Ashlyn's freebirth/lotus birth

[unhindered]

The journey to Ashlyn.

The journey to Ashlyn or Ashlyn to us started on the first of Jan 2006 when i concieved the first pregnancy. This pregnancy ended in miscarraige at 8 weeks during the m/c i had very vivid dreams of saying good bye to this little girl. I became pregnant again straight away (with no period in between) this pregnancy ended in m/c at 6 weeks. After such an emotional start to the year we thought we should wait before trying again. My body was showing no fertile signs so i thought we were safe, umm i guess i was wrong. I felt pregnant straight away as i usually do and had implantation sensations the week before my period was due. I was confident i was pregnant but very cautious to tell anyone because of the previous m/c's. This little being growing inside of me had such a presence like i could reach out and touch it.

The pregnancy continued on and much to family disgust and MISTRUST i saw no care providers. Through the wonderful support of my Dh and my beautiful woman friends i experienced a beautiful pregnancy compared to the experience i had with alissa's pregnancy.

Those last few weeks, will i be pregnant forever?????????????

From 39 weeks i had been starting to dilate, which ment two or three days of vomiting and upset tummy and not much eating and only wanting to SLEEP! This lasted until i birthed her at 42 weeks. Not much fun with hubby running his own business and an active almost two year old.

Christmas came and went as did new years and emotionally i was so up and down but obviously my body was preparing beautifully as was my babe. I had an unassisted pregnancy, did not even pee on a stick. Trust was my motto and in those last few weeks i added surrender to it.

I TRUST MY BODY, I TRUST MY BABE, I SURRENDER TO MY BODY AS IT OPENS, I SURRENDER TO MY BABE TO KNOW HOW BEST TO BE BIRTHED.

BIRTHING DAY BEGINS (please note i refer to contractions as openings)

At 2.30 in the arvo on monday the 8th of Jan 2007, openings begin with a little more intensity than usual. DH is out at a job and alissa is asleep, thinking could this be it i realise that they are comming every ten minutes. Alissa wakes at about 3 o clock and i do my best too read and sing with her. Dh comes home and i let him know that openings are about ten mins apart and if there is anything we need he should get it on the way home from the last job. Meanwhile openings have increased in intensity and i find my self up and swaying my belly through them, when i do this alissa grabs my hands and rocks side to side with me saying, dancing dancing my beautiful little doula knows something is happening. Dh finally gets home at around sixish thank goodness as alissa was just starting to get to me and i realise that i am needing time and space to be able to go into myself more. Dh has brought home chicken and chips at my request and we have some dinner. Dh closes up the blinds and turns off the lights and we all watch alissa's birth photos followed by our wedding photos accompained by evanescence new and old cd's. We then watch some t.v. and get alissa ready for bed. I decide to snuggle with alissa and hopefully fall asleep to get some rest. No such luck, alissa falls asleep easily and quickly and i find myself increasingly uncomfortable lying down and i also wanted to spend some time with Dh. For the next few hours i rest in the lounge area with Dh massaging my back with some labour massage oil. I then have a shower and head to bed at around midnight (my usual bedtime) to get to sleep i have Dh rub the labour massage oil into my feet which was Bliss!

Alissa wakes at around one thirty in the morning for a bottle, she drinks it and falls back asleep as she normally does. I try to get comfy but i feel restless and it suddenly clicks that my openings have intensified again. I have a quick look at the time and it is ten to two in the morning, i had hoped to have had a little more sleep, oh well. I get into the shower and bath (all in one) put the plug in to fill the bath with the shower water. The shower was great and i some how manage to squish myself into a sitting postion in the bath that keps me open and was somewhat comfy during openings. I spend the next hour and a half here feeling happy and relaxed, concentraiting on relaxing my pelvic floor, visualising my cervix opening and taking a nice big breath in and out (opening my mouth into an 'O' shape whilst keeping my jaw relaxed). I have a "bl**dy show" this gives me renewed energy as it is a sign of progression i decide at this point that i will do no more self checks of my cervix this was the sign i needed to relax and let go and i finally believe that my little babe was on her way. After a while i feel the need to move downstairs only i know that once i got down there i would not be able to make it back up to wake Dh, so i decide to wake Dh up LOL! I spend about five minutes shaking him to try to wake him while having openings which require me to be more vocal with my breath luckily alissa does not wake up and Dh does (we all share matresses on the floor). Its around three thirty in the morning and openings have kicked up to another level. We set my nest of cushions and water proof sheets and sheets up on the floor in the lounge area.

