August 14, 2009
Briar Hill Midwives
On Friday, August 14th at 4:21am we decided we had nothing else to do but have a baby. So, we did. Little did we know that the baby would be 9 pounds, 11 ounces. He’s going to go by Walt.
Cheyenne’s water broke at about 5:00pm on Tuesday night and she had some small contractions that evening, nothing big–just a little tingle. The next day they got a little stronger, at 10:00pm getting full blown. The next day we met one of our midwives at the Foothills to make sure that the baby was doing okay and Chey’s blood pressure was calm. Everything was alright so we went home and by the late afternoon we had a midwife at home.
Sufficed to say, we met a little snag. When the midwife got there at first Chey was 2cm dilated. By 8pm we were only at 6 and apparently the baby was posterior. This caused Cheyenne to feel a sensation to push, but since she wasn’t dilating and the baby was in poor position it was just causing his head to mold. We tried our best to get the baby into position, but we decided it would be best to head to the hospital as she was feeling some harsh pain, since she wanted to push so bad but couldn’t without causing the baby’s head to mold further. Not only that, but the water had been broken for 48 hours at that point and there was a possibility of infection.
When we got ot the hospital we were told that it was 50/50 that we would have a c-section. That was the hardest part. It was so scary (for me anyway 🙂 ) sine there was a doctor we didn’t know and the prospect of surgery was terrifying. They gave Cheyenne an epidural to relax her pelvis and gave her an oxtocin drip to get thing started. Then we waited.
Cheyenne slept for a bit while I napped on a couch in the room and she woke up around 3:30 after the obstetrician checked on her. She said everything looked good so we settled in for a vaginal birth. That was a big pick me up after going to sleep scared that we would end up with surgery! By 3:45 Cheyenne started feeling strong contractions (in her leg of all places!) and one of our midwives told us that it could be a few hours, so we should settle in. Oddly enough, Cheyenne started pushing and less than 30 mins later came our baby boy! It was fast like lightning and we got to actually practice our pushing from the class, which we were sure that we wouldn’t be able to do thanks to the epidural. She had a little tear, which was sewn up by the doctor (who sneered a little bit at our midwives, especially the fact we saved the placenta!).
By 7:30 everything was fine and we were sent home and here we are! A few days in and everything is tip-top!
We wanted to thank you again, Sue, for everything. We were astonished at how calm we felt because we actually knew what was happening for those first few hours. The home experience was so comfortable and special thanks to your tutelege. Even though we had to leave the house the hospital was fine because we knew what was happening–I was able to ask plenty of questions and get plenty of answers. The midwives made all the difference, too and it was great to have some people that you knew and trusted there for support and advocacy. It’s not as scary as we thought! And we’re enjoying every minute with our new baby boy.
Many thanks,
Ryan & Cheyenne (and Walt!)
