Efren's Birth

This is a beautiful birth story from a mom who took my HypnoBirthing class in 2007. Enjoy! -Cindy

I woke up on my birthday (September 27th) thinking about how nice it would be to have the whole day off, to relax and run some errands, and especially about the delicious mac & cheese I was going to have for my birthday dinner at the fancy French restaurant. When 10 am rolled around and I was still in the house with no interest in leaving the house I started to get suspicious that something might be happening. My due date was the day before, but for some reason (mainly wishful thinking daydreaming of having a few days off) I really thought my baby would be coming on Saturday. At any rate, around 11am the contractions started, nothing too intense, but consistent at about 10 minutes apart. I remember thinking how I was supposed to eat up and drink tons of liquids to have energy for labor, but I wasn’t hungry and didn’t really feel like food (another sure sign something was happening). I forced down half a bowl of pasta, ate a Cliff bar, drank lots of water, and called Armand to let him know what was going on. At this point I had no real idea of how long the labor would last (a pediatrician at work who gave birth the week before was having contractions every 5 minutes for two days before giving birth!), but knew I wanted Armand with me so when he asked if I wanted him to come home I said yes. I also gave Bethany a call letting her know, the plan was that she would hop on a plane from San Francisco when I started labor so she could make it here in time for the birth. She was driving to work when I called and she turned around, went home and grabbed a bag and hopped on the first flight to Chicago. When Armand made it home I was still having contractions every 10 minutes apart, and he made sure I had plenty of fluids and helped me as I tried various labor positions trying to find a comfortable position. I had him play one of my favorite calming records – an old National Geographic album “Music of Hawaii.” Soon the contractions were 5 minutes apart, and after about 20 minutes of this I called Jen Benson, a friend and a midwife in the practice I had been going to for prenatal care. Jen said she could come check me after she finished seeing patients at the clinic, I said great. The goal was to labor at home for as long as possible to be comfortable at home and to avoid showing up at the hospital at only 3 or 4 centimeters and then having a long hospital labor with possible unnecessary interventions. Initially we had hoped for a homebirth but after finding out that my insurance wouldn’t cover it we decided the next best option would be a hospital birth center with a great practice of midwives.

When I spoke to Jen on the phone I told her I was starting to have a lot of low back pressure with the contractions and she suggested a hot shower with water pressure on the low back. I tried this, which helped some. Armand and I had taken a great hypnobirthing class with the goal of training my body to go into deep relaxation through breathing and visualization techniques among other things. He was trying to help me visualize being at the Laguna de Apoyo in Nicaragua (one of my most favorite places in the world - calm, peaceful, beautiful), floating in the laguna surrounded by tropical forests, blue skies and the howler monkeys. For some reason as hard as I tried I couldn’t picture myself at the laguna, it seemed too abstract, and my mind kept coming back to one of the visualization exercises in our hypnobirthing class that I honestly thought was pretty corny – “picture your uterus as blue satin ribbons”. So that is what I did, and I think because it was something easy, direct and tangible the blue satin ribbons helped after all!

At a certain point in labor all I wanted to do was get in bed and play the hypnobirthing CD we had been listening to (or more appropriately falling asleep to) for the past two months. We laid in bed and listened to the CD which had the birth affirmations and rainbow relaxation exercise. I asked Armand to push on my low back to provide counterpressure whenever I had a contraction. He asked how he would know I was having a contraction (I wasn’t very verbal at this point, mainly focusing on breathing and relaxing), and I told him I would lift my hand up so he would know. Sometime during the rainbow relaxation I felt the counterpressure Armand was giving stop – Armand got too relaxed and fell asleep so I had to wake him up in order to get him to push on my low back! Close to 6:30pm I had a few contractions which felt completely different than the contractions up until that point. It felt like my baby was trying to push itself out. As we were still at home and the plan was to go to the hospital I was a little nervous and asked Armand to call Jen and find out how close she was, it turns out she was only two blocks away, hallelujah! She luckily found a parking spot right in front and came upstairs to check me. When she walked in the door I told her “I think this baby is coming.” She checked me and I was fully dilated and +2 (I learned that +2 means the baby’s head is right at the gate ready to come out). Jen said, “We have two options, we can either go to the nearest emergency room or have this baby here.” I voted for the second option, there was no way I was leaving my bed at that point. I knew Jen had never attended a home birth (although she had caught many many babies in the hospital), but I felt calm and secure and knew I was in great hands. And as luck (or manna) would have it, Jen being the super prepared person that she is (she says she aspires to be the ‘Sydney Bristow’ of midwives) had packed a little kit of the most essential home birth items and had been carrying it around in her car for the past three weeks ‘just in case’.
Jen decided to call Carrie, another midwife in the practice, who lives in Evanston just a few minutes away, to see if she could come assist as backup. When Jen was telling her the situation on the phone Armand overheard Carrie say “It’s that damn hypnobirthing!” as to how fast the labor progressed. She was eating dinner with her family when Jen called and arrived at our place 15 minutes later. Armand gathered some plastic, clean towels for the bed and a metal salad bowl for the placenta.

I was on my side in the bed with Armand and Carrie helping to support my leg. With each contraction I focused on breathing and relaxing (and trying not to curl my toes under) and letting the process of birth happen. Jen and Carrie asked if I wanted to touch my baby’s head and I immediately had a huge smile and the excitement of anticipation of finally meeting the baby who had been living and growing inside of me for so long. It didn’t occur to me to push with the contractions because no one was telling me to push, and I thought “I’m sure they will tell me to push when I need to.” Once Efren’s head was halfway out Jen said “Okay, you need to push, come welcome your baby into the world.” It seemed like I got about two good pushes in and he came squirming out! What an intense rush of overwhelming emotion and excitement incomparable to anything else you can think of. If I recall correctly the only thing I could verbalize at the moment was a very loud “Baby!” Armand’s hands caught him with Jen’s assist (yes, we discovered for the first time then that it was a boy) and put him on my chest. They cleaned him off with a towel and I got to snuggle with him on my chest, overcome with awe and amazement and love for this little creature Armand and I had been blessed with.

Soon after Armand got to cut the cord and not too long after that the placenta came. Everything was healthy and normal and was on a wonderful natural high from the birth. Words are inadequate to describe the whole of the experience, but it was beautiful and peaceful and perfect and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Within an hour after the birth Bethany arrived, as did Armand’s mom Sue and sister Consuela (Armand had to call everyone and tell them to come to our house instead of the hospital!), and Gwen came with a portable baby scale she borrowed from her clinic so we could weigh our new little guy, Efren Gabriel Rogers Esai, born at 7:18pm, 19 inches long and weighing 7 lbs 5 oz. We spent the rest of the evening at home surrounded by the abundant love and care of family and friends.