טוב, אז אחרי חודש שאני לא מפסיקה לקרוא כאן באתר, החלטתי שאני גם, אולי, יכולה לעזור במשהו.
את ביתי ילדתי במרץ 2006 בלידת מים בטאיוון. בארץ לצערי לא ניתן ללדת במים במסגרת של בית חולים (פעם ביוספטל היתה אמבטית לידה, עד שמשרד הבריאות גילה ואסר עליהם להשתמש בה יותר).
חשבתי שאולי יעניין אנשים לקרוא סיפור לידת מים ואני מאוד מקוה שיותר תמיכה תוביל את משרד הבריאות לאשר לידות מים בבתי החולים.
סיפור הלידה הוא באנגלית משום שהוא נכתב עבור פורום ההורים הזרים בטאיוון, אבל אני מקוה שזה לא ימנע מאף אחד לקרוא אותו... [-:
תהנו:
When I became pregnant here in Taiwan, the first book I read was not at all about pregnancy, it was about a natural approach to life - Jean Liedloff's ‘Continuum concept’ which was what shaped all my decisions about how my child will be raised and some vague clue about her birth. I then started reading the “popular” text books about pregnancy, anatomy and birth. For some reason they all seemed archaic to me although they were just recently printed. Then I got a different book talking about giving birth naturally, without drugs, knives and needles, about giving my baby a pure and loving entrance to this world and about faster recovery and connection to my baby.
It all made so much sense to me, and I knew this was the way to go.
This was my first pregnancy and needless to say that living as an expatriate in Taipei wasn’t helping to relieve the anxiousness of how the birth is going to be like with the language barrier as well as with the very “technocratic” approach to birth as a medical emergency.
When I asked my Obgyn (there are no midwives in Taiwan) about natural birth options, she politely smiled at me and said I am free to give birth however I wanted as long as she could have me connected to the monitor continuously from the stage of active birth, that it’s best for me to lay on my back for the final “delivery” stage, that all the women that asked her to avoid routine episiotomy at first birth ended up all torn up and that if I don’t want any epidural she has many other drugs I can use instead.
Well in order to protect ourselves from this approach, A (My husband) and I decided to remain at home for the most of the contractions and to go to the hospital at the very last minute. We learned all kinds of ways to cope with the pain. Breathing techniques, focus and non-focus awareness, he learned how to help with massage and hot showers and we prepared a 5-pages birth plan to the hospital, mostly stating what not to do…
The due date for our girl’s birth (March 1st 2006) came and went and there were no signs she wanted to come out. One day I got a call from a “Birthing-from-within” instructor who prepared us for the coming birth. She told us about a brand new water-birth center in Xin-Zhuang (30 minutes from Taipei) and that Barbara Harper, an international water-birth specialist is in Taiwan and is willing to help with a birth at the center to share her experience with the local staff. Barbara is the founder and president of the Water Birth International Organization (
http://www.waterbirth.org ) and has been a midwife who delivered about 2,000 babies if I am not mistaken. I was the 3rd women to give birth in this new waterbirth facility and Barbara was to train the local nurses and doctors on me…
The very next day we went to check out the new center and met her. The LDR (Labor-Delivery-Recovery) was so warm and welcoming, the doctor was very pro natural birth and understood immediately all of our wishes. Although the nurses didn’t speak English at all, I felt much safer in their hands than in the fluent English speaking hospital we originally intended to give birth at. Barbara Harper turned out to be a warm, loving person, whom we both connected to immediately as if we have known each other for years.
I started to feel very mild contractions here and there a few days after, and in a routine checkup at the doctors’ office on Thursday I was already 1 cm dilated. On Friday evening at about 9:00 PM, strong contractions begun. At first every 10 to 8 minutes, allowing us some time to get organized and pack last minute things for the hospital. But soon enough they came every 4 minutes, and so strong and painful that all the pain-coping techniques went strait out the window.
At midnight we were on our way to the birth center. I was sitting at the back of the car, twisting all over the place and my moaning and yelling got lauder and lauder. During the entire drive A was telling me how close we are getting, but I didn’t want to pay any attention to the road and just ignored it all. Funny enough, I was able to notice a road block with police officers checking inside the cars looking for someone and for the 20 seconds that we approached the officer, the contractions stopped and I sat still so that we won’t attract any attention and get further delays. As soon as we moved on it all came back again.
