My son arrived yesterday, Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 6:14 pm. After approximately four hours of labor! He was born in the water. The last hour of his labor was the most intense hour of my life. Ever. No question. I was raging through labor and was convinced that at 5:30 when we arrived at Inanna birth center that I was certainly in transition. When Jean, my midwife checked me she let me know I was 4cm. I was freaking out inside my head because I had NO idea how I would manage through the rest of labor with contractions that were blowing me to smithereens like these were. They were right on top of each other, more intense than anything I experienced while in my ten hours of labor with Zoe, they were more than a minute long, and barreling through my body at less than a minute apart. They truly made me question my own sanity at choosing natural birth. Needless to say, and to keep it brief today (I’ll write the whole story later), 40 minutes later I was holding my son in my arms. Hardest hour of my life, but worth it. Worth it all.
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I am Joy, a happily married mother of two waterbirthed babies. I am a DONA trained doula, a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, and I've worked as a midwife's assistant at a freestanding birth center. In May of 2010, I attended my first birth as a doula and have since had the pleasure of serving over 50 mothers with their births. I also spent over a year teaching a weakly childbirth class based on the Birthing From Within method. I love serving laboring moms and I enjoy teaching birth education. I use this blog to write about it all - my life, my children, and my passion of all things childbirth.
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- Noah Luke’s Birth Story. Part 3.
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- Bruised Motherhood
- Announcing Noah Luke
- Five Reasons Why I Would Never Take a Hospital Based Childbirth Class
- Is There A Difference?
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- Beautiful Breech Birth (Part III)
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Joy – you have no idea how inspiring you are to me. Your son is beautiful!
wowza! But you did it!!!!!
Congratulations, he’s beautiful :)
Oh I ‘m so sorry it was so hard. Mind blowing to be at 4.5 feeling like transition. You made it. Take care. J
Transition in hyperdrive! I guess you were in transition, going from 4cm to fully dilated that quickly. That is A LOT of work. I have seen other mommas do it and it looks rough. You are so brave, so strong! Warrior momma!