home birth

Cathy Weeks wrote:
toypup wrote:
fast. That said, when I my water broke at home, the first thing we did was
sit down so I could have breakfast, since I knew it would be a fight to get
some food in the hospital, and I didn't really want to fight that fight.

This is all so interesting to me. You see, I had very little urge to
eat during labor. I had been up since 2am when my water broke, and at
6am they asked me if I was hungry, and I thought "well, I guess so" so
I ate a 6 oz carton of yogurt, which I promptly vomited back up during
my next contraction. (I think I kept most of it down, though). I ate
nothing until my daughter was born at 11:15am. I sipped water and
that's it (I ONLY wanted water). After she was born, someone offered
me orange juice (tropicana pure premium grovestand with extra pulp) and
it was the most delicious thing I'd ever had in my life - I just sucked
it down.

But.... I had a really fast labor for a first timer, only 8 hours from
first contraction to delivery of my daughter. I suspect that a) my body
couldn't tolerate the food and b) that I was having blood sugar issues
- my hands were very shaky when someone handed me my water glass
between pushes, so they found me a straw. Because of this, the idea of
eating during labor seems very alien to me, despite the rational side
of me thinking that it's insane to deny laboring women food (I mean,
labor is called labor for a reason - it's really hard work!. :-)

I think if you get lucky and have a shorter labor,
it's not such a huge deal. I, on the other hand, had a
long first labor (45 hours). I didn't particularly want
to eat or drink. In fact, it became a sort of joke where
the midwives would pop their heads in and look meaningfully
at me, and I'd take a drink and glare back at them and then
they'd leave me alone again (I wanted to be left alone).
I also ate lightly throughout. I think if I hadn't, I'd
have been in bad shape long before the end of that labor.
Also, I think if you get to the point that you're hungry
and dehydrated, it's often too late to catch up. So, I'm
glad that I was nagged to eat. I don't think you have to
eat and drink a lot, but if you don't and your labor isn't
short, I think it makes it very hard to get through labor.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Cathy Weeks wrote:
toypup wrote:
fast. That said, when I my water broke at home, the first thing we did was
sit down so I could have breakfast, since I knew it would be a fight to get
some food in the hospital, and I didn't really want to fight that fight.

This is all so interesting to me. You see, I had very little urge to
eat during labor. I had been up since 2am when my water broke, and at
6am they asked me if I was hungry, and I thought "well, I guess so" so
I ate a 6 oz carton of yogurt, which I promptly vomited back up during
my next contraction. (I think I kept most of it down, though). I ate
nothing until my daughter was born at 11:15am. I sipped water and
that's it (I ONLY wanted water). After she was born, someone offered
me orange juice (tropicana pure premium grovestand with extra pulp) and
it was the most delicious thing I'd ever had in my life - I just sucked
it down.


I couldn't eat at all during labor. My last 'meal' had been at 6pm the
night before, full labor - real contractions and all - began about 5am
(during the night I was just 'removing' everything in my stomach
involuntarily ;-)). My midwife kept *trying* to get me to eat all day.
She was feeding me yoghurt and eggs, the latter of which I just spit
up. I had gatorade and water which I could stomach, but hardly anything
more. That was her big worry,a ctually, that by the time it came time
to push, I was too weak and needed an IV. Since the IV ended up being
pulled out, and I found strength somewhere, I was ok. I didn't eat
solid food again til about 11pm that night. Oddly, tho I was hungry, I
wasn't starving.

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Cathy Weeks wrote:
But.... I had a really fast labor for a first timer, only 8 hours from
first contraction to delivery of my daughter. I

I think if you get lucky and have a shorter labor,
it's not such a huge deal. I, on the other hand, had a
long first labor (45 hours).

I think I read in The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears, that fast
labors *tend* to be more intense (ie painful) because there is a less
gradual build-up. I don't know if that's particularly measurable
though. Perhaps the same woman might have a really long labor with one
child and a really short labor with a subsequent one? Hard to say. My
mother's labors ranged from short (10 hours for a first baby that was
also born breech) to insanely short (1.5 hours) - the latter she didn't
even push - he just slid out fully from contractions. He was a small
full-term baby (5 lbs 10 oz) and that made some difference (but none of
her babies were big - biggest was 6 lbs 3.5 oz).

The senior midwife attending my daughter's birth told me that if I had
any more kids (we won't unless circumstances change in really wierd
ways) that I would be likely to have REALLY fast subsequent labors
myself.

Cathy Weeks

"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think I read in The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears, that
fast
labors *tend* to be more intense (ie painful) because there is a
less
gradual build-up. I don't know if that's particularly measurable
though.

I don't know if it's true in general. If I had it to do over again,
I'd take the 7 hours of labor I had with my first child over the 48
minutes I had with my second. That was 48 minutes of pure panic and
hell.

Bizby

I think if you get lucky and have a shorter labor,
it's not such a huge deal. I, on the other hand, had a
long first labor (45 hours).

the opposite is having a very fast labour, having just eaten and not
expected to labour, vomiting in transition is common anyway, but for me,
2hrs before transition I was not in labour, so eating or not was not even a
question I asked myself and of of course that came back!

Anne

I think I read in The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears, that fast
labors *tend* to be more intense (ie painful) because there is a less
gradual build-up.

I think they have to be, honestly, if I'd had any longer than I had, with
the intense pain that I had (both labours 2hrs, though complicated by 2nd
stage of the 2nd one then taking longer than anything preceeding it), I
would honestly have killed myself, but suicide in labour is not something
I've heard reported!

That said, some women will clearly have a long and intense labour and others
will have a short one and report that it was easier than a trip to the
dentist.

Cheers

Anne

bizby40 wrote:
"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think I read in The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears, that
fast
labors *tend* to be more intense (ie painful) because there is a
less
gradual build-up. I don't know if that's particularly measurable
though.

