Jaden Forest Ridley, born April 9, 2001

The birth of our son, Jaden Forest Ridley, was a wonderfully beautiful experience, and it happened so easily and naturally that sometimes I look back on it and can hardly believe that it happened! My labor and delivery took about five hours, and it was such a fun, special time.

After reviewing all the different options for birth, we decided to do a midwife directed hospital birth, because that is where our midwife, Barbara Schickler, did all her deliveries. We also chose to use the Hypnobirthing method, taught locally by Aryn Whitewolf, and we had a Doula, Jessica Wight. These three wonderful women along with my husband, Dan, made an awesome labor support staff, and everybody worked in harmony to help us make the birth the beautiful experience that it was.

Hypnobirthing is a deep relaxation birthing technique, and in the class you learn various methods of self-hypnosis, but you also learn a lot about the history of childbirth and about the way your body works to make birthing possible. Dan and I didn’t get as much of the ‘homework’ from the class done as we would have liked to, so we didn’t achieve as deep of a relaxation as is possible, but even so, it was a wonderful aid to the process. I think that what we gained the most from it was confidence building. The course provided a solid foundation for my optimism and anticipation about the birthing process, so that we were able to go into this birth absolutely thrilled and confident that we could handle whatever happened.

I started to go into labor on Monday, April 9 at about 10:30 a.m., just after my weekly checkup. I called Barb, and she told me to head over to the hospital once the contractions got so strong that I couldn’t talk through them or once my water broke. Neither of those things happened. Dan was working, and planned on coming home around 12:00 or so. Our Doula, Jessica Wight came over around 11:30, and we sat up in my bedroom and just hung out. We talked about music, literature, dreams, aliens… just about everything. We had such a great time. Jessica is a really wonderful person and has become very dear to us. We are so grateful that we got to meet her and get to know her while working toward this birth. It was such a beautiful beginning for a friendship!

That beginning stage of the labor was so magical. Everything just felt so right, so poignant. Just sitting around and talking with the early afternoon light coming through the windows, full of excitement and anticipation felt so right, so natural. My contractions were very strong, and there was some minor pain at the climax of each one, but I was able to relax quite well throughout them.

Around 2:30 I felt that we should probably head over to the hospital. My contractions had been getting steadily stronger, but there wasn’t much more discomfort, and my water still hadn’t broken, but it just felt like it was time. It’s a good thing that we went when we did, because as we were on our way there my contractions started to get considerably stronger. We were at the hospital for an hour and fifteen minutes, from the moment we walked in the lobby to when Jaden took his first breath. The initial in-patient exam showed that I was dilated to 8 cm. They put me into a room right away, and just about as soon as I got into the bed, I began to transition. Barb arrived right about at that time, and she began to wash up and put her scrubs. Even though this part of the process was so short, it was so helpful to have Jessica there. Her presence was a constant comfort and reassurance. Transition was the most difficult part of the labor, and the contractions were intense. I was not able to relax during those contractions, but I was able to relax in between them, which made me able to deal with the next one.

During the transition contractions I was rolling from side to side, and at one point my elbow hit the call button for nurse assistance. A voice came on saying, “Do you need assistance?” I was in the middle of a very strong contraction, but I responded, “No, my elbow just hit the button.” She said, “So you don’t need assistance?” That’s when I realized that there were five other people in the room, and none of them were having a baby, so they could answer her! I do recall thinking at the time, “Huh, this is funny!”

While transition was difficult, it was also very short—about six or seven contractions, and then it was time to push, though Barb had to manually rupture my membrane at that time. We did about five pushes without an episiotomy, and then it was apparent that I was going to need a small one, so Barb somehow managed to do that while I was still rolling a bit from side to side, and on the next push, Jaden was out!

I can’t even begin to describe the magic of having him on my belly for the first time, so I won’t even try.

The hospital was so much nicer than I was expecting with regards to respecting our wishes for a natural birth and to forgo many of the standard procedures for both mom and baby. Our birth plan helped, and Barb and Jessica were instrumental in enforcing it. Still, I was very pleased that the hospital staff was so great, and I found out that many of the nurses were not only respectful of our beliefs, but they actually shared them. They see so many women come in wanting epidurals without even considering natural birth. They were very excited and supportive of our choices.

Afterwards, our nurse thanked us for having her there for such a beautiful birth. She was so happy to see such a natural and wonderful delivery. Our family doctor, when looking Jaden over, was so impressed with how calm he was. He said that he always loved seeing a calm baby after a natural birth, because you knew that was just the way the child naturally was, not the effect of drugs.

One of our morning nurses said to us, “Oh yeah, I remember you. I looked in on you while you were in labor. You were smiling.”