Rachael's Birth

Today is the 12th birthday of my first baby. My husband, Frank and I were 20 years old when she was born. He was in the Air Force and we lived at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. All of our family was back home in San Diego, Ca. So, we were on our own to experience this new adventure of becoming parents.

I have been fascinated by pregnancy, birth, and babies for as long as I can remember. I remember staring at related pictures and drawings even before I could read. I remember that in Catholic elementary school I wondered why women went to the hospital to have babies now. Jesus was not born in a hospital, there was not even mention of no room in the hospital. All the babies in the Bible were born out of a hospital, without a Doctor. What happened that made everyone have to have babies in hospitals now? Mary, nor any of the other women in the Bible did not get drugs to have their babies. Why did women need to do that now? Didn't the Bible say it would hurt women to have babies, why are women trying to escape that? I didn't understand what had happened. No one could explain this to me further than, "that's the only choice they had back then." So that had stayed in the back of my mind and in high school I took a child education class. It covered everything from birth control, conception, pregnancy, childbirth education, childbirth, infant care, to preschool even with a week long preschool setting where the students cared for little preschoolers. It was a fun class and this is where I first learned about the Dr. Robert Bradley and his method. I remember being so excited about that class and always wanting to share the cool stuff I learned and no one else being as interested as I was, even my boyfriend, Frank. :)

So, when we were pregnant with our first baby we learned that the Air Force had a First Time Parents Support Program. I was so thrilled to learn that the childbirth classes they offered were The Bradley Methodâ classes. We took the classes and Frank was very supportive of my choice to try to have a natural labor and childbirth. We learned so much to prepare ourselves for the birth, but of course we were still nervous for the big day and if I could really do it.

I had been slowly effacing and then dilating for a few weeks before my due date. Then I had one day with contractions off an on through out the day that progressively got stronger. We had to do our grocery shopping and they had started before we arrived at the commissary and continued for the 2 hours that it took us to get everything we needed. It was crazy crowded that day and by the time we got to the check out lines, that ended up wrapping back through a few aisles the contractions where strong enough to take a lot of my attention and a few times I would have to lean my head down on my hands holding on to the cart handle and sway side to side a little. I tried to ignore it and I tried to not bring attention to myself. For the most part no one seemed to notice as they fought through the crowded store. By the time we got to the checkout the cashier noticed how tired I looked and offered me her stool to sit and rest on. I didn't though because all I could think about was getting out of there and going home to lay down. After everything was put away, I went to rest and all the contractions stopped.

Later the next night they started up again and had me awake all night. I thought that they might just go away again so I didn't want to keep Frank awake when he had to work the next morning. So I stayed out in the living room and worked through the contractions on my own. They were not coming in regular intervals and not lasting for a regular amount of time either. The doctor had told us that real labor is when the contractions are 1 minute long and 5 minutes apart for 1 hour. This what I was waiting for. I grew up hearing how horrible labor was and that it was the worse pain ever, so I was expecting to feel like I was going to die. As I worked through the contractions I realized that it was hard and it hurt but I did not feel like I was dying.

The pains were along my belly and reaching around my lower back, just a little worse back pain than at the grocery store the day before. Later through the night the pain started to radiate down my thighs. Around 3:00 am, I noticed that they had become 5 minutes apart. I was really tired of being on the couch and loveseat and I decided to try to lay down in my bed and maybe get some sleep. When I got to my bed and started to lay down I had another contraction and I guess I was breathing loud and maybe moaning a little and that woke up my husband. He realized what was going on and asked if I wanted to try the shower. I thought that might feel great on my back so I said “ok.” He helped me by starting the shower and reminded me to pee. I felt like I wanted to throw up and we knew that could be a sign of the baby's head pressing against the tail bone. We also saw the bloody show and decided to just go into the hospital. The contractions had been 5 minutes apart for the hour.

