OUR BIRTH STORY:
Just a fair warning to those about to read this, this came from the
heart and undoubtedly has many grammatical errors, This is our birth story
and how our son came to be.
It was February 14, 2003; I was headed home from working all day. I
wanted nothing more than for my day to end and rush home to my incredibly
attractive wife. We were to exchange some small gifts and I was planning on
making an elegant dinner for two of us. Finally I get home and as
usual I am greeted by what I truly believe is an angel on this earth
just for me, She is about 5'8" 127 lbs, long blonde hair to her waist
a great tan, well you get the picture.
Anyway we settle down in our
living room and exchange gifts cute little cards and such, pretty normal
well almost. I start to open a card, still half dazed from working all day,
I assumed it was a card from our pets because it stated "from your
offspring", since we think of our dogs like children. I said thank
you, she said read it again. The second time around I got it, The card
from the our offspring growing inside my wife. I felt like a kid at
Christmas, it was moment I will never forget, the look on her face the
tears in both our eyes, you see we had been trying.
We actually didn't even tell anyone until after the weekend we wanted to
enjoy our special moment for the entire weekend. My wife is the most
amazing mother, you see she was already a mother even at one month
into the pregnancy. She was absolutely glowing, as happy as I had
ever seen her. Me on the
other hand, cool on the outside but on the inside, man I was sweating
bullets.
The realizations started hitting me, I was going to be dad ready or not.
But after a few freak outs and several chapters in books well selected
by wife things started to come into perspective and seem to become a
little less scary. As it turns out all those feelings were completely
normal.
My wife loves to plan and she does a great job of it. She makes all the
lists and I do all the lists. After looking at the lists my wife had
created it seemed a bit overwhelming. Do we really need all this
stuff I thought, as it turned out yes we did and then some. One of
our first major decisions was what method of birthing to choose. After some
internet research we happened upon a method dubbed The Bradley Method,
named for Doctor Bradley, who was credited with getting fathers back
into the delivery room. This method also revolves around the idea
that birth is wonderful natural celebration of new life and family, It
is ABSOLUTELY NOT A MEDICAL PROCEDURE. The Bradley classes met every Monday
night for a few hours, twelve classes in all.
We actually really enjoyed these classes they were very educational and open
minded. It really helped us to evaluate and take control of our birth
plan. By educating ourselves as much as possible we were able to know
exactly what, when, and how to proceed under various circumstances,
You see I was The coach, even had a certification card.
We also chose to have midwives rather than an O.B.G.Y.N. Again this is not
a medical procedure so why do you need a doctor. I went to every
single appointment never missed one. This whole experience was truly
amazing, watching our son grow from one sonogram to the next, as well as
watching my wife grow, She was beautiful the entire time.
As we proceeded further into our pregnancy my wife was almost sure that
our on was breeched, head up feet down, this was very concerning to us but
surprisingly not to the midwives. ( even though the midwifes in our area
will not deliver breech) Instead of waiting to the last to see if by some
miracle he
would flip on his own we decided to do something. We researched a method of
turning breech babies through Chiropractic. Before you get up in arms about
Chiropractic and pregnant woman let me explain. This method is called the
Webster Technique it release the over tensed muscles to give the baby
more room to swim around and get into the proper head down position (
there's more science behind it then that but in general it gently
releases uterine constriction). Of course I went To these
appointments as well, and yes I was nervous and concerned for my wife
and son inutero. I was amazed at how light and gentle the treatment was for
both my wife and my son. It was no more than holding medium pressure
at a specific point, and guess what it worked after just one treatment,
the muscle loosened and our son flipped right away. My wife was also having
a lot of pain from her sacrum being out of alignment, so after a few more
adjustments everything was looking great, lined up, ready to go. I
recommend all pregnant woman see a chiropractor during pregnancy
Right around 33 weeks or so my wife had a checkup with the midwives to
make sure everything was progressing well.( my wife was having tons of
Braxton Hicks) Boy was it they couldn't believe that our son had
flipped from the breech position, and to top it off she was already -1
to 0 station, 2-3 cm, and 90% effaced.
The O.B. ordered bed rest but the midwife said she wasn't worried and
expected that we would go full term. ( even with those numbers nobody
knows when a baby will arrive) My wife certainly wasn't going to lay
in bed for all those weeks so she kept to her normal routine which was
basically just relaxing and enjoying the beginning of MotherHood.
On the morning of October 20, 2003
my wife started going into hard labor right after her water broke, I say
hard labor because later she admitted to me that she had most likely been in
labor for the better part of a week. So there I was 5:00 am running into
the bathroom to attend to my wife. As it turned out she was having a bit of
a bloody show and she was getting distraught. Not to worry this was all
perfectly normal and I called our midwife, calmed her down and was timing
her contractions.
Two minutes apart lasting for thirty seconds. Not very long contractions
but very close together, I was relaying this information to our midwife and
she did not seem to have sense of urgency, explaining that the contractions
may subside or slow down to just keep timing them for the next 30 minutes.
So I
did. NO CHANGE! I called the midwife and explained that the contractions
were steady and seemed to be increasing in intensity. Yikes this was it, I
am going to be a DAD today. The time was now 6:30 am , where is my wife?,
she is on all fours in the hallway of our house telling me that she can't go
anywhere.
That was a huge red flag from my Bradley Classes. This meant she was
beginning to transition, and oh yeah! My big huge cue to get her in the
truck and to the hospital!!
It was an interesting ride to say the least, you could say she was uncomfortable but that would be a gigantic understatement. I believe if we had 5 minutes longer in the truck I would have had to patch the roof from her pounding on it. We arrived at the hospital around 7:15 am, we were already preregistered so we went right up to delivery.
Since my wife wasn't up for much
conversation I answered most of the questions and ran interference so she
could concentrate on what she had to do. I never left her side and
encouraged and rubbed constantly, except of course when she yelled at me to
stop touching her. We finally arrived to the delivery room where we were
greeted by nurses but still no midwife. My wife began to instinctively
squat down, one of the most efficient birthing positions.
The nurse on hand contacted our midwife and asked to check my wife's
dilation since all signs were pointing to NOW! Sure enough when we walked
in that hospital door she was already fully dilated. 8:16 am
three hours past the start of our labor our son was born healthy as a horse,
and as for my wife all she had was ibuprofen afterwards. After she breastfed
him she was ready to take a shower and show our son off to the World. Hope
you enjoyed a glimpse into our 100% natural birthing experience from
conception to birth. Now we are enjoying our beautiful breastfed son Kai
Wayland Hobbs who will not be vaccinated and loves to lounge around in his
cloth diapers and sleeping in between his mommy and daddy. He's welcome to
stay in our bed as long as he wants.
Arlen Hobbs (26 yrs old) Husband to my beautiful wife Michele
(26 yrs old) and Daddy to our wonderful son Kai (4months old), at birth 7
Lbs 11 oz 19 1/2 inches long.
s
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