Clara’s Birth Story: Part 4

Kathy told me to help you descend into the birth canal. I talked to you, encouraging you to move down. Even though I had not felt the urge to push yet, Kathy told me to try some practice pushes. At this point, I was sitting on the bed and when I would feel a wave, I moved forward grabbing on to the squat bar. I used very low guttural sounds, thinking that would help open things up. I was getting very tired at this point and Kathy told me to go back to my peace breathing. I relaxed back in the bed and turned off my light switch to go into hypnosis. Gloria and the nurse came in and just sat and watched. The lights in the room were off. It was peaceful in the room as if nothing was happening. Each time I was about to have a wave, I told them it was coming and I’d go limp like spaghetti and breathe out “peace”. I eventually had to go to the bathroom again. It was really picking back up and getting very strong, so after I went, I got down on the bathroom floor on my hands and knees. Keep in mind I was completely naked! But, I did not care in the least.

All of the sudden, I felt the urge to push. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before and knew this was it. Something had changed. I felt like I needed to get back in bed and lay on my side. My whole body was shaking uncontrollably and vigorously. I was not cold and didn’t understand why. Kathy explained it was just the hormones rushing through my body. Kathy and Kerry were rubbing me down to help me relax and “peace breathe” the shakes away.  I kept burping and thinking “damn that jalapeno cheese bread!”. I could taste bile in my mouth and it was awful. Drinking water helped a little.

The urges to push were getting stronger and closer together. It’s interesting that I really don’t remember feeling pain at this point, just utter and complete exhaustion. In fact, it felt good to push. I made low grunting sounds when pushing because I had learned that this helps you relax your sphincter muscle much more than tense screaming. It was really wearing my voice out though and making my throat scratchy. The nurse checked me and I was now at 9 centimeters. This was probably around 11:30. I had spent so many hours getting from 7-9 centimeters that my body was wearing out.

We still didn’t know if my water had broken. When I would push, the little bit of fluid that came out was clear. But I had been drinking so much water that it was probably just urine. Gloria came back in to check me and could feel the bag of water each time I pushed. I told her I did not want her to break it, which was also written in my birth plan. She then noticed a lip of my cervix that was not opening up. She said each time I would push, you would move down and then go right back because of the part of my cervix that would not dilate. Perhaps this is why my water wouldn’t break. The next time I pushed, Gloria held back the lip of the cervix. She noticed while her hand was inside that the kind of pushing I was doing was not helping you descend. I was so exhausted, I just didn’t know what to do different. She thought I was concentrating too hard on making the low guttural “sound” and told me to try focusing on something different.