Alayna birth story

Alayna’s Birth story

A little back ground information: This was my 6^th pregnancy, my first was born C-section because she had spina-bifida and we did not want to cause any undue stress on her spine through a vaginal birth. I then had 3 successful VBAC’s all with an epidural, two were induced because I have gestational diabetes and therefore large babies. I then had a miscarriage at 16 weeks, and finally got pregnant with Alayna.

My guess date was either February 10^th or 17^th, and throughout the week I had 3 nights where my pressure waves would start getting strong and then would go away, so on the 18^th when I went to bed with mild pressure waves, I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was just another false alarm or not, but when I woke up at 2am I could tell that this was the real thing. I rolled over and told my husband that we would be having a baby today.

I was having a hard time going to sleep so I down loaded an app on my Ipod to time my contractions, they were about 5 min apart and lasting 45 seconds. I put in my easy first stage script and was very calm and relaxed. At about 4am my husband said he was having a hard time sleeping because I was moving around so much and looking at my IPod so I decided to go sleep on the couch. At this point I decided to stop listening to the scripts and would just use the peace cue to help me relax during pressure waves, sleeping on and off between waves.

At 6am I was lying on the couch and felt a sudden gush and figured my water had broken, but when I went to the bathroom and looked down I realized it was blood and not water. (We are still not sure exactly what caused it.) I had planned on staying home as long as possible and I could tell I wasn’t as far along as I would have liked, but decided to head to the hospital in case there was a problem. My PW’s were averaging 3 min 20 seconds apart and lasting 50 seconds on the drive to the hospital. . (On a side note it was snowing pretty hard when we went outside, it was the first really big storm we have had all year. So it took us about twice as long as usual to get to the hospital as usual.)

I didn’t have any more bleeding after the one gush and by the time we got to the hospital there was no sign of bleeding The nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. They told me I could stay and the doctor was called. I was easily dealing with the pressure waves using the peace cue and turning off my light switch. My nurse was very respectful and would wait patiently every time I would close my eyes, I never once had to tell her to wait while I relaxed through the pressure waves. I had a hep-lock and intermittent monitoring, but found that I didn’t mind having the monitors on my stomach because the pressure actually felt good.

We got to the hospital at 7am and I listened to my easy first stage script or just listened to my husband and mother in law talk quietly while I just lay on my side or sat on the bed in a semi reclined position. I found the peace cue to be the most helpful at this point and would breathe out peace with every PW. I actually didn’t think I was progressing because I didn’t feel any difference in the pressure waves as time went on, but every time the doctor or nurse checked me I was more and more dilated.

At about 12:30 my PW started getting more intense and I was having a hard time lying down so I stood up and leaned against my husband, when my doctor checked me I was fully dilated but there was an anterior lip. I started feeling a little pushy and started pushing a little bit at around 1:00, I was having a hard time maintaining my focus and my husband started using the relax cue at this point, which was a life saver for the next 2 hours. I was having a really hard time finding a position that felt good to push in. I moved from standing to kneeling against the back of the bed, while they pulled the bed apart and put the squat bar on. I pushed while kneeling and leaning on the squat bar for about an hour I would guess, but my right hip was really starting to hurt after a while so I had to switch to sitting with the back of the bed up and my feet on the foot pads. I was having a hard time pushing right and kept tensing up way too much, the only thing that kept me from freaking out was my husband using the relax cue. (BOP warning: there were a few times when I just didn’t think I could do it anymore and said as much, but this was more out of exhaustion than pain)

After a while of this the nurse suggested that I lay on my back to push, I resisted at first because I have always heard this was the worst position to push from, but I finally decided to try and this was the position I was finally able to feel like I was making some progress, and eventually the way she was born. Alayna was born at 3:05 after 2 hours of purple pushing, I didn’t know until after she was born that the reason it took so long was because she was posterior. My Mother in law said that when the head started crowning the first thing she saw was her forehead. After she was born my mom came and I told her I had pushed for about an hour, and my husband turned and looked at me and said it was more like 2 hours, I didn’t believe him at first and had to be convinced.

Hypnobabies was wonderful, I never felt like I was in any pain during my pressure waves until I was fully dilated, and then the only time I would say there was pain was when I would change positions. I think if I had known she was posterior before my water broke, I would have been able to try something to get her to turn and I would have had a more perfect birth.

When she was born the doctor put her on my chest and wiped her off while waiting for the cord to stop pulsing, then I watched as my husband cut the cord. I was then able to put her skin to skin, my first experience with this and I loved it. The doctor waited for my placenta to detach and I only had to push once and it slid right out. I did tear a little bit but the doctor said it wasn’t very bad. I started nursing my baby after a few minutes of basking in her beauty. I was able to keep my baby with me for about 4 hours before they came and asked if I was ready for them to take her. At 8 lbs 13 oz she was my smallest baby out of the five.

