The Best Birth Yet

Well she's here. Chrysalis came into the world at 5:12 PM the seventh of February this year. She weighed 8 lb. 4 oz. and was 21" long. She came out beautiful, pink, and alert. When they did the apgar scores, she got a 9, and then a 10. I think that the best part though was not necessarily how Chrysalis was doing, but how Ligia was doing. We had the baby at home, in our dining room, and Ligia did magnificently.

With Orion's birth, we went to the hospital. Ligia was doing quite well until about 6 centimeters of dilation. At that point, the nurse came in and said that the baby's heart rate slowed to about 125, and so Ligia had to stay in bed on her back. Funny thing is that the average heart rate is 120 to 160. Then, lying on her back made the contractions much more intense. She still wasn't progressing very fast, so they decided to break her water. Soon after that when she still wasn't progressing at the speed they at the hospital desired, they decided to give her pitocin. Well, amazingly that didn't make the progression speed up all that much either. Because of the extra pain caused by the pitocin the epidural soon followed. When it finally came time to push, over 72 hours later, Ligia was just so exhausted that she didn't really have it in her anymore, hence the episiotomy and foreceps. Too make a long story short, it wasn't the greatest experience. It seemed that one needless intervention led to another, and eventually, a needless intervention wasn't so needless anymore.

We wonder if all the drugs and unnecessary interventions, such as clipping and cutting the cord way earlier than necessary, may have led, or at least contributed, to some of his problems after birth. He had collic, excema, and jaundice. Poor little guy was miserable. My family and everyone else for that matter kept making suggestion after suggestion for how to take care of him. It was just so frustrating because we were doing everything we could for him, and nothing seemed to make things better. But this is not supposed to sound sad, he's doing great now. I'm just contrasting the two experiences.

With Chrysalis' birth though, everything went really well. Ligia was laboring here at the house and when she was about 6 and a half to 7 centimeters dilated, we called the midwife. Shortly after she got here, we discovered that Ligia had a posterior cervix and so it didn't exactly align with the baby's head. All the midwife had to do was to pull the cervix foreward so that it aligned with the head, and the next contraction made the cervix dilate to a 9 plus. To make it short, after a 35 and a half hour labor, consisting of 28 minutes of pushing, Chrysalis was here. Like I said, she was perfectly alert and healthy. It's funny, I never knew that a baby could be born without crying, but she was. I would have to say that this really was the perfect birth.

It just amazes me how perfect this experience has been. Chrysalis is totally calm and peaceful. She had no problem latching on to breast feed. She's been a perfect baby. It was so nice to be able to have her without drugs and unnecessary interventions. She's so healthy.

It really has strengthened my testimony of the power of God and his love for us. Ligia wanted to do this at home so badly, but she doubted herself at times. In fact, at one point the midwife almost suggested that we go to the hospital because labor had slowed down so much, and things just weren't progressing. Of course this made Ligia doubt even more. I gave her a blessing and I knew that she could do it. Anyway, she ended up doing it and doing it really well. I know that the only thing that made it possible though, is that Heavenly Father gave her not only the ability, but also the confidence to be able to do it.

One of the best things about doing it at home though, is how quickly Ligia is recovering. It's only been two days, but she's pretty much stopped bleeding entirely. She got out today when we went to the health food store and got some herbs to help increase milk production. She's been doing great. It's just been wonderful, I can't describe it in any other way.

One last thing, to anyone who is thinking about doing a home birth, don't shower right away afterwards. Ligia was feeling like superwoman who conquered the world, and thought it fine to take a quick shower. Well, the blood loss, combined with the heat from the shower turns out to be the perfect equation for black outs. No, she didn't black out in the shower, but she did black out right afterwards. I wouldn't have been extremely concerned except that her body went ridgid, her jaws locked up, her eyes popped out, and I swear she was turning into Emily Rose. Yeah, I was pretty scared. I had 911 on the line before her head hit the pillows. Apparently, even though she was only out for three seconds, protocol states that the paramedics still have to come and check things out. It was all quite the comedic relief though, when they came running and huffing and puffing to the house. They actually thought they were going to deliver the baby. So yeah, I recommend sponge baths for at least 2 or 3 days. I hope you enjoy the pictures and videos! It's been wonderful!