Amélie's Birth

We found out we were pregnant in January, and Karen decided to take a prenatal yoga class, which is how we met Marie and learned about Hypnobirthing.  We attended an information night I was hooked right away because in all the birth scenes everyone was calm.  There was no screaming, cursing, no arm grabbing, no terror, anger or fear.  Everyone was calm and the atmosphere was very relaxed and loving.  We decided that was the type of birth we wanted, and signed up for the class.

One of the great things about the class was the homework - we were to relax together one hour every day, talk about the pregnancy and talk to Amélie.  We also decided to hire a doula, and immediately liked Cheryl Lloyd.  We met a couple of times to talk about our birth plan, and kept in touch to talk about how the pregnancy was going.

On Monday, September 15th, surges started at 7:17 PM and were about a half hour apart.  They weren’t painful, but Karen had to stop what she was doing to breath through them, and we would then continue on with our evening activities, which included walking the dog, installing the car seat, and taking down a tent we had used on the weekend. From my perspective, whenever Karen experienced the surges, she would go inside herself and breathe through them.  She appeared calm and relaxed.  We called Cheryl and let her know what was happening and told her that we were going to try to get some sleep.

I didn't sleep much.  The plan was that every time, Karen experienced a

surge, she would tap me on the shoulder and I would write down the start and end time.  Up until 11:30 this happened every ten or so minutes.  At that time, Karen was uncomfortable and started to try different positions.  I recognized the bear position, and then she tried squatting on an exercise ball.  At different points we tried some nipple stimulation to release endorphins and played our relaxing music.  This continued until about 12:30 when Karen felt like she might vomit.  A little after that she felt the urge to empty her bowels, so we moved to the bathroom.

Surges started to speed up to be about every five or so minutes at 1:30.  Karen drank very little during this time as she spent a lot of it breathing through surges.  She talked a little bit between surges, and I tried to prompt her with the affirmations that we had learned from Marie and Cheryl.  I asked her to breathe love down to Amélie to assure her that everything was ok.

We decided to call Cheryl at about 2:45 am to see what we should do next.  Remember that we thought that the surges were occurring every 5 or 6 minutes, lasting for about 1 minute and had been happening for about an hour, which is normally the point when the experts suggest you go to the hospital.  We learned afterwards that the urges Karen had to empty her bowels were actually another set of contractions this late in labour, so what we thought were surges every five or so minutes were actually surges every two or three minutes.

I was giving Cheryl the run down when I heard Karen say “I feel a bulge down there.”  I ran into the bathroom and got Karen to sit back down so that I could have a look.  Then I said “Holy shit! I see the head!  The baby is crowning.”  Cheryl replied with “Hang up immediately and call 911.” 

The 911 operator told me to put my palm on the baby's head to support it in hopes of giving the ambulance enough time to get to the house.  We told her that Karen was sitting on the toilet and she told us to get her on the floor.  While moving Karen, I felt Amélie's head coming out a little more.  The operator said that I had to be ready to catch the baby, and that babies are slippery and squirmy and not to screw it up.  Karen started to squat and the head popped out.  I remember seeing the head starting to turn and then being quickly followed by the shoulders.  After the shoulders came out, the tummy, legs and feet quickly followed.  The operator told us to wrap the baby in a towel, so Karen grabbed one from the wall and put it on the floor.  I put Amélie down and Karen wrapped her up. 

The operator then told me that the EMT's were close and asked if the front door was unlocked.  It wasn’t, so I opened the door, setting off the security alarm.   I ran to disarm it and realized that the system had cut off our call to 911 so as quickly as I could, I called 911 again. Karen was calm and watching over Amélie as the operator told me that the EMT’s were right outside the door.

When the paramedics got in the house, I tried to stay out of the way.  They went into the bathroom and checked both Karen and Amélie.  One paramedic cut the cord and handed Amélie over to the other two paramedics.  They brought Amélie out into the living room and gave her a more thorough check up and gave her an Apgar score of 8.  Once they had determined she was fine, I picked up Amélie and held her to my chest, letting her know that everything was alright.  Karen was being tended to and the paramedics indicated she was also fine, and got them both ready for the ambulance ride to the hospital.  Karen held Amélie to her chest for her first “car ride”.

I joined Karen and Amélie in the Labour and Birthing unit – Room 4.  I learned that Amélie was 47.5 cm long (to go with her 6 lbs and 8 oz body), and according to all the nurses had good everything, especially awareness. Other than a second degree tear that needed stitching up, Mom and baby were healthy and happy.  Cheryl made sure that Karen was comfortable at all times, with ideas that had slipped my mind – warm blankets, skin to skin contact, water, juice, and toast.  Throughout the whole process, she was awesome, very supportive and knew what we needed.

   Throughout out our stay the nurses 

   always offered Karen pain 

   medication, but she kept saying that

   she wasn’t in pain.  We had visits

   from family, and were discharged at

   8:30 pm on Thursday night.  Amélie's

   second “car ride” was uneventful and

   we made it home safely.

We attribute our positive birth experience to yoga and Hypnobirthing.  Amélie’s surprise home birth was not how we thought she would enter the world, but the techniques we learned in the classes kept us calm and relaxed throughout the whole labour and delivery, and made it an amazing experience for our family.

Written by Blair Laforge and Karen Jaster-Laforge, December 2008