Elias' birth story by Sandy
Born September 19, 2008

I thought I'd share my story with everybody and hopefully, share some encouragement! I was due September 12th. Alice may remember me in class two times AFTER that date! It was a long, hard wait, but Thursday morning (4am) September 18th, the little guy decided to start to make an appearance. I woke up with contractions about 10 min apart- went back to sleep for a couple of hours, then woke up for good around 7. All day long, I was in denial that this was really true labor. I didn't want to get my hopes up! By 3 pm, I was noticing that the contractions were regularly coming every 5-10 minutes, so maybe this really was it (they had been happening for 12 hours now)!

I was determined to do this birth drug free so I stayed at home for the next 4 hours, trying to wait until the last minute to go to the hospital. By 7, the contractions had been less than 5 min apart for at least 2 hours and were getting pretty hard, so my husband convinced me we should head to the hospital. By 8pm, I was checked into the hospital and contractions were between 1 and 3 minutes apart. I figured my first check would show me close to transition- boy was I wrong. I was only 2 cm!!! This is where endurance comes in. I was in labor for 10 more hours before I was allowed to start pushing! I think at least 7 of those hours were in transition- very very hard with contractions on top of one another. I kept trying to internally focus and remember meditations from class. I couldn't have made it without my husband, but what I did have was a healthy body and a trained mind- yoga had a lot to do with that.

Elias was born at 8:10 on September 19th after 28 hours of labor! It was an indescribable feeling to know I had accomplished the drug-free birth I'd prepared for. He is wonderfully healthy and we are all doing great. I can't wait to get back to yoga... it is what kept me going during those last hard weeks of waiting.

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