Can You Have A Natural Birth When Induced?

Can you have a natural birth when induced? Yes, and you’ll need all the tools to help you through it! This couple spent the last 5 weeks of their pregnancy in Hypnobirthing class where they gathered tools they needed for the “plan” and “the unexpected,” which is just what showed up! Because of the confidence this couple gained through education, they were able to ask for what they wanted within the labor room and go with the flow of their daughter’s birth. She also talks about the value of having a great nurse in the room, who became her cheerleader through transition. Dad gives his commentary on the newfound respect he found for his wife and all the work she put into the birth process. Something he was grateful to see and be a part of.

For more information on Hypnobirthing Classes…

Video Transcript:

– It felt like I hadn’t given birth. I was walking around and trying to clean up after myself, and the nurses thought I was crazy. So to prepare for our birth, we signed up for the Hypnobirthing classes with Cara at the Birth Education Center. I heard about it through my chiropractor who specializes in pregnancy and infants which also really helped me get through my pregnancy. So when we signed up for the Hypnobirthing classes, we learned way more than we ever knew we needed to know to birth a child, and there is so much information on what happens in the hospital when you’re having the child, what choices you have to make.

I would’ve never known that I had to research so much, to prepare for a birth, so I’m so glad we did the classes, and my husband had no idea what to expect from a birth and he learned a ton and felt way more confident by the last class. We also, throughout the class, we learned about the birthing affirmations and rainbow relaxation, so I did practice that, almost every night, listening to that, and just preparing myself mentally, and we got 40 blinks, we bought snacks and beverages. So we did a lot. We had all the tools necessary when we went into the birth. We also did a tour of the hospital, so we knew if we would feel comfortable or not where we chose to have the baby.

– I honestly had no expectation going into this. I figured my wife got pregnant, you had a baby and you figured it out along the way. Lo and behold, there was a lot that came through this six, seven-week process that had really helped me become a better individual, more prepared for this part of our lives. So I’m grateful to Cara for allowing us the opportunity to participate in her class.

– So I got some acupuncture, to try to get the labor started. I was getting impatient and it was the day after I got acupuncture that I was getting cramps and my water broke. I was so excited that this is finally gonna happen, so I’m like, all right, bring on the surgeons, where are they? Hanging around the apartment at 11 o’clock at night, nothing’s happening, try to go to bed, didn’t wake up the hubby, ’cause I’m, like, I’ll let him sleep, and then, nothing was happening. I was getting some gushes, I was getting nervous about what was normal and what wasn’t. I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know how much fluid is normal and if it should have blood in it or whatnot, and I know hospital’s routine is go in right after your water breaks, but I knew I had, like, a 24 hour period.

So I was like, all right, I’m gonna ride this out and the contractions will just start. They didn’t start, and I just got more nervous about what was normal or not, so I called in and I told them what was going on, and they’re like, “you should’ve been here,” so like, okay, we’ll get ready. We took our time, we got to the hospital around 5:00 a.m. and they brought us to triage and wanted to check to see if my water did break, and it did. So then they started going through the process, well, there’s a risk of infection, so we would like to start you on Cytotec, which softens the cervix. And, a lot of things were going through my mind. I was thinking I did not want any medication. No matter what it was, I didn’t want it. I wanted to drive to the hospital and having intense surges and pop the baby out, right when I got there, so.

We knew that wasn’t going to happen. My body was not starting active labor. So we got up to our room, we ordered breakfast. I asked, right when I got to the room, like, I need to eat, ’cause we read a lot of evidence-based articles about, you know, why they tell you, you can’t eat, and why you should be able to eat, so my nurse, right away, said, “I don’t think you can eat,” and I’m like, “well, you’re telling me I’m gonna be “in labor for two days.” Like, I’m not going to eat for two days and push a baby out? So the doctor came in and she said, “Oh yeah, they can have breakfast, order breakfast.” I’m like, thank God. I was, like, shaking, all of my nerves, and, you know, is this really happening? So we got breakfast.

So the Cytotec, they put in my mouth, and it would dissolve, and then they would check me every four hours, twice, so it was like eight hours, and still nothing’s happening. I’m doing lunges around the room. I’m doing squats. I’m shaking my hips, I’m trying to get the baby to come. So it seemed like nothing was happening, still, and then they said, “Okay, we’re going to start you on Pitocin,” and I was nervous. I heard, you know, the surges are so strong on Pitocin. They come one right after the other. A lot of people can’t have a natural birth, with no epidural, when they have Pitocin, but I did have a friend who did it, and she didn’t want to have it either, and so I was texting her all morning, having her give me the confidence. So anyways, we started the Pitocin and things eventually, my contractions started. And it wasn’t too bad, in the beginning.