I don't know if it's true in general. If I had it to do over again,
I'd take the 7 hours of labor I had with my first child over the 48
minutes I had with my second. That was 48 minutes of pure panic and
hell.

LOL Well, Martha Sears, who had fast labors, was pretty tart about
things when people envied her fast labors - they aren't a bed of roses
by any means.

My mother's fast labor (1.5 hours) didn't seem *too* bad - She got Dad
and me up (I was 14 at the time) we drove to the hospital, which was 45
minutes away, and little brother was born 13 minutes after we arrived.
Her telling me that she never really had to push seems wierd to me too
- as I pushed for 1.5 hours (about the length of her entire labor!) -
and my throat was RAW from the grunt/groan thing I was doing.

48 minutes does seem scary though - Would you be able to get to the
hospital in time? Or would your midwives arrive in time? As much as
I'm a supporter of home birth, I'm not terribly comfortable with the
idea of an unattended birth. So I can see why it would be
panic-inducing!

Cathy Weeks

"Cathy Weeks" wrote in message
ups.com...
48 minutes does seem scary though - Would you be able to get to the
hospital in time? Or would your midwives arrive in time? As much as
I'm a supporter of home birth, I'm not terribly comfortable with the
idea of an unattended birth. So I can see why it would be
panic-inducing!

I was overdue, and they broke my water, and then the labor started
within minutes. There was no gradual build-up, it was straight to
non-stop intense contractions. I wasn't even able to (sorry for the
TMI people) void my bowels, because I could not sit on the toilet long
enough -- no more than a few seconds. We were in the hospital already
of course, so that's not why I was panicked, it's just that everything
was happening so fast, and my body was completely out of control, and
it seemed like everybody in the room was yelling at me -- yelling
supportive things, but yelling nonetheless. Finally a nurse took my
hands and locked onto my eyes and started talking to me in a soft
voice. She helped me calm down and start to tune everyone else out.
Thank God for nurses!

My first labor was *so* different. It should have been scarier
because I was fully dilated and ready to push before they realized
it -- my contractions never got regular and they were not doing cervix
checks because my water had broken and they didn't want to introduce
infection -- so they told me to try not to push and ran and called the
doctor. The pushing went well until she stalled with just her crown
showing, and I couldn't get her the rest of the way out. The nurse
kept losing the heartbeat, so they put on an external monitor, and it
kept losing the heartbeat too, so they put on an internal monitor and
*it* kept losing the heartbeat too! So finally they asked if they
could use the vacuum and ended up getting her out that way. She had a
true knot in the umbilical cord, and apparently the knot would tighten
every time I pushed, and that was causing the problems.

At any rate, even though all this was going on around me, I wasn't the
least bit panicked, because I had somehow gone into almost a trance.
I could hear everything around me and would follow directions,
but...it's like none of it was important.

Bizby

Cathy Weeks wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Cathy Weeks wrote:
But.... I had a really fast labor for a first timer, only 8 hours from
first contraction to delivery of my daughter. I

I think if you get lucky and have a shorter labor,
it's not such a huge deal. I, on the other hand, had a
long first labor (45 hours).

I think I read in The Birth Book by William and Martha Sears, that fast
labors *tend* to be more intense (ie painful) because there is a less
gradual build-up. I don't know if that's particularly measurable
though. Perhaps the same woman might have a really long labor with one
child and a really short labor with a subsequent one?

I think it's really really difficult to make that statement, since
every person has a different pain tolerance, and that may vary even for
different pregnancies of the same person. Then there is how someone
communicates pain. I know people who will writhe in pain and it's clear
that it's the sort of thing another person would grunt and get past it.
Just depends on the person (none is better or worse). Also likely
depends on the birthing process. While my labor was pretty damned
painful, the only part that made me close to tears was when my midwife
was doing an internal, with me laying on my back, and having a
contraction at that moment. I know if I'd had to labor on my back more,
the pain would have been unbearable.

FWIW - the nurses at the hospital asked me to state what level of pain
I was in, from 1-10, 10 being worst. I said it was about 8 at that
point. They didn't believe me. One said "How can you say 8? You're not
even screaming!" Well, it hurt like bloody hell, and i wasn't trying
*not* to scream, I just managed to stay calm. Didn't mean it didn't
hurt! My midwife later said I had the highest pain tolerance of any of
her clients, and her asst concurred. I am not sure how they came to
that conclusion, since I have no other births to compare it to. (OTOH,
dealing with an ingrown toenail a few months later I was whimpering in
pain)

My labor from contractions to delivery was average - ~12 hrs, not
including the all-night bathroom session the night before.

Not a home birth...and for some reason this thread has disappeared from
the Google topics page for this ng; I had to search for it!

Fast labors:

My first was 2.5 hours long and very intense. Although it never got
beyond what I could bear, it did get close. And as the baby crowned
the "ring of fire" was excruciating. I said at the time that I felt
something tear. It wasn't anything visible, though.

My second was 1.5 hours long and even more intense. At one point,
probably for less than a minute, it got beyond what I could bear and I
did panic. I think the precipitating factor was not the speed, but
rather the unpleasant setting (room full of strangers, including a
wet-behind-the-ears resident who yelled at me). The panic had nothing
to do with pain. It was all about fear. The last few contractions
were painful but there was no ring of fire. This baby literally
squirted out all in one (quite involuntary) push, and plopped onto the
bed.

If I have another, I think it would be rather silly for me to plan on a
hospital delivery. At the very least I would have to plan *also* to
deliver at home, unassisted, just in case. Waiting on my second baby
was beyond tedious, as I was constrained for *weeks* to stay at all
times within easy reach of the hospital. Which meant not at home.