Read on to the post below

[unhindered]

I find though that the only position i can bare openings in is hanging around Dh's waist resting my head against his hip and arm. His job was to hold me up and under no circumstances STOP RUBBING MY BACK. I am really vocalising now and although i am well into labour land i find that i have to concentrait on relaxing my pelvic floor, vocalising and relaxing my jaw and mouth. To help keep me on track with my vocalisation i remembered how alissa would bring me in a flower from outside and i would smile at her smell it and go Aaahh. At the beginning of an opening i would smile to welcome the opening and then take a big breath in (smell it) then breath out with Aahh sound opening my mouth wide with relaxed jaw and mouth. I did this for as long as the opening lasted keeping my breath slow and even knowing that taking a big breath is helping my babe during an opening. During my openings i could feel my cervix opening it was a rather sharp sensation and openings were felt in my back and front. I start to feel cold so put on an old t-shirt and one thick bed sock and one of Dh's socks (thats all we could find that was nearest to us). Not long after this my legs are getting shaky and i need to give them a rest so i move to hands and knees position. Dh is sitting on the floor beside me and i can feel that during an opening he would nod off to sleep and stop rubbing my back. This happened twice as i recall i said something like, dont stop rubbing my f'ing back! My tone was low and primal, i think he got the picture. I think to myself that maybe i am in transition but dont mention it to Dh, he later tells me that he also suspected that i was in transition and didnt say anything to me.
Openings are now bl**dy intense and comming one on top of another, move to hands and knees position resting half on the birth ball, with Dh rubbing my back. I can feel that i am sleeping between clusters of openings. I hear Dh say that it is five oclock and he comments on how quick the time goes during labour and he then tells me how openings are now comming one on top of another LOL Bless his heart i probably said yes i know. I suddenly wake and tell Dh that i have to go up to the shower NOW.

I make it up the stairs and into the shower Dh puts the plug in to fill the bath in case i want to sit in it later. I ask Dh to leave the bathroom door open half way so he can listen out for alissa, i am not worried about waking her at all and did not hold back when i needed to be a little louder. I use the warm water on my back it provides a little relief but my goodness things are intense and i have to really start concentraiting on my relaxation and vocalisation as a few times i notice my self tense up at the begining of an opening, i now say YEEES and OPEN loudly to release the tension and welcome the sensation of opening. The bath is about half full when that familar all mighty im gonna vomit feeling hits and i grab onto the soap holder on the wall and Dh's t-shirt and hold on for dear life as my body vomits 3 or 4 times i dont hold back at all and tell myself that this violent vomiting means that my body is well on its way to birthing this babe. The next sensation begins and i start my vocalisation which quickly turned in to, i think im pushing, holy **** im pushing! Indeed i experienced the feotal ejection reflex. My gosh what a difference when your body is doing it itself and you are just there, just being while it happens. Anyway i turn to face Dh so i can stand with my legs further apart and he manouvers the shower head so it is still running down my back. I am in disbelief and keep saying to Dh, my god the baby is comming, im pushing and the baby is going to be here soon. I cried a little i think from shock at how quick it all of a sudden was happening. There is little time between pushing contractions and after about 2 or 3 i feel stretching at the entrance of my vagina. I reach down thinking it was her head upon feeling it i knew it was her bag of waters once it felt like it was out a fair bit i broke it with my fingers. I did not think about this it happen purely on instinct. With the next contraction she moves all the down to the entrance of my vagina, stretching my perinium. I support my perinium with one hand and hang on to dh with the other. When the contraction is over i feel her head just inside of me and tell Dh that her head is just there, i think i get him to have a feel i am in total amazment with the whole situation. Two contrations happen i again support myself with one hand and hang onto Dh with the other, i am saying gentle be gentle baby come out gently for mama. I found by saying the word gentle and talking to my babe helped me to stay relaxed and not fight what my body was doing. The next contraction happens and her head crowns and comes out down to her ears, i am supporting her head and myself. The contraction ends and another begins straight away and she comes out to her shoulders and with no time for them to turn she comes flying out into my hands and Dh's hands. She has a little cry then goes quiet Dh notices straight away that she has her cord wrapped around her neck twice and quickly unwraps it and she pinks up and has another little cry. I look and discover that she is a little girl and i cry at the joy of another little girl. I look up and there is alissa standing at the bathroom door looking on, i smile and tell her that i have had the baby and it is a little girl. I decide to get out of the shower and the now full bath, it is only now that i notice that the water is really coloured so i gather that there must have been meconium in her waters. We go downstairs and i get comfy on the floor with cushions from my nest and Dh makes sure that we are covered and warm. Dh does his own apgar checking but it is obvious that Ashlyn is fine. We take some photos and begin making phone calls.

