Congratulations, Bonney!

I gave birth to little Shannon Josephine on Wednesday, April 1st, exactly one week past my due date. She is a great baby and weighed 7 lbs, 10.9 ozs. and was 21cm long.

I am pleased to say I had a natural birth, no epidural. It's tough for me to say how long I was in labor because I was experiencing irregular labor contractions (4-20 min apart) and decided to go to my doctors appoinment Wed. morning to see how far along I was. So my husband and doula went with me and we discovered I was already 5 cm dilated! My worried doctor ordered us straight to the hospital.

Overall, it was about 47 hours of laboring, but counting hospital time, it was more like 7 1/2 hours. I was very lucky to have a wonderful staff working with me at Sharp Mary Birch. Some of the nurses heard I wanted a natural birth and said they requested to work with me. I am very grateful for all the support and encouragment and I'm not sure how I would have accomplished my goal without it, escpecially from my wonderful husband and doula, there for every contraction and push.

Throughout my labor, my body wanted to go into various yoga poses, and there was no contraction too strong that my deep yoga breathing could not get me through. I miss your class and I've been eager to give you an update. Thank you for all your positivity and encouragement along the way.

Manali's Birth Story (Baby Sid)

A friend was planning on attending Shelley's prenatal yoga class, and checked with me (I was then 31 weeks pregnant) if I wanted to join her. I was never much into yoga, but decided to go for the classes. My pregnancy till then had been really hectic, so I thought the yoga class would give me some bonding time with my baby. I was hoping to have a natural birth, but was open to other options too. And I certainly wasn't expecting the yoga classes to help me with a natural birth. Little was I to know.

At my 39 week check-up my doctor was preparing me for other options. I had till then not felt any contractions and my cervix had softened just a little. I was a little worried as I drove back home. I thought I was probably going to have a planned delivery. But the very next day, I felt some contractions in the wee hours of the day. The contractions went away in a few minutes, so I thought they were false labor pains. During the course of the day, I felt contractions again, and they kept coming at regularly intervals. Every 30-40 minutes, I felt mild waves. And then the intervals kept getting shorter, the duration of the contractions kept getting longer. My husband came home by 4:00 pm. The cow position (getting on all fours) was helping me. So for every contraction, I would get into the cow position. At 7:00 pm we called our doctor's line. I was told to leave for the hospital in an hour. As predicted by the doctor, my contractions got more intense in an hour and we headed to the hospital.

At the hospital, the nurse checked that I was in active labor. I was 5 cms dilated. I was asked and I said no to the epidural. In the labor room, an IV needle in my arm, with the fetus monitoring in place, we were left to ourselves. It was around 9 pm. The nurse was to check on us every couple of hours. I was watching the clock every so often. I would try to get to the floor for every contraction (didn't feel comfortable getting into a cow position on the bed which was quite narrow). By the time I would get myself off the bed with my husband's help, I would feel the contraction easing away. I remember shouting at my husband for not getting me off the bed faster. Eventually I got tired of getting off and then back on the bed. I am just 5 feet tall and getting back onto the bed was a huge effort (my husband was keeping a safe watchful distance to comply with my wishes). Then I decided to just sit out the contractions. I remember closing my eyes and remembering Shelley's mantra "ride the pain waves, embrace pain". And it really was easy after that. I didn't budge from the bed after that. My husband was keeping a watchful eye on me. At 11:10 I remember paging the nurse. I was 7 cms dilated. Again we were left on our own. I slept. The contractions would wake me up, and I would ride the pain waves. Both me and my husband were snoozing though. I again paged the nurse at 1:00. I was about 10 cms dilated. My water bag was blocking the baby's descent, so it was broken by the doctor.

The contractions started coming in at a greater intensity, but the pain was gone. However, I wasn't prepared for pushing. The pushing part was the most painful part of my labor. Every push was encouraged by my husband and the nurse. The doctor periodically checked on me. I was also given oxygen whiffs a couple of times. After about an hour of pushing, I was almost about to give up. At that stage, I just wanted the baby out. I kept saying that I won't be able to do it. I asked for a mirror to check on the baby's progress. I was told that it would not help much. After what seemed like an age, the doctor started putting on gloves, and a mirror too was provided to me. That really encouraged me, I could see the crown of my baby's head. After some time the baby's head descended and it started hurting me so much that I really didn't need any more encouragement to push. The last big push. And my baby boy was born.

Ariana's Birth Story

Feb. 21st Sat.- I felt crampy/crappy starting around 8 pm-continued all nite long, but managed to catch sleep here and there...

Feb. 22nd Sun.- I was woken up at 6:30am by a definite contraction! We called our doula, Diana Kayat 9am to give her a heads up, today might be the day! Had contractions steadilyincreasing until 3pm, then they stayed the same until 6pm. We managed themwith a lot of vocalization, breathing, and couples yoga postures! (thank you Shelley!). Myhusband Ernest and I felt confident working through the contractions by ourselves until around 7pm when they were 6-8 minutes apart and one minute+ in duration.Then we called for reinforcements! Diana armed with essential oils, massage toolsand her wealth of knowledge and expertise arrived around 8pm!!

I had eaten a light breakfast and a sandwich for lunch which came UP unexpectedly right beforeDiana arrived. As a small bonus, I did feel better after throwing up!!With Diana, we worked on a lot of cat/cow poses and double hip squeezes.For me these were key, because Ariana was "sunny side up" and I was going through "back" labor.We labored on..haha :) ...until I had thrown up again, pressure intesified, and contractions were 3-5 minutes apart.Then we drove to the hospital.

We checked in at 10:30pm, at 11:30pm I was 3cm dilated, 90% effaced, and -1 station.At that point it had been over 17 hours of back labor, I was exhausted from pain, lack of sleep and nutrients, and I was only at 3cmwith a long way to go. I felt discouraged, and worried that I would not have the reserves to push when the time came (resulting in a c-section :(.So at that point I asked for an epidural.

Feb.23rd Mon.- At 1:45 am I received the epidural which numbed only my right side. The anesthesiologist's strategy was to lie on my left sideand keep pressing the button and dose myself...everytime he checked on me he said the same thing....it never worked. At 2am I was 5cm dilated, 100% effaced, -1 station. Then my water broke! What a cool feeling! We all dozed off and on until morning. At 8:30am I was 6-7cm, 100% effaced and -1/0 station according to nurse Elena. Dr. Eisenhauer did an exam and thought I was not nearly that far along and wanted to start pitocin. I requested to wait until his next exam to see if things would progress on their own.At 12:30pm nurse Elena checked and I had progressed to 10cm, with a cervical "lip" on my left side. I thought it might have been all thatlaying down on my left side. Dr. Eisenhauer then checked and said I was 5-6cm! They both advised me to start the pitocin, and I did. I was veryupset and as expected my contractions ramped up in intensity...I was so grateful to have my husband (my champion :), and doula Diana (worth her weight in gold!) there with me. What great support!

Finally at 5:15pm, 10cm, 100%, and +1 station I got the okay to start pushing!At 7:19pm (37 hours of labor) a healthy Ariana Selene was born!! 8lbs. 3oz., 20 1/2 inches.It was all worth it, just like everyone says!