John's Birth Story

I had a lot of people ask me if I had written a birth story about my experience having John. My Hypnobirthing instructor Launi begs everyone in her classes to send her a copy but I have been lazy to do it. I finally sat down and wrote everything down. (Finally after almost 5 months!!) I'm really glad I did it because I realized that I started to forget some things and I know later in life I wouldn't be able to remember even half of this if I hadn't finally written everything down.

I go into a lot of detail at some parts so if you are reading this and don't want to hear about details in childbirth then STOP READING THIS NOW! For the rest of you, this is just something I did for records sake and thought I'd share this with my friends and family who wanted to hear the whole scoop!....

On October 2, 2008 we welcomed our adorable little boy into this world. John Sione Yohanes Tuutau was born at 3:59 a.m. in the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. When I was about 34-weeks pregnant I thought my water broke so I went into the hospital to get monitored. Everything was fine but after that, I started having surges off and on pretty consistently until the birth. At 39-weeks I started getting antsy and couldn’t stop cleaning my house! On Sept 29^th my husband and I celebrated our 1^st anniversary together. The next day I woke up and cleaned the house from top to bottom. I took apart an entire futon and stored it away and moved a few more heavy things without telling my husband. He was convinced after finding out about my cleaning spree that this is the reason I went into labor!!

That night (Tuesday Sept 30, 2008) I went to bed feeling tired as usual. I woke up at about 1a.m. feeling surges every 15 min. They started getting closer and closer with each passing hour until they were about 3-4 min apart. I let my husband sleep as much as he could although I couldn’t sleep a wink. Around 6am I finally woke him up. We took our time and got our stuff together while trying to wait it out as long as I could before leaving for the Hospital. We finally checked into the hospital at about 9:30a.m. Our nurse, Mimi, was nice and very supportive of our decision to do Hypnobirthing. We provided her with a copy of our Birth Preference Sheet that was respected by everyone who helped us. I tested positive for GBS and needed IV medication every 4 hours, but they were fine with my decision to have a Heplock instead of an actual IV. This made things a lot easier for me to move around throughout my labor. My surges were 3-4 minutes apart sometimes 2-3 minutes apart until 3a.m. the next day. My labor lasted 27 long hours!

For the first 12-14 hours I felt confident and more or less relaxed. My husband played relaxing music and helped me follow through with the Hypnobirthing relaxation techniques. Then I started to get really tired and my mind started thinking “Why is this taking so long?”BIG MISTAKE!!. After that things started getting really hard for me. Instead of the pressure I once felt I started feeling pain. Every surge felt like it was the end of the world! My muscles would tense with every surge and I was not handling things well. The nurses would remind me of my other options, but they were never pushy. They offered many times to wrap my Heplocked arm in plastic wrap and let me take a warm shower. I loved being in the water so much, but eventually I would have to come back out. I tried to sit on a birthing ball but the pressure was too intense and I was much more comfortable sitting in a rocking chair. A little after midnight, the doctor came in and checked me out and told me that my water sac was bulging with fluid and causing a lot of pressure. She offered to break it since the baby was so close to coming and since I was desperate for a way to get him out faster. Since I’d already been in labor for almost a full day, with little progression in my dilation in the preceeding few hours, I agreed. Within 2 min after she punctured the sac I was in more pain than I’ve ever felt in my life. I started to panic and bawl my eyes out and no matter how many times my husband told me I was doing great and I was almost there, I just couldn’t handle it. I asked for a small dose of something to take the edge off. They gave me one small dose of Fentanyl and boy am I grateful that I did! It was just enough to relieve my panic attack and get my mind back on track.

I still had a little over an hour before the baby was ready to come out but I was finally getting my head back together. I would find my husband Daniel falling asleep in between surges but I would wake him up by tensing my arms and shoulders and squeezing his hand to death each time they would begin again. I paid for that later by having very sore muscles for days after! At 3:00 a.m. Dr. Ramos came back in and told me I should start “pushing” and that he was ready. I was SO incredibly exhausted by this time that I was having a hard time doing anything. But I knew I was NOT going to “push” my baby out. I tried getting on my hands and knees but the pressure was so uncomfortable that I sat at an angle while Daniel and the nurse held my legs up. I didn’t necessarily want to be in that position but the nurse insisted that it was the best position to relieve the pressure and pain. Since I couldn’t find any other way to do that I just let her have her way! I was too tired to object. I started to “breath the baby down” like I was taught in class and apparently from what my husband said I was hardly doing anything because I was so tired. The nurse was trying in a polite way to tell me that if I pushed with a little bit more force that the baby would come out faster. Completely ignoring the pushing part I started to focus every ounce of energy I had into moving the baby down. It still took about an hour but I thought I did a pretty well for being completely wiped out and exhausted.

Finally the baby’s head was in view and the nurse called Dr. Ramos and one other nurse in to help. Daniel stayed right by my side the whole time telling me how great I was doing. He looked exhausted as well but adrenaline kicked in for the both of us and we got really excited. The nurse pulled in a big mirror that allowed me to see what was going on which was SO COOL!!! Dr. Ramos told me everything was looking great and I was doing great. It was interesting watching his head start out looking so small then get so big as he came out. Throughout this whole process from the time I started breathing the baby down until he came out I don’t remember feeling any pain. I was finally focusing and I remember watching his birth in awe. Once his head was out it only took a bit for the rest of his body to follow. At 3:59 a.m. he finally arrived! The nurses took my gown off of me as fast as they could as the doctor placed my little boy on my chest. He was so beautiful to me! They left him on my chest as they wiped him up and put blankets around both of us. We snapped a few photos and called my mom so she could pass on the news. The doctor told me I had a few tiny tears but I only ended up getting 2 or 3 stitches. The doctor and nurses were really impressed with me in how I handled everything. They kept taking turns to check on us because they wanted to see “a hypnobirthing birth”. They were really impressed that I looked so good after just having a baby and was up and walking in no time.

Dr. Ramos patiently waited for over 25 min. until the placenta sloughed off and came out and then she let my husband cut the cord. They gave us as much time as we wanted to bond with our baby before suggesting we take him to get weighed and cleaned up. After about an hour and 15 min or so I handed the baby off to my husband while I got ready to go. It was so nice to have our requests met especially with our skin to skin time and them waiting to cut the cord.

Our little John weighed in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. had a 19 in head and was 21 in. long. I was very happy with the way everyone at the hospital treated us and the understanding and support we received through our Hypnobirthing process.