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Aya Pearl Sex: girl Born: 14 February, 2010 Age: 2 years & 1 days Birthday in: 364 days Starsign: Aquarius Development: See the 24 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

Birth details

Original due date: Feb 5th 2010
Type of delivery: Vaginal (with pain relief)
Duration of labor: 36 hours!
Weight @ birth: 5 lbs 13 oz
Length @ birth: 19 inches

Aya-Pearl`s birthstory

Aya was due 2/5/10, but neither of us were ready by the due date! A week later on 2/12/10 I went to bed and woke up an hour later b/c my water had broken. We went to the hospital in the middle of the night for an NST. Everything was fine and we did not want to stay/ start pitocin. We decided instead to leave the hospital, come home, get some sleep, and wait for labor to start on its own. (Also we wanted a particular birthing room at the hospital with a water birthing pool, and it was not available at that time.) 12 hours later labor still had not started! So we went back to the hospital at 2pm on Saturday 2/13 for another NST. Everything was still fine with the baby. The room with the birthing pool was open, but if we checked in then I would have to start on pitocin, and we still wanted to do everything naturally. So we went home again, had some lunch, and rested. I took 2 Tbsps castor oil around 3:45pm and another 2 around 5pm. By six pm I was in labor, and it was strong! Contractions were 2 - 3 minutes apart. I labored at home for a while, mostly because I was so sick from the castor oil. I was ready to leave the house (toilet) by 7:30pm and we got to the hospital at 8pm. Contractions were coming fairly close together. We arrived, met the midwife on call and our doula. At that time I was still in early labor and all my discomfort was in the back, so we went to walk the halls and do some yoga to try to get the baby into a better position. I thought we were successful, but for the next 5 or 6 hours I had very very very intense back labor. Everyone around me thought I was really suffering too much, but I still did not want to take any medication; I thought as long as labor is progressing I can handle it and then we'll get in the birthing pool and have the baby! The midwives didn't want to do too many cervical checks since my water already broke. They did do one around 10pm and another around 3am. I told them not to tell me any numbers!! I didn't want to be discouraged or focused on numbers. But I could tell by the look on the midwife's face at 3am that things were not looking good. At that point they really started urging me to have pain relief so I could rest. I didn't know it at the time, but my cervix was still only 3cm and very swollen. They were afraid I was going to need a c-section. I refused the epidural and the morphine and instead tried something where they insert water bubbles under the skin in the back. It didn't work. Neither did about 30 different positions to try to turn the baby out of the posterior position. I noticed that they weren't letting me drink water anymore and I started to understand what was happening. They thought I would be going to surgery. I was determined not to have a c-section so I called the midwife and asked her what do I need to do to be able to birth this baby vaginally. She said you need an epidural and a few hours of rest to relax your cervix. The irony is that I had previously said the only reason I would ever have an epidural is if I needed an emergency c-section. Now I understood I had to have one to AVOID a section!! So I consented. The next few hours I rested and slept and just focused on visualizing the baby moving through the birth canal. We had the lights in the room very low, beautiful meditative birth music playing, and we had decorated the room with prayer flags, pictures, stones, etc. So the vibe was very peaceful. I think the mood in the room helped encourage the staff at the hospital to trust me and not push for the c-section. Though I also found out later our doula was really advocating on my behalf to just allow me a few more hours to try and progress on my own. They did administer pitocin at one point, but only for about 1/2 hour because the baby reacted badly to it (heart decel). But amazingly that small amount of pitocin jumpstarted my own body in regular labor contractions. The midwives all thought I would not be fully dilated till 3 or 4 pm, but at 11am I felt the urge to push and they checked and I was ready!!! 90 minutes later our beautiful baby girl was born! Although it was not the birth we "planned" I feel incredibly grateful that it worked out the way it did. The nurses told me later if I'd been in any other hospital in Boston it would have been a c-section for sure. But they really gave me the time and space to work it out on my own - and I did. The whole experience was so empowering. I can honestly say it was a beautiful birth experience - even though I never got in the birthing pool! Aya came out so calm and peaceful and happy, just like I had been envisioning for months. We just feel so blessed.

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