July 21st 2011

On Tuesday July 19th my water broke, but I didn't have contractions that followed so I just stayed at home and waited/hoped they would start soon. The following morning I had an appointment with my doctor. They did a test to make sure it was my water that had broken and sure enough it was. Of course my doctor wanted me to go to the hospital asap and get started on Pitocin so that I'd start having contractions. This idea did not fit very well into my natural birth plan so I didn't go to the hospital exactly when he told me to. I tried to do some things at home to get contractions going naturally, but they didn't work. So at about 1:30 we finally decided to go to the hospital. (The only reason I even went in then is because I had tested positive for Group B Strep and had to have antibiotics before baby came. If  I hadn't of had that I would of given my body the whole 48 hours to start contractions. Instead I was only able to give it 24 hours.) Of course when we got to the hospital we had to sit around and wait forever. I wanted one of the rooms with a shower in it so we had to wait for them to clean it. Once I got checked into my room they started the antibiotics. I still hadn't started the Pitocin yet, because I really wanted to do this all natural. However, by the time 6 pm came around we decided to start the Pitocin. Shortly after that, contractions started. 

This is after labor start. Obviously this is not during hardcore active labor.

 

Labor with Pitocin was hard, but I was able to do it without any type of pain medication. So that is something I am very happy about. I definitely think that next time I have a baby it will be little bit easier, not much, but a little, because Pitocin contractions are much harder and more painful compared to natural ones.

Our Doula was a huge help during all of this. I am for sure going to have a Doula for all of my pregnancies and I highly recommend having one.

I also think that having just Devin and our Doula there for the birth was the best idea too. I'm most likely going to do all my births that way. 

Here is Teagan, fresh out of the womb. She was covered in tons of vernix still. 

After Teagan and I did some skin to skin bonding for about an hour daddy got his turn to hold her. 

 This is baby and I later in the day, after I'd recovered slightly from the excitement of the night and early morning.

Baby Teagan in the hospital. She weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz at birth and was about 18 in. long, born at 5:12 am.

I think she turned out pretty darn good. Of course I'm just a little biased, but look at that face. How can you say she isn't just the cutest thing ever. 

 Luckily after Teagan was born we only had to stay in the hospital for 24hrs. They said that sometimes they like to watch babies for 24 to 48hrs. when the mother tested positive for Group B Strep, but we lucked out. 

All in all I'm very happy with the way things went. They didn't go as planned, but I always knew that was a possibility. I definitely want to try to get a midwife for my next birth though, but we'll see how things go once we get to that point. 

This next part might be a little gross to some of you or just really weird. 

We decided to keep my placenta so that our Doula could encapsulate it and turn it into pills. These pills help with the baby blues, postpartum depression, PMS, and menopause. So of course I'm gonna do them.

We also did a print with the placenta. It's called the tree of life and it's made with the fetal side of the placenta. The fetal side is kinda purple and bluish and has tons of huge veins on it. It's really cool looking. 

Here is a pic. of our Doula making the print of the tree of life. 

Here is the finished product. It's pretty nifty. 

Here is a website about placenta encapsulation. 

 http://placentabenefits.info/

One more picture for good measure.