When I met Paige there was an instant connection and after she asked me as many questions as you can think of, I asked her one: “Why do you want to hire a doula?” Her reply was open and honest and a reason many people have, but don’t usually say out loud, “I’m scared and know nothing about having a baby”.
Paige did everything she could to get her labor going naturally and on the last possible day she felt was safe to stay pregnant she arrived at the hospital for an induction. While lots of earlier gestation inductions tend to take a very long time, ones that are postdates tend to go more favorably and that would be the case for Paige.
Her cervix was ripe, already 3cm dilated and the pitocin would be the first thing that was started. She would start to feel cramping about 2 hours in and within the next two hours she would be contracting every 3 minutes. Just 8 hours into her induction, she would be in active labor and at that point she decided to receive an epidural knowing there would be less risk of it slowing down her labor.
90 minutes after that her water would spontaneously rupture and a cervical check at 8:50pm would show she was full dilated.
Here is where having the right provider comes into play and why I say it’s SO important. Carissa of Starling midwives, said, “Let’s wait until you have an urge to push. I don’t care what the numbers say.”
On average someone with an epidural pushes for double the amount of time as someone without. While some folks equate that to not being able to utilize the muscles properly, it’s often provider impatience. If you’re cervix is 10cm then many providers often take that measurement as time to push, rather than trusting the birthing persons body and the baby to still know when.
About an hour later at 9:53pm Paige would ask for Carissa to come back because she was having an urge to push. Paige was strong and powerful. She was in great spirits and at one point said, “This is the first time I feel truly excited to meet her and nothing else. I’m so ready.” Just a few minutes later and after 45 minutes of pushing Paige and Justin’s little girl would come screaming into the arms of her mother, while her father wept with joy next to them. Their family feeling of triumph was palpable and as Justin reached his arms out to hug me, I shed a little tear too.
Thank you Paige for picking me to be part of your journey.
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