The Story Of My First Birth

In my first pregnancy, a friend of mine came to me and made me watch this documentary called “The Business Of Being Born”, which is about childbirth and it shows the benefits of having a complete natural labor. After watching it, my husband and I were completely sure we wanted it to be natural. We’re nothing close to be “natural parents”, but in this subject we agreed it would be the best for me and our baby.

I’m writing this with no means to judge anybody or to point towards natural labor as being the right way of delivering a baby. I think there is no right way and that every woman is free and has the power to chose the experience she wants to have (of course sometimes things are just out of our control. We never know what’s coming. You’ll see what I mean).

So, having made that decision, we looked for the Bradley Method Of Childbirth (here’s some info if you’d like to read about it), which is a husband-coached kind of labor and he participates in the entire thing in an active way and we both thought this was really awesome!

We started taking our lessons when I was about 15 weeks pregnant and if I’m not mistaken, it went on for 12 weeks. I had a pretty healthy diet and did all the exercises we learned from our instructor. We did everything that we could to prepare for the big day!

When I was about 37 weeks pregnant, my mom arrived from Brazil and we had a 3D/4D ultrasound just so she could get a glimpse of what my pregnancy had been like, since she didn’t get to come any earlier. Guess what we found out on that ultrasound???? He was breech and didn’t have much space to spin around and be head down! For three days, I tried a couple of exercises I found on YouTube that were supposed to help him turn, but it didn’t happen.

On a Tuesday morning, 3 days after the ultrasound took place, we went to our doctor appointment and I let her know what we had discovered. They immediately scheduled a C-section for a week from that date and ordered an ultrasound for the same day, which happened not even 10 minutes later.

It was around 10:30am and the ultrasound technician said: “Yes, baby is breech and I’m just checking the fluid to make sure everything is OK”. So I asked if the fluid was fine and she said she was gonna call my doctor in the room to answer me because she wasn’t allowed to give any information.

I found it weird that she didn’t just tell me what she had found out, but at the same time I thought it was a standard procedure.

When my doctor comes in, she looks at me with a trying-to-hide-the-worry happy face and says: “Guess who’s having a baby today?”

At the same time I was sure it wasn’t me, because IT WAS NOT time yet!!!!!! I was battling in my head, who else would it be? There’s no one we know in common… It’s got to be me, but IT’S NOT TIME!!! And I respond with a fearful and shaky voice and that awkward smile + tears: “me?”

She explained the fluid was low and we should go home get whatever we needed and come back right away for the surgery! I was absolutely shocked. I was definitely not quite ready to come back home with a baby at that time! Lol

I didn’t get mad or angry because it wasn’t gonna be natural. The most important thing was my baby’s health at that point. I guess most moms can agree with that. And since I was not the one who had spent years studying about that subject, I just trusted her and did what she advised. There was a reason why we had picked her as our doctor in the first place… We prayed for her, we asked God to direct us to the right person and there was no doubt She was the one!

We left the hospital, – my mom, my aunt and I – picked up Deivid, grabbed my suit case and baby’s bag at home and went straight to the hospital.

At 4:30pm I got to see the most beautiful face in the whole entire world, wrapped in that red-and-blue-stripped-hospital blanket! It was the happiest moment of our lives! It was magical, beyond what words can describe. No fear, just love. Because love casts out fear! At that moment I could experience this exact verse of the Bible in the most pure and perfect way!

It doesn’t matter how it happened. All that matters is that they are well and what they bring with them: that overwhelming love that can be seen in they eyes, can be felt in that hug, can be heard through that vulnerable cry… Oh Lord! God you are so perfect! Thank you for allowing us to be moms and experience a tiny bit of your great love for us!