Thank you Hypnobabies for helping me have a beautiful natural birth.

Sarah watching TV

If everyone watched TV like Sarah does then none of us would get fat.

Food update

I am feeling really good about my food storage now, I went to the LDS cannery a couple times and hit the grocery store during the case lot sales and now feel really prepared for any type of food storage emergency. Over conference weekend I also went through my 72 hr kits and rotated out all the old food and small clothes. My kids love when I go through the 72 hr kits, we call it the general conference party, (kind of like the super bowl at our house) they get to eat all the old food every 6 months.

I got my square foot boxes built and part way filled, I am still trying to get my compost looking like it should. I alsoplanted a bunch of tomatoes in the house, so hopefully they will be ready for planting at the end of May. All of my trees and bushes that I planted last year lived, I am actually quite astonished, I thought I would loose at least a few of them. My apricot trees and my peach trees have flowers on them, I am so excited. I feel so blessed to live in a place where I can keep a year supply of food and grow my own garden.

Lots-o-pictures

Playing at the church with cousins and friends




Family Home evening at the Bowling Alley

New Years Eve with the Gauses

Christmas Morning at the Pickering Residence

Sledding with Cousins

Sarah with her two cousins Lincoln and Conor

March update

I am a big advocate of having food storage, but haven't been doing a very good job of adding to mine for a while, so today I spent the day doing inventory. I realized that I am doing pretty good but still need a lot of stuff to have a full year supply. I am also planning on doing my own square foot garden for the first time this year. Not looking forward to all the work it will take to get it going but I am looking forward to all the fresh produce it will provide. We planted 8 fruit trees, and a bunch of blackberry and blueberry bushes last year, I don't think they will have much, if any, fruit this year, but I can't wait until they do.

I started going to zumba again a few weeks ago and am starting to feel the wonderful effect exercise has on my attitude about life and my energy level. I don't know why I ever stopped going, I gained 10 pounds in just a few months while I was pregnant because I was just to lazy to exercise. I gave myself the excuse that I didn't have to while I was first pregnant because I was feeling sick, and then when I lost the baby I wasn't able to exercise for a while. Now I hope I can loose the weight I need to before I get pregnant again and hopefully I won't be so lazy during my next pregnancy.

There are several ladies in my ward that are pregnant and due around the same time I was due. They all have nice round bellies and mine is not. I have mixed feelings every time I see them, initially I am kind of happy that I am not huge and uncomfortable, but mostly it makes me sad that I am not huge and uncomfortable and waiting for my beautiful baby to be born. I am just glad I have the gospel in my life that gives me the strength to turn to my Heavenly Father in hard times, so I can feel of his love and know that I am not in this alone.

While I was pregnant I was having a hard time doing home school with the kids so we decided to send them to the local public school and got the ball rolling before christmas break. Then I lost the baby over the holidays, but we decided to send them anyway since it was already set up. It is really weird not having the kids home during the day after 2 1/2 years of home school. Even Sarah is at school 2 days a week for a few hours. My house is the cleanest it has been in years and I have had a lot of time to help Moroni out with his Xbox game he is making. I am also glad they are in school so I will have time to work in the yard this spring.

Birthdays

Crysania is now 12, watch out world here she comes

This year Crysania got to have a big party at home with all the friends, we had a house full of pre-teen girls and it went surprisingly well.

Mary made the cake as per Crysania's request

Elijah's 7th Birthday

Josh Brennan Bowen Crysania and Elijah at Jumping Jacks

Its the big "10" for Bowen

Lots of fun at Nickle City, Sarah loved driving the race car

Brandon, Bowen, Crysania and Elijah

Happy 3rd Birthday Sarah

So much fun with all the friends and Cousins

Green River

Family trip to green river, although while we were there it was more like the red river, because of some flash flooding further north.Crystal Geyser is supposed to be pretty cool when it goes off, but it is random and all we got to see was some bubbling and a small stream of water coming out the side of the pipe.
Super cool "waterfalls" by the crystal geyser

Goblin Valley was super fun and we went on the best day, warm with a nice cloud cover. Luckily we left right before the wind started picking up and it started to rain.


This is what Elijah thought about riding in the car so much!

We were going to stay three nights but the second night it started to rain right after I started cooking dinner. It rained for a few hours while we hung out in the car and let the food cook in the dutch oven under an umbrella. The rain stopped right when it was time to eat, but picked up off and on again through out the night. We decided we didn't want to risk another night in the rain so we headed home, stopping in price on the way to see the dinosaur museum.