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Saturday 18 February 2012

An experience Of A Lifetime- Homebirth Of Hariette May

*WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC BIRTH PHOTOGRAPHY*

This was my 4th birth but my first homebirth and Ben and I were really looking forward.
We only organised it with 4 weeks to go we were going with hospital care but at the last minute changed our minds and thanks to a friend and my awsome midwives it all just fell into place, was obviously ment to be.

So my due date came and went but I though I must of been going to go soon with the other the longest I went over was 3days and since about 38 weeks Id been having pre labour symptoms on and off but no this little miss needed more time.
Finally at 41 weeks I felt like this was the day, it was the older 2 kids daycare day I felt like it was the break I needed to get in the zone so to speak. I kept busy all day and after going for a walk around the block was having contractions all day 10mins apart, Yay!

I phoned my midwife about 5pm that evening and told her Id most likely be needing her later on that night or the next morning, contractions were still 10mins apart at this point but 50-60secs long but I knew it was still a fair way off. 
Inlaws came about 7pm to collect the 3 kids and I was so glad I found it very distracting having them around and now I felt my body would finally progress. To fill in time we went down the street and washed the car and got some lollies from the supermarket, we got back home and I was still just the same so I tried to get some sleep cause I was quite tired from all the pre labour I had been having for the week before I hadn't been getting much sleep.

I managed to get some sleep/rest my body seemed to know I needed it and toned the contractions down for me until 3am when I had a shocker and just had to get up and move.
It was quite a cold night so we had the open fire going encase of bubs arrival and I found it great to stand in front of in between contractions to ease the pain and the lovely crackling noise was very relaxing. From this point the contractions went to 7mins then to 5mins and at 6am we called the midwife to tell her to think about coming over soon.

Both my midwives H and A got to our house about 7am and it was all very relaxed and casual, it was just lovely really. A even folded some of my washing for me. 
At this point the contraction were very stong I got through them by breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth quite heavily and thinking about how each contration was opening me up, I was very cool, calm and collected.


Ben or my midwife H would rub my lower back or put pressure on that area if I needed it and the brilliant thing was I didnt even have to say anything its like they were just intune with what I needed. I didnt have any internals done we just went with my body and before long I could tell it was time for my knickers to come off haha. I was starting to get a bit agitated Im not sure if anyone else noticed but I was and I knew it ment I was in transition and I layed down on the floor for a while to get some energy back then I stripped right off to be ready for skin to skincontact when bubs came earthside.

I was leaning over the fit ball on my knees and it wasnt long before I could really feel myself opening up and the baby moving down then my body just started pushing to me this felt like ages but Ben said it wasnt that long I think I was just getting impatient. I had alot of pressure cause my waters still hadnt broken but all of a sudden they went and man was it a relief, not too much longer and the head was crowning and once again it was such a relief once it was out, I was so happy but she was a little wriggler and kept moving around. Youch!

It was only a few more pushes then she was born into her fathers arms, it makes me so happy to know that the first look at the world she got was her daddy there wating to catch her. He immediatly passed her up to me and I was just so happy, so proud it was just exhilarating! It felt so right to have birth my baby in such a natural, calm way in our own home we just sat there for a while taking it all in and enjoying those first cuddles and gazes into each others eyes.

I moved to the couch to lay down and get comfy and as soon as I did she was searching and did the crawl to the breast, was amazing none of my others did it like that. So we had our first feed and waited for the cord to pulse out.

We wanted a physiological 3rd stage but I had lost quite a bit of blood and we all decided it to be safer to have the syntocinon and I was fine with that, Hatties cord had already stopped pulsating so we still got our delayed cord clamping. The placenta was horrible to birth, it had come away from the wall and was sitting there puttnig pressure on my back it hurt so much more than the actual labour and I was sort of numb down there and couldnt feel anything when I pushed. It was really stressing me out but after we determined it had deffinently come away H tugged on it gently as I pushed and it was finally out and I was so relieved and got back to enjoying snuggles with my girl.
Because of the quite heavy blood loss my H reccomended I have some raw placenta, the hormones help stop the bleeding. Before now there is no way I thought I could have raw placenta but I didnt want to have to transfer to hospital so was happy to do anything to help with the bleeding. A cut up 5 pill sized pieces and I had them with strong cordial and it was no where near as bad as I though tastes just like if you bit the inside of you mouth or tounge even Ben tried a bit which we were all very impressed with.


