges she didn't think I was at 4cm yet. Tim had guessed that I was at 4. The L&D nurse was not sure I was in labor. The HBing worked so well that no one knew what was happening in my body, but me. I ended up with the birth I wanted - no interventions, no IV, no broken tailbone. I got to push on my side.  I didn't even have to worry about what I wore for the birth as I didn't finish undressing!

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