As I was getting dressed again Frank gathered our stuff and got it all into the car. As I slipped my foot into my sandal I felt an urge to push. I thought to myself, "uh oh." So I kept that info to myself so I wouldn't freak out Frank, as we still had at least a half hour drive to the hospital. Usually during the day it took an hour to get there but now it was a little after 4:00 am, so we could just speed there faster with no traffic. In the car I had been turned away from him reclined in my seat hiding and fighting the urge to push. About halfway there I had this huge uncontrollable urge to push and a loud push that came with it. I thought, "oh no" as Frank turned to me and said a very panicked, "No!" I told him that I couldn't help it. He turned on the hazards and stepped on the gas. I just prayed for God to make us get there on time. I knew that Frank wouldn't be able to handle helping me give birth alone in the car on the side of the highway. He’s not into blood and yuck. :)

When we finally pulled up to the hospital parking lot, it was like a crazy movie. The parking lot was torn up. It looked like a war zone to us sitting there in our little car. He was upset and thinking of what to do now. I said, "Just go. Go. It's ok just Go!" So we held on and did a little off roading until we got to the maternity entrance. As we were walking into the building. I had another contraction and started to squat down right where I was. Frank realized that I lagged behind him and he turned to see me starting to squat and pulled me back up and some lady walking out saw this and found a wheel chair and brought it to us. Frank sat me in it and raced me to the maternity ward.

We checked in at 5:01 am. The nurse took one look at me and said we'd finish the paperwork later and got me a room right away. I was changed into one of the hospital gowns and was checked to see how far I was dilated. I was fully effaced and 9 to 10 centimeters. They called for the doctor to come and they started my IV and we did more paperwork while we waited for the doctor to arrive. One nurse came into the room and had this really big needle and syringe. I was in the middle of a contraction and couldn't really speak but saw her and whimpered something while shaking my head no. Frank noticed and told her, that I didn't want any pain medication and that we wanted a natural birth. So she kind of shrugged and left again. I really wanted to push. The nurses kept telling me that I had to wait for the doctor the get there. One nurse saw what a hard time I was having with not pushing and got in my face and showed me how to blow through the urge. I focused on blowing one of her curls back and forth, and it seemed like forever before the doctor arrived. It took him about 15-20 minutes but it seemed like hours to me. Suddenly there was so much going on in the room. Nurses were asking if these student doctors and nurses could come in to witness a natural birth. Frank said it was up to me and I didn't care and said ok. Then I guess word got around even more and some pediatric nurses who had never seen an unmedicated birth wanted to see too. So, there was a lot of extra people in there but it was a really big room and the extra observers stayed quiet, so it was no big deal.

The doctor who came was the doctor on call and not my doctor. I had not met him yet and I guess he was probably annoyed at me making him have to rush over to the hospital like that. So he was not very friendly, then to top it off when they put the giant trash bag under me at the end of the bed, my water broke and I suddenly couldn't feel my contractions anymore. He was ready for me to push now and because I had fought through the urge to push before I was now all on my own to try to figure out how to push effectively. He let me try like 3 times and then he announced, "She's not doing it good enough" and he asked for the vacuum extractor. Then he gave me a shot in my perineum and then an episiotomy. It was so unexpected and quick that I gave out a little scream with each. How embarrassing. He put the vacuum extractor on my baby's crowning head and the nurses were pushing on my belly and telling the doctor when I was having a contraction. I tried to push better when I heard this and the one nurse was very helpful to me and talked to me and not just the doctor. When our baby's head was out the doctor took off the extractor and the rest of her came out fairly quickly with the next push.

The doctor flipped her over to show her to us and I was amazed that she looked exactly like my hospital baby picture. It was really strange. She was not crying but was nice and pink. They put her on my abdomen for a few minutes and we got to look at her until the cord was cut and they whisked her away to let the pediatric team check her out, put goop in her eyes, weigh, and measure her. She still didn't cry until they pricked her foot. Then she was upset and crying full force. They gave me a shot of pitocin because they felt that my uterus did not contract hard enough after. Later when the placenta was out I asked to see it and the doctor wouldn't let me. I guess he was afraid I would faint or something. I was irritated by that. And now it was settled in my mind. I did Not like that doctor. He did my stitches and soon our baby was handed back to Daddy. We got to look her over some more as the nurses came back with the rest of the paperwork. It was fun to see all the family members that she looked like, even when growing teary eyed when I saw my late grandfather in her.

She weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and she had cute long feet. We named her Rachael. She was born at 5:37 am. It went so much faster than we ever imagined! It was an experience packed with adrenaline. We were exhausted and yet it took a few hours after her birth to come down from the rush and excitement of it all. Phone calls were made to announce her birth to our families in CA. Many of them couldn't believe that it happened so fast. Again, neither could we. There was such a great sense of accomplishment when she was born. I felt like I could do anything. I never once felt like I was going to die. I was willing to do it again someday, within 2 minutes after she was out. So all in all, we felt that we had a wonderful birth experience. Frank got me there in time. Rachael was healthy. I was healthy. We had all done it. It was a beautiful day, September 5, 1996.