– Not in the beginning, you know, that was the part of going from one centimeter to six centimeters. By the time she got to six centimeters, it was definitely a different case. She was definitely ready to start pushing, ready to have this birth come.

– Yeah, so at six centimeters, I was sitting on the birthing ball. I had my 40 blinks on, I was really in the zone. There was a lot of people coming in and out of the room. His family came by, and that’s when my labor started progressing, so it really helped for me to just block everyone out and take each surge as they came, and I listened to my birthing affirmations, and I really found it helpful that, you know, what we learned in Hypnobirthing is that your mind, your mind and your body are working together so when the surge would come on, and, you know, your natural instinct is to get nervous about it, ’cause you think it’s gonna hurt, but if you focus on something completely other than the pain, then it would be a lot more manageable, and, if anything, I would say, keep practicing that, like, mind over matter, keep focusing on meditation and how to keep yourself calm, because it makes such a big difference on tackling each surge as it comes, and I’m not going to say I was great at it, when it was like 10 centimeters dilated.

I don’t know how some of the women we’ve watched, in the class, their natural births, how they don’t make a sound, but good for them. It’s just something I would definitely practice harder, if we have another child. Anyways, so the 40 blinks, the birthing affirmations, Kyrian helping, every time I had a surge, I did a warning that it was coming and he came over, and he put his hands, like, on my back, or a light touch, and that, it seriously made such a difference. Even if I didn’t want him touching me, if he was there and just, like, if I just felt him, it made me way less nervous for each amount of pain I was about to go through. I don’t know how to explain it, but definitely having hands on you, and having someone there to squeeze, or just have tell you, “it’s going to be over soon, “it’s going to be over soon,” it’s just really reassuring.

So after six centimeters, I was having such intense surges that I felt like I need to push now, and I think I was standing up at this point, and I was kind of squatting down, like, I think I’m going to push this baby out, and so I told the nurse, I’m like, I was starting to feel defeated too, I’m like, I think I need drugs, I think I need an epidural, I can’t do this anymore, what was I thinking, like, I could do this with no pain medication, and all these other women are sitting in the bed just watching TV and it’s, like, “okay, I’m having a baby now,” and I’m like, “ahhh, this is so intense.”

The nurse, she was a sweetheart, and she’s like, “I had two natural births, you can do this, “you don’t want medication.” Kyrian’s like, “you prepared for this, you don’t need it, “let’s do one more surge and let’s get through that,” and that helped, so I just, I was, in the back of my mind, I knew, right, this isn’t what I wanted, so I’m just gonna try to push through, and she’s like, “let’s check you, let’s check you, “maybe you’re ready to push,” and getting on your back for them to check you is really rough, so that took a while. That took like five or six more surges before I could get into the bed, but I knew it needed to be done in order to see if I could have my baby, and it did feel like this is what 10 centimeters must feel like ’cause the baby felt like it was right there, ready to come. It was an amazing feeling. It actually felt better than anything else, previous.

So when she checked me, she’s like, “you’re at 10 centimeters,” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we did it,” like, we’re there, like, all right, ready to push this baby out. “No, you have to wait for the midwife to come in.” Where is the midwife, like, I’m ready now. And you know, I’m thinking about class and listen to your body, and it’s ready, and it’s like my body doesn’t want to hold on to it anymore. So I was as patient as I could be. They gave me some breathing techniques, in order not to push. Also, I’d like to say, as far as breathing goes, I found that a really low deeper moan helped me, because sometimes it was hard to breathe, and so moaning, I was moaning more, right?

– Yeah, yeah.

– That’s what I think I remember. I was doing a long deep moan and that would help me get through, if I couldn’t breathe, if I couldn’t even get my body to, like, suck in air and breathe out air, and so that helped, and then the midwife came in. I started, I was on my side Kyrian was…

– I was holding on to your legs

– Holding on one of my legs, and we tried to push in that position

– Just couldn’t get enough leverage, it just wasn’t the right position for her to, you know, actually give birth, so had to switch her to getting her on her back, which was another process in itself.