I spend an hour talking to my mum on the phone during this time i have intense contractions and know that my body is preparing to birth her placenta. When i get off the phone i decide to see if the placenta was ready to be birthed, so i get up onto my knees and we put the collander in between my legs and i give a couple of pushes and feel the placenta sitting at the entrance of my vagina. I push some more and it slips out into the collander, some membranes were still inside so i give some gentle pushes and wiggle my body and the membranes come free and the placenta is birthed. I didnt have the big gush of blood before it was birthed so i knew that was still to come so i headed up to the shower. Dh got his first cuddle of Ashlyn skin to skin of course. While in the shower i had the gush and passed a couple of decent sized clots, i felt really good and could not believe that only an hour and a half ago i was standing in that very spot birthing my babe (having a shower will never be the same again).

Ashlyn was small but healthy and i had no tears or grazes. Ashlyn and i spent the next 48hours skin to skin with only sheets wrapped over us. For the first 2 weeks only Dh or i was to hold Ashlyn (gee family members loved that).

We also had a lotus birth and i also cut off 14 small pieces of placenta to consume twice daily for the first week. It was very interesting as Ashlyn did not care when we were cutting the placenta but would cry if you touched her cord. I believe this was because throughout the pregnancy i talked with her and told her that i believe that the placenta is motherbaby and that i would consume some of it after the birth and that we would both benefit from it again after the birth. The lotus birth was beautiful and i often would find myself holding onto the wrapped placenta when Ashlyn was feeding or asleep on a pillow on my lap. I would also recommend consuming the placenta in the weeks after the birth. I could not believe how calm and clear minded i felt for that first week, i did not experience any baby blues. Ashlyn released her placenta and cord 5 days after her birth, i found it very emotional and cried with Ashlyn when it happened, our final pregnancy connection was gone. Her cord and placenta are in our freezer door awaiting a nice pot plant to put it in.

Ashlyn's birth was amazing it was truely instictual and i regret not having any photos or video of it but i know that she wanted it this way. Her birth was for Dh and i only a special bond that we will share forever. __________________

[Phoenix's Mum]

What an amazing, powerful, wonderful birth story!

Congratulations on the safe and beautiful birth for your new being in this world!

[AM]

Thankyou so much for sharing that!! What a beautiful birth...

[MonkeyMum05]

Wow!! You are amazing Thank you so much for sharing your story!

[spring]

What a wonderful birth story! Thanks for sharing

[Jinglebells]

wow your birth sounds alot like someone else I know of, her birth was very similar instead her's wasn't a lotus birth

its amazing what our bodies can do

good on you for having the lovely birth that you wanted

[Mummy2Noah]

What an AMAZING Birth Story!!
Thank yo so much for sharing and Congratulations!!!

[Melo]

Wow, what a fantastic birth story!

Thanks so sharing!

Congratulations.

[kymmy]

Wow! I am amazed. I am inspired to have a free pregnancy and birth next time around. Not too sure about the lotus birth though - didn't know that is what it was - shall read up on that.
Thankyou so much for sharing!