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I am very thankful to have been chosen by Emily and her husband Alex to support them in their childbirth education preparation and during the birth of their son Logan as their labor support doula. Emily knew from the beginning that she wanted a natural delivery and she did all the work necessary to make that a reality. She was amazing, as was her whole team of supporters–Alex and her sister Meggie. More and more clients are hiring Holistic Doula NYC for both childbirth education and labor doula services and the pairing works really well. Emily recently blogged about her experience and was gracious enough to grant permission for me to share it here. If you are looking for childbirth education, doula services, or both like Emily was, feel free to send me an email at hello@holisticdoulanyc.com. Here’s Emily’s birth story, thank you Emily, you were AMAZING!

Logan is here! Here is how he got here:

First off Alex was amazingly supportive throughout my pregnancy. He listened over and over again while I talked about my cervix and my uterus and used words like cervical mucous and bloody show and hemorrhoids and all sorts of other unpleasant things. He learned just about as much about childbirth as I did and was committed to being an incredible birth partner. I could not have asked for more from him.

Second, I had an amazing doula named Andrea Crossman. Here’s her website: http://www.holisticdoulanyc.com

Alex and I opted to do childbirth education classes with her because 1) she came to our apt, 2) she tailored the class towards the unmedicated birth I was aiming for and 3) we got to know her better during the classes. I think every tidbit of information Andrea gave us during the classes was useful in labor. She told me about some of the gorier things TV and other women don’t tell you to expect (bloody show, vomiting) so that when they happened I wasn’t scared. She also taught us about how fear inhibits labor. Knowing that helped me to get into a mindset of accepting the various stages of labor and all the things that come with it instead of allowing fear to creep in.

I also read just about every book there is about childbirth.

Here’s a taste of my pregnancy library:

Ina Mae’s Guide to Childbirth

The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy

The Pregnancy Bible

Your Best Birth

Don’t forget the DVDs:

Orgasmic Birth

The Business of Being Born

None of these books or DVDs are perfect, and as with everything there is some work in sorting out opinion from fact, but all of them were useful in satisfying my unquenchable need to understand all the crazy things going on with my pregnant body.

So, labor begins!

I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions on and off for a few days, but by Sunday evening on May 23rd they started picking up, getting stronger and more regular. I was very eager to get this baby out so instead of taking Andrea’s evening advice and taking a bath and getting some rest I went for almost a 2 mile walk, which really got the contractions going. By around 11pm we were pretty much sure this was the real thing. I called Andrea who advised that I try to get some rest, especially because labor for first time moms can be very long, and early labor is a time of manageable pain. I did my best but I couldn’t sleep. At least the Lost series finale was on so I was distracted for a good while. Around 2am Andrea came over and she did her best to get me to sleep but it just wasn’t happening. I was too excited and I couldn’t calm down to sleep between contractions. She sat up with me talking while Alex got some rest. At 5am my equally restless sister came over and we continued chatting and hanging out until 6:30 when, with a particularly strong contraction, my water popped. I know the term is broke, but really this was a strong pop. When it happened I imagined a little leprecon popping a balloon inside me. I have no idea where that image came from.

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