Cherish Each Moment: September 2009

It's been wonderful 3 weeks with Isabella. The first few days after her birth we took it really easy. We only had immediate family visit the day after and friends visit 5 days later. We wanted to make sure we had our baby moon-time to bond as a family. We kept the lights dim, noise to minimum, played lots of beautiful healing music and enjoyed our sweet little girl. I am so glad we did as those first few days are so precious and you will never get them back. Everyone else seemed to really understand and respect our wish to be left alone. After the first week, we were so much more rested and enjoyed having company. There were family and friends coming daily bearing gifts, and more gifts and meeting our little angel.

Isabella is still on every 3 hour feeding schedule and at this stage we are used to the routine. It was hard at first not to sleep through the night as its our first baby. Armando and I take turns to feed her so the other one can sleep and it works really well. There are nights where she sleeps 4-5hours straight and that is always a very nice treat. Armando took 2 weeks off from work so we could both take care of Isabella. We really got ourselves organized and learned a lot about her. We know that she likes to be swaddled most of the time, she loves sleeping with us and so do we, and she loves to be held and rocked to sleep after she eats. She is a good baby. She barley cries, and for most part is very content.

She is also very aware and alert when awake. There is a deep sense of knowing in her eyes. She can hold her gaze forever on us and is fascinated by lights. She follows with her eyes as we move and is able to lift her head and turn it from side to side. She smiles sometimes but at this point as everyone says its probably gas.

I have taken her to one of the yoga studios so she could meet some of my teacher friends. It was just amazing to be back in the yoga room where me and her did yoga for 9 months. It felt so good, so familiar so right. She gets a lot of attention as many students and teachers are already bonded with her. It's amazing to see that. I love that she is already a part of yoga community.

I love holding her, kissing her and cuddling with her. When I am away from her for a few hours I miss her. My husband and I had our first date since her birth this weekend and we went out to the movies. My mom and step dad were babysitting Izzie. I enjoyed our night out a lot but kept thinking of my little girl and was so happy to get back home and be with her. I also think of her as I practice yoga. This week I have been to 3 yoga classes and kept thinking of Izzie in my savasana :)

I am teaching my first class tonight. I am really looking forward to it. It's been great to get back to my yoga practice. I will write more about that in another post. I wanted to write about my diet and weight as many people have asked me if I thought raw food diet had a lot to do with healthy pregnancy and easy birth. I absolutely think so. Being able to keep my body clean and energized through raw food diet has definitely made my pregnancy and labour as easy as it was.
I also believe it had a lot to do with my fast recovery. I was able to move out and about few days later, got back to my yoga routine 2 weeks later and only had post-partum bleeding for 2.5 weeks.

Here is my weight in:

Pre-Pregnancy weight: 124 pounds
Pregnancy weight gain : 18 pounds (142 pounds)
3 weeks post partum weight: 127 pounds

Born on Saturday, August 29th at 8:30pm at 40 weeks and 6 days. She was 7 pounds and 11 oz. not bad for being 6 days overdue! She is absolutely perfect and doing very well. I can't believe tomorrow she will be 2 weeks old. Every time I look at her I feel so much love and all I want to do is kiss and hold her. The past two weeks went super fast. It's been all about getting to know her, getting a new routine going and loving every minute of being a new mommy. I feel blessed, I feel happy, I feel fulfilled. Even though the adjustment to having a newborn is not a small task, making sure they are comfortable at all times, not getting all the sleep you were used to, taking so much longer to leave the house, etc. etc. it is all absolutely worth it. Before I say any more I'd like to share my birth story. So here it goes:

I ended up having a dream home birth. It was absolutely perfect. It was just like I imagined it to be down to almost every detail. I wanted a short, easy, gentle 6 hour labour and I wanted my baby to be born between 6-9pm. I did end up labouring for 6 hours, felt no pain (only fantastic pressure waves and amazing energy flowing through me) and my baby was born at 8:30pm.

My labour started with my water breaking at home. An hour later at 2:30pm I was in early labour for 45min and then went straight into active labour. It was a perfect, sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. Armando was at work and when he got home we had enough time to set things up before my contractions went to being every 5min apart. When that happened I immediately went within and started to focus on what my body was doing and my breath. I sat on my birthing ball, did some yoga poses and took a shower. All while listening to my hypnobirthing CDs. I was calm yet so happy and joyful! Finally it was happening.

My secondary midwife Diane arrived (Lucia was off for the weekend) and checked me. I was 4cm so we started filling the pool. At this point I got a little sick and Diane told me women who throw up tend to progress faster. She was right, my surges intensified so I got into the pool. It was heaven. The water felt so soothing and inviting. I relaxed and went more within. We run out of hot water so Armando had to boil water and bring it up in a pot. He later told me he was running up and down the stairs bringing a total of 10 pots of hot water.I had no idea at that time. I was so focused nothing else was really getting registered in my brain. I later realized how time ceased to exist. Maybe it was one of my hypnosis suggestions that every 20 min will seem like 5?

Soon after I started to feel different energy in my body. My body wanted to start pushing.I was surprised as it seemed to be going so fast. I was only labouring for not even 3 hours. As Diane checked me I was fully dilated and started to focus on bearing down.Wendy another midwife was called and as she arrived I was out of the pool and on a birthing stool pushing. I never met Wendy yet I connected with her immediately on a soul level. She was calm, peaceful and radiated love and kindness. Both Diane and Wendy sat on the floor and Armando was right behind me. He was absolutely amazing. He knew exactly what to say in every moment and how to support me. He used all of the hypnobirthing language telling me to go within, connect with my baby, connect with my inner wisdom, inner strength and power. He kept telling me I was doing wonderful, working together with my body and my baby and that we were going to meet our baby soon. It was the best part of my labour.He also made sure I was really relaxing in between surges. If he saw me tense my shoulders he would gently remind me to relax them and gently massage them. One thing which was funny was Diane telling me "Dominique get angry! Push the baby out!" So not in line with hypnobirthing language but fortunately I was able to ignore it. Next time I have to remember to tell my midwives to use hypnobirthing language.

I changed positions a lot at this point as the baby did not want to descend down. I went back into the pool but that just relaxed me too much. I actually did not desire water energy at this point. I needed stronger, more supportive Earth energy to bear down. So we used the stool and my bed. I also got on all fours but made most progress on the birthing stool.I pushed for 2 hours and that is when Diane told me we would have to soon think of the alternative. When she said that I suddenly snapped out of my meditative state. I told her if she meant going to the hospital there was no way I would do it. "I am not having this baby in the hospital! I am having her at home!" I exclaimed and that is when things started to change. My surges became longer and stronger and I loved it. I kept riding the waves and felt the baby descend down. She was past my pubic bone well into the birth canal ready to crown.

This is when I went from the birthing stool in one room to my bedroom. It was so hard to walk but I did. I semi sat on the bed with Armando behind me supporting me from behind.

Soon after a few amazingly strong surges the baby started to crown and I touched her head. It felt so soft and I was so happy! She was almost here! Diane told me to gently push here and I did. She later told me I had amazing control but that's only because I was listening to her directions, which at this point were great. After the head was born the body just slipped out and Isabella was born. I reached and grabbed her and with the midwives' help we placed her on my chest where she stayed for a long while. We welcomed her whispering softly how much we loved her and how great she did. Her body was so soft and she looked so beautiful. She let out a cry without any help and we looked at each other...instantly falling in love. I was ecstatic and felt pure bliss and love as Armando and I embraced our new little girl. At last the three of us together on one side :)