– Yes.

– Because obviously with something that size, trying to squeeze out, it’s not easy to maneuver somebody onto their back, let alone, it probably wasn’t the most comfortable position for her to be in, but got her on her back, and, not long after that. It really seemed like, even though it was maybe 20 minutes, it seemed it was two seconds, from the time…

– Two, literally.

– It was time to push, which was part of the situation, she wanted to push harder and faster than the midwife was ready. So the midwife had to keep telling her slow down, slow down, slow down

– It’s so crazy, because in this, it’s like… I’m kinda getting emotional.

– It’s okay

– But… Like, the contractions, the surges are so intense, and you’re, like, I don’t know if I can do this, but when it’s time to push, it actually feels amazing. So to not be able to feel that, and go through that, to meet your baby, I feel like you’re missing out on just a very beautiful experience. So when they tell you, you can start pushing, and you feel the baby’s head descending, it’s just like blows your mind. With the contractions and the surges you’re it you know it’s just uncomfortable, and you can’t feel your baby at that point, so you’re just like, what’s my body doing? But when you’re pushing at the end to meet your baby, it’s like, feeling the head come through is just, it’s awesome, and, honestly, it didn’t hurt, that part did not hurt, and then she was telling me to slow down I could feel the head crowning, and she’s like, “you don’t wanna tear, “you wanna slow down,” and they say a ring of fire, but it, it wasn’t a burning and it didn’t hurt, it was just like a little friction.

It just felt like it needed a little bit of massaging for it to come out but it didn’t hurt. And I was like, okay, that’s what I’m going through now and I just wanted to keep pushing as hard and fast as I could, she’s like, slow down, slow down, so we did some breathing and I couldn’t really hear them. I feel like they were talking really quiet, or I was just screaming really loud, so he had to, like, reassure me, like, this is what they’re telling you to do. I’m like, okay, so I got to slow down, gotta breathe like this. And then, once the head came out, I don’t know, did they tell me to stop pushing? ‘Cause I think I just pushed even harder, and I saw the the midwife catch the baby like a football, like the body, just like whoooo! And I feel like she said, “whoa, oh my God!”

– ‘Cause the head came and then there was just that final push that nobody was expecting, ’cause they were expecting for her to slow down, but as the head came out, the shoulders came with the head, at the same time, so everything came all at once, it wasn’t, nobody could be prepared for that.

– Oh my gosh, and I just remember seeing her shoulders and like the rest of her body. And I was like, “I did it, I did it! “Oh my gosh I did it!” And then the midwife’s, like, we didn’t know the sex of our baby, so she’s like, “Dad, are you going to announce it?” And he’s like…

– Well, when it came out, it came, kinda on her stomach, so I couldn’t see anything as I’m looking down, I’m like, well, I can’t see what it is, so she’s, like, “Oh” and so she turned the baby towards me and then obviously it was a girl, so I was able to announce that we had a girl.

– Yeah and that was amazing, and I was like I knew it, I knew it was going to be a girl.

– She knew it was going to be a girl, I did too, but I just tried to pretend that I knew it was going to be a boy.

– And the rest after that, you know the baby, skin to skin, right away, we noticed her big dimple on her chin and all the hair she had, and she was so alert, and her eyes were just wide open, staring at us, she knew our voices, it was amazing. All the nurses were like, “she’s so alert, she’s so awake,” and I knew that was part, you know, because we had no epidural and she was there with us, and the rest was, honestly, so easy. The placenta, didn’t feel it. I had some, a little bit of tearing, stitches, whatever. That, like, nothing hurt after having the baby, and just really put into perspective, you know, what pain you can handle, and how amazing our bodies are, and they know what to do, and, you know, you just gotta trust the process and have a good support system with you, and do the research. Because, it’s a lot, and, you know, there’s a lot going on and to not be prepared for knowing, ahead of time, what you can say yes or no to, it makes a huge difference, it really does

– Knowing what they’re talking about makes a huge difference.

– Yeah, yes.

– I mean, let alone, you’ll be able to say yes or no, but at least knowing what they’re actually talking about while you’re in the room is a big difference as well. ‘Cause I know a lot of people probably go in with absolutely zero idea, and zero confidence, no knowledge whatsoever, trying to thumb through it, and, you know, to have that that heads up, with the time we took, ahead of time, I mean ,that really made a big difference, I think, in our birthing experience.

