Monday, May 7, 2007

Cesarean Awareness Month (pt. 2 of who knows how many)

Before I finish I have to say that I have always had a very bad memory that has only gotten worse since I had the Things. This is exactly why I need to stop procrastinating when it comes to writing these birth stories. Especially in this case, when at least 2 or more of my readers were actually at this birth. I'm having a hard time remembering the timing of certain events. If I get something wrong, leave something out, or add stuff in that didn't even happen, please forgive me and just pretend I'm writing fiction.

Now, back to the story...

After getting home, I slept off and on and got as much rest as I could while letting Thing 1 and Thing 2 watch as much Nick Jr as they wanted. Around 3pm I hadn't heard much from L & J so I called to check in. J said that L was able to rest a little bit. She was still contracting but things hadn't changed a whole lot. He asked if I would come to the hotel and stay with her while he went home to check on their daughter. I told him I would come as soon as Hubby got home.
I called Jenny to give her an update. We were both convinced that she was still in very early labor and that it could be at least a day or more before she had the baby. Our plan was to get her to accept that too so she could relax and get some real rest. Boy were we wrong!
I got to the hotel around 5pm. J left not long after I got there and things quickly changed. L went into a zone and started working with her body perfectly. This felt right, so different from the night before where we were trying to tell hew how to work with her body. All she needed from me was to sit there, hold her hand and occasionally say some reassuring words. J called to ask me how our game plan was working, had I been able to convince L that she still had a long way to go? I told her "not exactly". She could tell by the sound of my voice that something had changed so she decided to head over too.
At some point we called Jane, who happens to be a wonderful doula, apprentice midwife, and reiki master. We asked her to come to the hotel, thinking that L could benefit from some energy work. I think we called her before we realized that L didn't need much help at all.
It turns out that even though we didn't really need the energy work, we still needed her gifts. Once Jane, Jenny, and I were together we quickly fell into a grove of supporting L.
When J came back from checking on their daughter, he was probably surprised to see this hotel room full of women. I remember L saying "Hi Honey, I guess two doulas wasn't enough."
L's labor progressed beautifully. I loved watching her be so in tune with her body. She didn't need much from us other than our presence. One of us would hold her hand while the other would place cold washcloths on her head and neck.

Edited 6/8/07: I'm still having a hard time finishing this story. I figured It's better to post what I have instead of letting this get lost in draft land. Obviously this will be told in at least 3 parts.

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