An unmedicated 2nd birth: Welcoming baby Clive Lennon!

Welcome to our Birth Blog! Today's birth story was written by 2nd time mom Hope, mom to Flannery and Clive. Her story involves an induction of labor and ends with the sweetest baby! Special thanks to doula Tara of the Mindful Birth team for supporting this new family of four. And biggest thanks of all to Hope for sharing her story with us and allowing us to help welcome her baby boy into the world!

Clive Lennon born June 4, 2021

"In 2016, I had my daughter, Flannery, after a 20 hour unmedicated labor with 4 hours of pushing. It was brutal. I couldn’t get that experience out of my head for the birth of my son. Leading up to my due date of 6/7/21, I started having panic attacks. I was so terrified of labor that I couldn’t begin to be excited for the actual baby. Thankfully, I have an amazing husband who does his best to soothe my worries. Combining his love with the support of my doula, they were able to help me have a much better experience this 2nd time around.

Tara calmed my fears of being induced. I honestly don’t know why I was so scared of that process. It wasn’t bad at all.

At 39.5 weeks, I was induced at 1:15 on June 4th. I didn’t have strong contractions until 1 hour later. Tara gave us great techniques and positions to have my husband help during contractions before we needed her to be there.

I knew that I wanted to focus on my breathing and trying to get out of my head during labor. My heart rate was really high in the beginning out of sheer anxiety when I was going back and forth between having an epidural or not. I ultimately decided to skip it. My husband laughs though because as soon as the contractions got really intense my heart calmed down.

I had joked that I was going to think about my job during labor as a way to distract myself and it worked! I’m a resort manager and during each contraction I went down the list of clients that I have. I would picture their faces and think of their names. As the contraction peaked, I had a harder time coming up with their names, but I would just continue focusing on their faces and trying my best to remember. I was able to do that until I was about 9cm which I see as a big win! It sounds silly, but I think because it had nothing to do with labor that it actually took my mind elsewhere.

When I started to feel the need to push they called the doctor who was 20 min away (of course). Tara and the nurses tried to change up my positions and keep me steady while we waited.

The Doctor showed up and I pushed for 45 minutes and Clive Lennon Henderson arrived at 8:50pm! To my surprise, he weighed 9.2 lbs! If I had known he was that big I probably would have gone with the epidural. Lol.

The next day the dr informed me that Clive’s shoulder blade had gotten stuck behind my pelvic bone. That is something else I’m glad I didn’t know at the time. She was able to maneuver him just right and get him out with no problem.

I’m so thankful for the staff at Health Park, my husband, and the amazing doula, Tara. I had a great doula with my daughter, but Tara is on another level. Her calming spirit is so helpful and she knew just what to do at any moment to make me more comfortable and help ease the pain."

Authored by Hope H, mom of 2

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The Mindful Birth Doulas