RE: Bradley® Kellyn S., Provisional Posted April 26, 2010
 
I wanted to share with you about our latest Bradley® Birth experience...
 
My older son (22 months at the time) awoke at 3am on March 2nd, (unusual as he doesn't wake in the middle of the night anymore)  and came into our room crying.  My husband sat up to talk to him for a few minutes, and as I laid there awake I felt a small gush, followed by another, and another.  As it was 2 1/2 weeks before our 'due date' I was a bit doubtful this could be it, so I went to the bathroom, only to find that it was most definitely NOT my bladder that was leaking.  How special that our son knew before we did!  We called our midwife and planned to return to sleep (as with our eldest we had around 11 hours of early first stage labor following my water breaking) our big little guy, however, refused to return to sleep without nursing (also unusual for him) so we lay on our bed nursing and relaxing.  After approximately 3 minutes I had a fairly strong contraction, two minutes later, another, and another.  Finally they were so intense I had to asked him to stop nursing- which he willingly did and dropped off to sleep on our bed.  3 minutes later I had another intense contraction, after an hour and a half of strong contractions 2-4 minutes apart and 45-60 seconds long we called our midwife, to let her know we were definitely on.  We also called my Mom, my best friend, and  sister-in-law who happened to be in our area.  They all arrived at varying times between 5am and 7:30am.  During this time my contractions had been consistently 2-3 minutes apart and 60+ seconds long.  The pressure was more evenly distributed between my back and my stomach this time (with our last child, I had 16 hours of intense, active, back-labor with 2 1/2 hours of pushing), and the only position that I could truly relax in with each contraction was to have my husbands arms under mine and drop all my weight on him, suspending me behind, keeping me from having to support myself.  At 7am I laid down for 20 minutes, relaxing with contractions and resting between them, while my brother and Mom finished filling the birth pool.  I also tried sitting backward on the toilet which turned out to be a very difficult position for me to relax in.  At 7:30 the pool was ready so I tailor-sat on the cushy floor of the pool, raising up to a supported 'squatting' position (Dad supported me from behind, outside of the pool) for each contraction.  My contractions continued at 3 minutes apart, 60+ seconds long. Around 9:45am I began to have doubts about my ability to continue, thinking "Drugs don't sound so bad right now", however, I erred on the side of believing this couldn't possibly be transition already (My last labor had been 29 hours), and wondered if I was thinking these thoughts unconsciously, but on purpose, because I was wishing it near the end.  (Over-analyzing: just my personality or a hazard of being the teacher? :) Therefore I didn’t voice my doubts and stayed in the same routine which had been working for me until 3 contractions later when I could no longer deny that there was a huge amount of pressure on my rectum.  I asked my midwife to check for me, as I thought I may want to push before too long... She was in the middle of performing a VE when my next contraction began, which made for the only truly uncomfortable, painful, hard to relax through, contraction.  She pronounced me at 9cm and another 2 contractions later I couldn't resist the urge to push.  12 minutes later (after the midwife had unwrapped the cord, wrapped once around baby's neck), with my family, and the birth team surrounding the pool, my Husband caught our little one and put (him) to my chest.  It seems to be a habit with us to have babies with nice fatty cords and placentas... maybe all the milk Mommy drinks? : )  A few moments later after cuddling our little one and kissing each other, we proudly counted fingers and toes, and discovered HE was a little boy.  Zechariah was born at 10:42am after 7 1/2 hours of labor, including 12 minutes of pushing, weighing 7lbs 6ozs and 21 1/2 inches long.  Our first born was wide-eyed as he watched his brother put to Mommy's chest, and immediately asked if he could 'go swimming' too.  We stripped him down, hauled him in and he wasted no time checking out his new brother.  After what I guess to be 25 minutes we returned to our bed where Daddy cut the cord and held baby while I pushed out the placenta.  Our 22 month old walked around with Daddy's cell phone 'making calls'  "Um, Gramma Rain, Baby EZ come out Mommy's Tummy. He come out now." No amount of coaxing could convince our new one to nurse though we tried every few minutes for the next several hours (so big brother obliged to help Mommy's uterus contract and also to encourage a letdown so Mommy could pump a little bit of colostrum to get baby Zechariah interested.)  Baby Z finally nursed for five minutes, five hours after birth, latching perfectly.  Another hour later he nursed again. At his three day check-up Zechariah had dropped to 6.15 and by 1 week had gained back to 7.3- in another 8 days after that, at 2 weeks and 1 day old, he had gained 19 ounces!  Suffice it to say we are no longer in the least bit worried about his initial lack of interest in breastfeeding, as it seems he would now be quite content to nurse all day long!
 
So that is our latest story, and I must say we eagerly look forward to our next Bradley® birth (a little girl maybe? :)... though for now we just want to concentrate on enjoying our handsome young men, helping them learn and grow- what a privilege!!  And sharing the ability to have an amazing birth experience with Mommies and Daddies around us! 
 
Sincerely, Kellyn S. Provisional