– It was surreal when she was put onto my chest. I just remember staring at her big eyes, and I just remember, in class, everyone saying their heads smells like vanilla cupcakes, and so, I was like slipping the hat off, like, trying to get my sniff in, and it does smell like vanilla cupcakes and it is just amazing, seeing her look at me and knowing like, oh my Gosh, you were just inside of me, we’re a family now, and seeing his face, and, like, I can’t, like, he was just astounded about what just happened.

– Especially for the guys, you don’t know what it’s like until you’re in that room, and there’s no one else around, it’s just the two of you, not even the doctors, and you are the support factor, going through this with your wife. It was scary, it was amazing to see how much my wife put into this, and how much she got out of it, in the long run, is probably the most satisfactory feeling in the whole thing. She’s a beautiful person, she went through a beautiful process.

I don’t think I could ever explain what I saw in that room. There’s a lot of sounds, a lot of emotion that I wasn’t prepared for. They don’t, especially when I grew up in the ’70s, you had the image of the dad being in the waiting room, waiting for the baby to be born. Then, he goes in and sees whatever the case is, but to actually be in this process through the whole process, have that child come out while your wife is screaming at the top of her lungs, but it’s in a good way, I mean, it’s releasing this energy that’s been built up for so long, that she just needed to get this out and, you know, thankful for it. I mean, it was a beautiful process.

– So after the birth, you know, skin to skin, and then my husband had skin to skin. Just felt very euphoric and no pain, like, whatever my body just went through, it felt like I hadn’t given birth, I was walking around and trying to clean up after myself, and the nurses thought I was crazy, and, yeah, it was just the happiest night, even though we got to our room, we knew we had to be up in two hours to feed her, and there were nurses coming in, it didn’t matter that we weren’t sleeping at all, for two days we didn’t sleep, and it didn’t phase us ’cause we were just so happy and going through that, and knowing that your body can handle that, you just feel like the most powerful human, in the world, and you just want to tell everybody about it, and brag about it, and you should because it’s pretty crazy.

I would give, the advice I would give to families that were pregnant, it’s not to early to start planning how you want to birth your child. We waited a little bit long to book our birthing classes and so the last five weeks, before our estimated due date, we were in class, and I feel like, if we would’ve done it earlier, we would’ve planned financially to have a doula and maybe planned financially to have it at a birthing center or even a water birth.

At first, like, I didn’t want to have a water birth, or have an at-home birth, but after taking the class and seeing other people’s experiences in water birthing, and home births, and birthing centers, I had a different perspective on it, and I’m not our saying our experience at Sharp was bad, but, I was definitely more aware of where I would’ve felt more comfortable and having a doula to kind of be an extra support system, for both of us, would’ve been helpful I think as well. So do your research early to prepare financially and just to prepare for, you know, the best experience you can possibly have, and I would say do a lot of reading. I’ve never read so much in my life. Just deciding on these little things, that they offer for your child when you give birth and yeah. Anything to add?

– Research.

– Yeah, research.

– There’s a lot to learn, if you don’t know, even if you do know, there’s still a lot to learn. Information’s changing, day by day, policies, procedures. Like my wife said, I think probably the only difference is, and this is no way downplay on Sharp, but they are a baby factory. They are designed to pump out babies on a minute-by-minute basis, which is not a bad thing. So they have their policies and procedures they need to follow, and, again, that’s not a bad thing. But I would feel more comfortable, probably, at a home birthing center, or a home birth or a birthing center. Knowing that it’s not necessarily about how many babies you can get out in x amount of time It really is about this individual and their experience as a family. And that’s probably the one difference that, again, not saying the Sharp experience was a bad one, not at all, they were great, everyone there just took care of us, to the best of their ability. It just is a difference between a hospital.

– And the environment.

– Yeah, yeah, yeah, the environment all the way around.

– Just I mean, I’ve never been a sick individual, so I don’t spend time in the hospital. I’ve never gone to the hospital more being pregnant than any other time in my life, I’ve never stayed overnight in a hospital before this, so just going there made me nervous, just because it’s very unfamiliar and it’s like, a lot of medical terms, and different shift changes, and, you know, so I think a birthing center, where they focus on just birth, like on your, on, you know, your one team, you know who they are, I just feel like, down the road, if we ever have another child, I would definitely opt for that.