Vegan Birth Stories

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Griffin's Birth Story

Okay...it's hard to know just where to start and stop! After all, his story starts back in October when he was conceived...maybe even earlier than that since I'm convinced this little soul has been waiting a long time to join us...and it certainly doesn't have an ending! I'm writing this on July 27, 1999 (okay, didn't finish it then...it's now the 30th and I think I'm going to finish it today)...Griff is 16 (19) days old. Believe it or not, I think I remember more now than I did at first!

Anyway, if you kept up with my pregnancy at all, you probably know that on Monday, June 14th I started having regular contractions with dilation changes and really thought that "this was it". I continued to have this sort of "early early EARLY labor" for nearly a month! Often the contractions would be every 3-5 minutes for a full 24 hours. They were not painful but very intense. Since I know that labor and birth can be painless and since I had done some emotional work preparing for the possibility of a painless birth, it didn't occur to me to think this wasn't "real labor" because it didn't hurt.

I did get a bit discouraged at times because the intensity of the contractions kept me awake a lot of nights and while I really wanted the baby to choose his/her own time to be born, I really also wished that s/he would either go ahead and ARRIVE ALREADY or quit teasing me! Twice during that month I kept Mark home from work thinking that this was "IT", only to have things peter out eventually.

We did enjoy laboring together at various times over that month, making love, kissing, giving each other massages, taking baths and showers together, etc. Those were all things that I had really planned and WANTED to do during labor. It's probably a good thing that we did them so much during that month because when labor really got here we didn't have much chance to enjoy each other!

On Sunday, July 11th (3 days after our "due date"), we slept all day as usual (since Mark works nights). And as usual I was up every hour or so to pee. I was having a lot of bloody show each time, but wasn't having any contractions to speak of. The day before the contractions had become a bit painful so I was a bit disappointed when they stopped again when I went to sleep. About 5pm our alarm went off and I told Mark, "Well, I'm having lots of bloody show, but no contractions really." We laid in bed talking and snuggling awhile. At about 5:30 or so I said, "Hey, you know those contractions I'm not having? They're getting kind of intense!" I didn't want to keep him home from work, though, because I really didn't know for sure if this was "it" or not, and I figured his coworkers were going to get pretty tired of this soon.

By the time he left for work at 6:45 my body was demanding that I be on my knees during each contraction, which were getting quite painful and coming every 2 minutes. I was quite sure by now that this was "it" but I figured I had many, many hours left, judging by my labor with Daystar (duh!). I spent the next hour on my knees in front of the sofa, leaning on the sofa between contractions and getting down on my hands and knees in front of it during contractions. I was hurting pretty badly, things were getting more and more intense, and I was moaning loudly with each contraction.

I called Mark at work at 7:50pm and asked him to please come home. He said, "I'll call you back in a few minutes, okay?" and within the space of 2 or 3 contractions I heard him bounding up the stairs (we only lived a few blocks from the hospital where he works). We got into the shower but I couldn't get comfortable there so it was back to the sofa. I continued in the same pattern I had been, with Mark rubbing my back and talking to me as well as getting things ready for the birth (not exactly sure what he was doing, but he kept bustling around the house and I kept screaming for him to "get back in here" ::grin::). Probably one or two contractions out of each half hour I screamed and cursed and said "I can't do this!!!" but the rest of the time I found that a low moan was good. I also talked a lot to the baby during contractions (what a myth that "real labor" contractions can't be talked through!) saying, "Oh, yes, baby, we can do this. Please come out now, Mama wants to hold you. We can do it. We are doing it." etc.

Oh, all this time, Daystar is still sound asleep in his room. I'm not sure exactly when he woke up, but I think it was around 9:30 or 10:00. He wandered in and out of the living room, played on his PlayStation, hugged me a few times, but mostly stayed in his own room. He still hadn't decided for sure whether he wanted to be in the room for the birth or not. I remember asking him a couple of times if I was scaring him with my loud noises and him saying "no" and then Mark looking at me and mouthing "just a little bit!" :)

I was getting pretty frustrated and upset because I was in so much pain (all in my back and low belly) and I was scared that it was going to last hours and hours. I wasn't getting any rest at all, my knees hurt horribly, and every time I tried to sit down between contractions I regretted it because it hurt so badly to try to move into my hands & knees position after the contraction started. I know that at one point I did tell Mark that I couldn't do it (I didn't actually ask to go to the hospital, just said I couldn't do it) and he told me that we would NOT be going to the hospital. I remember thinking "Well DUH! Of course we won't!" ::smile::

Suddenly, right in the middle of a contraction, I stood up and started sort of running around the room! Mark asked me what I was doing and I said, "I don't know!" Then I felt my water bag pop. I knew that I had felt only a small bubble of fluid in front of the baby's head, and sure enough there was only a tiny bit of fluid that came out but I felt the pop. And then a weird feeling of turning and moving down (I'm sure this is when Griff turned from posterior--his face toward my front--to anterior--his face toward my back) and a sudden intense urge to push. I hit the floor on hands and knees, about halfway across the room from where I had been before.

I had thought, before, that I didn't want to push, that I just wanted to let my body push my baby out gently. Well, my body was having none of that! I felt an uncontrollable urge to push and push now and push HARD. I only pushed when I felt an urge and I don't know for sure but I think it was only 4 or 5 pushes before his head crowned. I kept asking Mark (who was NOT terribly happy about having to wipe my butt!...one of the hazards of hands & knees birth!) if he could see the baby's head yet and he kept saying no.

Finally I reached back and felt his head about to crown and asked Mark why he hadn't told me! He hadn't seen it because of the angle my body was at (more upright, leaning back on my heels, I guess). I think I pushed once or twice more and there was his head and then his whole body slipped out of me. It was 10:41pm :)

Mark was worried because Griff was really purple and didn't breathe immediately (I guess I just thought he knew that was normal) so he rubbed him really good with the towel. I turned over to a sitting position (getting my foot tangled in the cord in the process) and Mark handed me the baby. He sort of nursed a little bit while we sat there, but wasn't all that interested.

Daystar called the proud grandparents and a few other friends with the news. Within a few minutes (I don't know, maybe 10 or 15?) I got up and got in the bathtub with Griffin. Daystar got in with us pretty soon. We stayed in about half an hour, during which time Griff really nursed strongly.

I was having really painful contractions--with sharp twinges in my cervix--and when I reached inside I could feel that the placenta had already detached and it seemed to be sort of stuck in my cervix. I pushed a few times but it hurt so I quit. Finally I decided that the contractions were so painful because the cervix wanted to close and couldn't, so I handed Griff to Mark and squatted in the tub to push the placenta out. I put just a little bit of traction on the cord to help it along and out it slipped. I washed it really well, getting all of the clots loose so that it wouldn't get smelly. (We didn't cut his cord until it was about to break around day 4 or 5...it was very dry and brittle and scratching his tummy. Allowing the baby to separate from the placenta at his own speed is called Lotus Birthing.)

Then it was time to go pile into our big family bed! We wrapped the placenta in a couple of cloth diapers and then weighed Griffin--about 8 pounds (while I held the placenta above him) and talked to a couple more people on the phone, and then we held a short dedication ritual, introducing Griffin to the Elements and our God and Goddess, and I filled his medicine bag (made for him before birth by our good friend MamaBear). Then we really did pile into the big bed, all four (FOUR!) of us, but I don't think I slept much. Mark held Griffin on his chest when he wasn't nursing. I just stared at him and marveled!

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