Ask The Pros
Pregnancy Photos
Pregnancy Calendar
Birth Plans
Birth Stories
Bookstore
Boy or Girl
Cesareans
Chat Room
Complications
Doulas
Educators
Episiotomy
FAQs
Feeding Baby
Fertility
Finding a Class
Health
Interactive
Labor
Message Board
Monitoring
Newborns
Newsletter
Postcards
Postpartum
Pregnancy
Reviews/Awards
Search
VBAC
Week by Week
Who We Are

Allan Daniel Clark's Birth

6lbs 8ozs

I had a very smooth pregnancy, no problems and never felt better. On Saturday May 4th my water broke at 3p.m. I had no prior contractions so I was very excited to go to the hospital. At 7p.m. my contractions started and I was barely at 1cm. At around 11p.m. I felt as though I needed to push so I asked the nurse to check me. She did and said I was around 9cm and would have to wait a little longer to push. About five minutes later my doctor came in and told me it was time to push. She didn't check me and I thought nothing of it. I was very relieved that I could start pushing.

The pain wasn't too bad. While I was pregnant my sister, who is a certified hypnotherapist, helped me prepare for labor by hypnotherapy. I was able to sleep after each contraction without any drugs. After about an hour of pushing my contractions were about 1 minute apart and lasted at least a minute. My doctor let me push for 5 hours before deciding to give me a c-section.

The nurse took me up to the operating room and I was given an epidural. My husband was allowed to watch our son being born. When they delivered him the room went quiet. I caught a glimpse of my son's blue lifeless body lying on the table. My husband said that it was a boy and immediately left with my son to the nursery.

The doctor worked on my son for three hours never leaving his side. At one minute he had an Apgar score of 1 and at five minutes he scored 3. My son was also born with a severe case of clubfeet. Nobody informed me that my son was having problems.

At 7a.m. I was moved back in my room and started asking the nurses when I could see my baby. They told me that at noon they would take me to see him. After an eternity it was finally noon and I asked to be taken to my baby. The nurse said she would get a wheel chair but she never came back. An hour went by and I asked again but my request was again ignored. After that I paged the nurses every hour and asked to see my or knows best. Next time I am going with a midwife and I will make sure that I am fully dilated before I start to push.