The Birth of Amara Christine - A Natural Hospital Birth

I got the text at 7:41 on Friday evening and by midnight we were in triage getting checked for admission to L&D.
S was admitted around 4cm dilated and was urged by the nurse to walk the halls to get things moving. Instead, she felt comfort from taking a warm shower. While in the shower she made up her mind on getting an epidural. The decision came from the fact the she was very tired, and she figured the epidural would help her sleep. Her birth preference had been to give birth without medication, so we talked about waiting until after she was checked again, to make her final decision.
S was focused inward during her contractions; blowing each one out of the way, in an almost meditative state whilst waiting for the next. I thought she handled the discomfort of labor like a birthing goddess!
S got out of the shower after a while and began another 20 minutes or so of monitoring the baby. The nurses like to make sure the baby's heart tones are normal every so often.

Waiting for Baby

After this round of monitoring, and feeling intense pressure (all while waiting for anesthesia to be called for her epidural), she asked to be checked again and was 9cm.
No time for sleep :)
S's Doctor thought if her water was broken, she'd have a baby in no time. S agreed, and within a few minutes, she was actually involuntarily pushing her baby out!
Amara's cord was short, so S opted against delayed cord clamping, in favor of immediate skin-to-skin.
Baby Amara was born at 3:40am after only 2-3 pushes. She was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19.5" long.

Just Born

My job as a doula is to support my clients desires for her perfect birth - whatever that be.
If it strays from the original "birth plan" by her choice, than so be it.
In many instances, a mother just needs a little encouragement to keep going and work towards her original goal - in S's situation, she was tired and thought she had many more hours to go - so she asked for an epidural. Her body and baby were working so well together, her labor progressed at a fast pace and she ended up not needing one!

Baby Amara joined her parents and Big Brother Declan at home just in time to celebrate their wedding anniversary!