Delivery | Queen Momma

My Delivery

PHEW! Y'all, I did it!

I just gave birth to a new life. New life for me, my partner, and our families.

I am extremely grateful to have had this experience at this time in my life-even though this sure ain't what I had planned lol

Let's talk about delivery!

I pretty much covered the details of how my baby came out on the page about My Labor. Here I am detailing some specifics of my delivery and the parts that were most anxiety provoking and thus most googled prior to d-day (delivery day).

Contractions and Pushing

The best way I can describe contractions are real real bad period cramps. They kind of come over you like a surge of energy (except it's pain). If you tell yourself otherwise your mind will respond and act accordingly.

Pushing took me a few tries to get together. It was described to me as taking a really big dump. So it's a combination of pushing and releasing if you will. Think of kegels times 1000.

Latching

Breastfeeding begins very early on too.

I was prepared for that. I affirmed my baby and I during my pregnancy for easy latching.

I think another reason my baby latched so well is due to not being medicated. I'm sure there are medicated births where the infant latches well. However, I received so many exclamatory comments on his ability to latch that made me think it is uncommon.

My advice for breastfeeding, speak it into existence!

Laceration

I did as much as I could to prevent a laceration, thus the plan for a water birth. I also had my partner do perineum massages when I got to 40 weeks pregnant.

I kind of felt myself tear, in the moment I thought it was just the feeling of a body coming out of me. After they placed my son in my arms though, my midwife was like, "Ok, let's get the placenta out so I can stitch you up cause you are really bleeding."

Here's Baby

On tv, they smack the baby on the bottom to make sure they cry, wipe the baby off all those things. That was not my experience.

I have read that skin to skin contact is very important in the first moments of life and I opted for delayed cord cutting so I assume that's why my baby was handed to me drenched in blood. Probably also because I got that laceration.

Prepare yourself for that possibility, I was not prepared, almost didn't grab the boy smh, my partner laughed at me later

That is everything my research prepared me for. I was ready to rest up for the night and head home the next afternoon.

SIIIIKKEE!!

The following morning, after being transferred to the recovery area, I was visited by the head midwife. There she informed me that I sustained a substantial amount of blood loss during birth and required a blood transfusion.

I cried a little bit inside. I was just so ready to get home and love on my baby.

Delivering the Placenta

Due to the laceration, I had to get the placenta out quickly. My pre-reading and research informed me there would be about 30 mins of rest, where you do the skin to skin bonding, before the afterbirth.

Now that I knew how to push it was simple also there are no bones in the placenta so it slides out easily. Feels similar to being on your period and passing a blood clot when you stand up.

So there I am, bummed out about the transfusion that was soon about to take place. I had been in labor basically since Monday,- its now Thursday- excreted all the fluids in my body, and still managed to push out a baby. Then here come the Lactation Consultants.

These wonderful ladies let me know that I didn't have any colostrum coming out to feed my baby. Which means, although we had a great latch going, he was starving cause it had been hours and he hadn't eaten anything yet.

I cried real tears this time.

In retrospect it was no big deal, we were in a place to get the situation remedied and they didn't skip a beat in providing formula to feed my son with. At the moment though, I couldn't believe I could not feed my baby. I saw videos on youtube and read articles that explained it usually takes a couple days for your milk to come in so nature provides us with colostrum until then. I didn't have any! Like this is what my body is supposed to do and it's not doing it and there are days until my actual milk will come in.

Y'all I was SO sad and SO tired.

It was explained to me that my body was trying to make blood so the colostrum had to wait. Which made complete sense and sucked. The transfusion took a couple of hours to complete albeit a success. In the meantime, we had to pump then feed and supplement with a syringe. Talk about a process.

I had to stay overnight to make sure my body didn't later reject the blood also to ensure baby boy was getting some nutrients. Which meant nurses coming in to check on us every 15 mins or so. That got annoying with my lack of sleep and lack of energy due to my newborn and blood loss.

I must say, I wouldn't change a thing about my labor and delivery experience. I learned so much and felt so cared for. And at the end of it came home {on daylight savings time} with my baby. WE LOST AN HOUR OF SLEEP!