Before we chopped the placenta up A did some blood prints with it which I just love, The tree of life. The rest of the placenta A cut up and popped in the oven to dehydrate so I could encapsulate it.

Afterwards I was  bit dizzy and nauseous cause of the blood loss but overall felt great, had no tearing at all barely even a graze.

Ben and I both agree it was one of the best experiences of our lives, Im so so happy we ended up going homebirth. I hope my story inspires others to choose homebirth.



Friday 17 February 2012

Belated Intro to Us

Thought I better get an introduction written for anyone who doesn't know me, so Im Mamma J proud mamma of 4 crystal bubbas Mr 4, Miss 3, Mr almost 2 and our Little Miss who is about to hit 3 mths and I'm married to Pappa B my fantastic supportive husband.
This is my diary of our journey into a gentle more natural life.
Learning, Living and Loving together :)
What I post here are just my personal opinions and in no way do I claim to be an expert in anything but wanted to blog our journey for us and to possibly inspire others along the way.
I have a very busy life as you can imagine with 4 bubbas so close in age and right now my Pappa B is part owner of a garden maintenance business which there in the process of selling so he can work in the mines so we can live our dream and move to the south coast of NSW buy a big property and get back to basics and we cannot wait. So this is our main focus at the moment and although in the beginning I wasn't sure Id be happy with the FIFO(fly in fly out) lifestyle we had a good think weighed up the pros and cons and worked out even though it will be hard for both of us while he is away we will still be spending more time together than we do now it will just be split up of course.

And if I'm trying to find positives "Imagine all the sewing Ill be able to do of a night while Pappa B is away "

Life is too short to just wait, were making our dreams come true

Sunday 12 February 2012

Ok well here I go- my Breastfeeding Journey

I've been meaning to start this blog ages ago but of course as you can understand its a bit hard to find the time with 4 kids 4 and under :) But tonight I though why not, I was wanting to share my breast feeding journey as I went along but just didn't happen but Ill go through it for you now.

I wanted to share my breast feeding journey to hopefully inspire and help others

Well I guess Ill start at the beginning, I was pregnant with my first baby and the whole pregnancy I though for sure I would breastfeed and it would all be great ect but It wasn't that easy.
In the hospital I struggled with very very sore nipples and being young and new to it all I just went with what the midwives in the hospital said to do and each one had a different opinion I remember just feeling so sad and disheartened. I ended up feeding with a shield but was stressed about  W's weight gain and just found it all too much with no where to go for the right support at 4 weeks I decided to formula feed and I was fine with this.
The 2nd time after L was born I fed her in the hospital only and due to my first experience and having no support in the hospital I went to formula as soon as I got home

The 3rd time after R was born it was the same but this time I realised just how important it was so was more determined from the get go and we had been adopting more AP(attachment parenting) type practices so this just went with it but once again had the same sore nipples and when I sought help I was just told I was doing everything right so was baby and handed a nipple shield but I wasn't too keen on using the shield so was trying to use it as little as possible.
I still didn't have my community of support and knowledge I have now and one night at about 2 weeks old he was struggling to latch and I was tired and emotional and needed support, I woke my husband B up and he didn't know what to say or do and was tired and grumpy himself so that was it I once again decide it was too hard and I just must be one of those people who CANT do it!

Around the time R was 6 mths I fell pregnant with Miss H and I was very into the AP/Natural way at this point and started doing my research and forming support networks online which I am now lucky enough to know some of these beautiful women in real life now (you know who you are) so I was a lot more prepared this time  and knew although I may face hurdles in the beginning that I could most definitely do it.

