Lara with Baby #2 immediately after birth
After two frustrating and traumatic experiences with giving birth in hospital settings, I knew that there had to be a better way to give birth. While pregnant with my first baby, Isabella, I sought traditional medical help—an OB in a large practice. I read everything I could get my hands on about birth, and my research told me that having a natural childbirth was best for both mother and baby. I bought a birth ball, did a hypno-therapy program for birth preparation, and wrote a birth plan. However, when I got to the hospital, once labor became challenging, I was offered an epidural which I agreed to. There were no other comfort measures offered to me, and since I had no experience with labor and birth, I thought that the pain I was feeling was a failure on my part to not relax properly—something that my hypno-therapy course led me to believe would eliminate the pain. I felt unprepared and scared that the pain would become unmanageable.
The decision to have the epidural caused me to not feel anything at all when I was told to push, and it also made my daughter drowsy. Since I was confined to the bed on my back, I felt completely powerless and when the staff took my baby to the “well baby” nursery for “observation”–I was helpless to do anything about it. I was told my blood pressure spiked dangerously after the birth, so I was unable to leave the delivery room for 8 hours. I did not even get to hold my baby before they took her! Needless to say, this was a complete nightmare. I did not get that precious hour after birth to bond with my baby, and this negatively effected breastfeeding. I was completely stressed out and upset—not anything like I pictured giving birth to my baby would be.
When I became pregnant with my second baby, Andrew, I knew that I did not want a repeat experience. I had read a lot of natural birth stories that included a doula, and since I could not afford to have a birth at a birth center with midwives (our insurance did not cover any of the over $3000 cost), I felt that having a doula in the hospital would be my best chance to have a natural birth. That’s when I met Brenda! I felt instantly comfortable with her, and she really got to know me and my desires for a natural birth. We went over my birth plan that I wanted—to see the placenta before it was taken away, and to hold my baby immediately after birth, my desire for a natural birth and no separation of baby. I encountered a combative doctor, and without Brenda there advocating for me, it would have been a totally negative experience.
With my third pregnancy, I started researching how to have a birth without bending to the hospital staff’s rules for their own convenience—and I found that it is very difficult to have a hospital birth the way I wanted it—freedom to move around in labor, choosing the birth post ion—and in San Antonio there is no way to have a water birth—something that I intuitively felt I wanted. I read everything I could get my hands on about Unassisted Childbirth (UC), and I made the decision to have this baby at home with my husband. It turned out to be the best experience! I bought an inflatable kiddie pool so I could have a water birth—something I’d always wanted. I had all my supplies set up, and spoke to Brenda often about the birth. My husband was with my 2 other young children at his parents’ home when I stared having cramping and mild contractions—very mild and nothing like the labor contractions I’d felt with my other two babies. I was feeling uncomfortable and irritable, so I got into the bathtub. I started having more of what I thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions, and then things started moving. I knew that I was going to give birth in the tub! Since I had watched so many births on DVD and on YouTube, I had a good idea what was happening as it happened. I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Liliana, in our bathtub. She latched onto my breast right away, and I delivered the placenta soon afterwards. I was too shaky to get out of the tub, so I kept draining and refilling the tub with warm water. Needless to say my husband was shocked to come home to mother AND baby!
Liliana is such a calm, happy baby—she got to bond with her mommy immediately after birth—not with an OB nurse. My recovery was phenomenal—such a big difference from my 2 hospital birth experiences.
Lara with her 3 beautiful children
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