2011 - Talk Birth

My Baby Girl is Here! (2011-01-23 21:37)
“A baby, a baby, she will come to remind us of the sweetness in this world, what ripe, fragile, sturdy beauty
exists when you allow yourself the air, the sunshine, the reverence for what nature provides...”
– Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser (in Literary Mama)
[1]
Three generations!
Alaina Diana was born at 11:15 a.m. on January 19th, 2011! She only weighed 7lbs, 8oz and was 20
inches. (My other babies were 8lbs4oz and 9lbs, 2oz.) I’ve sent a short-version birth story to a couple of
friends over the last couple of days and decided I could work it up into a short blog post as well (of course,
a full-length birth story will eventually follow). I actually had a little trouble getting started in writing
about her birth—it was pretty uneventful until the end and I felt like the best description would be: walked
around the kitchen, sat on the birth ball, walked around a little more, more time on the ball, hummed and
ooohhhhhed, seemed as if suddenly things changed and I felt big, big things happening and then baby was
born all at once! And, I caught her! Emotionally more than temporally, it felt like a long labor and I felt like
I experienced less mind-body integration than with previous labors (the actual moment of birth was much
more instinctive and powerful than with the other babies though). In general, lots was unexpected about
this labor—-it lasted longer than I expected (about 5 hours that were serious, but some warm-up time before
that too) and was somewhat erratic and I had quite a bit of back pain. Right before pushing, contractions
were still 4-8 minutes apart and it was hard for me to assess where I was/how ”active” of labor it was—I was
thinking I could either be at the 3cm point OR the transition point! My water didn’t break until seconds
before she was born and I felt like it REALLY needed to break, but wasn’t. My kids weren’t here, because
her birth was during the day (also unexpected, and a Wednesday, not a weekend!). It was just Mark, my
Mom and me.
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