We ended up opting for homebirth(that's another post) which was also very helpful with forming a good breastfeeding relationship from the get go with instant and prolonged skin to skin and baby led attachment and I had great supports in my midwives.

So once again I faced the same problems, by the second day I had sore bleeding nipples, like the whole end of my nipple was just scap it was horrid!!! My milk was coming in though so I though I could try the shield now but it was even worse with that while they were all scabby and sore and I was soooo emotional at this stage and upset crying and that night I just couldn't do it the pain was unbearable. I went out and bought 3 bottles and a tin of organic formula, made her a bottle and sat there bawling my eyes out to poor Pappa B saying "Its not faaairrrr-r-r" over and over again.

The next day thank god my Midwife A came over and she was fantastic! I started telling her about it in my fragile emotional state and just started bawling again and she could see I wasn't happy with the situation and was just so supportive in every way. She got me to try again with the shield seeing as my poor nipple had had a good 15hr break and it wasn't as bad as I though and we decided together that for now I would feed when I could bare the pain and when I couldn't we would give a bottle and most of all DON'T STRESS!

She checked our attachment and that was fine so we concluded that I must just have extreamly sensitive skin and I would just have to wait till they toughened up a bit That was working for now and it kept us breastfeeding even if she was having formula  as well.
 So we did this for about a week and then I was doing all the day feeds myself with the shield and just did a top up of a night as I incorrectly though her normal unsettledness(is that a word?) of an evening was a sign she was still hungry.
I was feeling so good and so proud I was doing it! Then I had the 2 week mchn app and when they weighed her she had only put on 5grams :( I was just devastated I held it together but as soon as I got to the car I called Pappa B and just bawled I felt like such a failure. I knew deep down it really wasn't something to worry about but I wasn't being sensible but I posted about it online cause I knew I would get good advice and support from the network I had formed and I was right <3

It was pointed out to me that she had hardly lost any birth weight so for me to for sustained that for these 2 weeks she must of been getting enough this combined with lots of wee and poos gave me the confidence to continue but it wasn't long before I was met with another problem...sigh...this time it was supply and I knew it must of been from me using the shield so I once again consulted with my online community and my midwives and they once again supported and encouraged me and offered me the advice I needed. I went down the street and bought my lactation cookie supplies and got some fenugreek as well and overdosed on those haha plus I knew I had to get rid of the shield.
 At first she struggled to attach as she had gotten a bit lazy with the shield but we got there, I found if I tried while she was still half asleep her natural instincts kicked in and her would open her mouth nice and wide and to my surprise it wasn't hurting so much any more still hurt but I wasn't getting any damage so the only feeds I was using the shield for was overnight, I should point out too at this stage I was still giving the formula top up of an evening which I also needed to give the flick.

I was feeling more and more confident and trusted my body by 7 weeks and we ran out of formula and I decided that was it my body could do it and I was right she was more settled than usual without the formula so who knows I was probably overfilling her with the formula top ups and the unsettledness was just the normal "arsenic hour" stuff.

By 8 weeks I am fully feeding my baby my breastmilk and that's it and man am I proud, so god dam proud I tell ya!!! Now we are still going strong at 11 almost 12 weeks and I love it not only is it soooo much easier than formula but I am doing such a special thing for my baby and enjoying it. It really is special.

What got me through those early weeks was just taking it each day at a time and focusing on each day she was breastfed as an achievement then once I got past 4 weeks which was the longest I had ever fed before I was stoked then each week after that and now I feel complete. Might sound silly but I feel so much more of a mother now and like I have a deeper connection with nature and the goddess(Ill get to this in another post) And seriously all of you that helped me you know who you are and I cannot put into word how much your support has meant to me through this, if I didn't have you I'm sure I wouldn't be still breastfeeding now xoxox


So hows that for a first blog post? I realised I didnt do an intro post for those who dont know me so Ill do that next time :)