At 12:30 AM we finally got there. They didn’t even have a chance to check how dilated I was or to do a short monitoring checkup. Barbara Harper arrived 10 minutes after we did. She helped me into the big birth tub and the “ahhhh effect”, as she puts it, kicked right in. It was an amazing pain relief which gave me a few moments to get myself together. But there was still a lot of work to do and so labor carried on. A was in the water with me the whole time and gave me a strong sense of safety just by being there.
Barbra was right outside the tub and didn’t leave for one second. She was there with me in each and every contraction. Helping me focus, giving me Rescue Remedy, water, and just calmly stroked my hair.
I can’t fully explain it, but I feel like we couldn’t have done it without her. I think that she was the only person in the room who didn’t have a worried expression while I was moaning and yelling. This let me feel that everything is OK and that I can go on with my way of coping.
I guess that Barbara could tell that the birth was approaching and she asked the Obgyn to check me. The Obgyn said I was fully dilated, and in the next contraction which was about 1 minute later, I had one push and felt my baby's head gently gliding out of me. No one noticed and so I announced – “The head is out!”. One more push and there she was, all warm and white with varnix. She immediately opened her eyes to check us out. I was cradling her and A was hugging me and it was the most rewarding and the happiest moment of my life.
My baby girl was born at 2:20 AM, Saturday, March 11th. A total of 5 labor hours, 2 gentle pushes and a perfect perineum after birth made it an amazing experience. I am grateful to my baby girl for being so clever to choose her birth date just in time for us to realize we must change hospitals and give birth in water. I also have to thank Barbara Harper who helped us materialize our dream-birth, the hospital staff for being so helpful and open minded and most of all, to A, my husband, my hero and my true love who is a full partner of our child’s birth and raising and should get all the credit for it.
טוב, אז אחרי חודש שאני לא מפסיקה לקרוא כאן באתר, החלטתי שאני גם, אולי, יכולה לעזור במשהו.
את ביתי ילדתי במרץ 2006 בלידת מים בטאיוון. בארץ לצערי לא ניתן ללדת במים במסגרת של בית חולים (פעם ביוספטל היתה אמבטית לידה, עד שמשרד הבריאות גילה ואסר עליהם להשתמש בה יותר).
חשבתי שאולי יעניין אנשים לקרוא סיפור לידת מים ואני מאוד מקוה שיותר תמיכה תוביל את משרד הבריאות לאשר לידות מים בבתי החולים.
סיפור הלידה הוא באנגלית משום שהוא נכתב עבור פורום ההורים הזרים בטאיוון, אבל אני מקוה שזה לא ימנע מאף אחד לקרוא אותו... [-:
תהנו:
When I became pregnant here in Taiwan, the first book I read was not at all about pregnancy, it was about a natural approach to life - Jean Liedloff's ‘Continuum concept’ which was what shaped all my decisions about how my child will be raised and some vague clue about her birth. I then started reading the “popular” text books about pregnancy, anatomy and birth. For some reason they all seemed archaic to me although they were just recently printed. Then I got a different book talking about giving birth naturally, without drugs, knives and needles, about giving my baby a pure and loving entrance to this world and about faster recovery and connection to my baby.
It all made so much sense to me, and I knew this was the way to go.
This was my first pregnancy and needless to say that living as an expatriate in Taipei wasn’t helping to relieve the anxiousness of how the birth is going to be like with the language barrier as well as with the very “technocratic” approach to birth as a medical emergency.
When I asked my Obgyn (there are no midwives in Taiwan) about natural birth options, she politely smiled at me and said I am free to give birth however I wanted as long as she could have me connected to the monitor continuously from the stage of active birth, that it’s best for me to lay on my back for the final “delivery” stage, that all the women that asked her to avoid routine episiotomy at first birth ended up all torn up and that if I don’t want any epidural she has many other drugs I can use instead.
Well in order to protect ourselves from this approach, A (My husband) and I decided to remain at home for the most of the contractions and to go to the hospital at the very last minute. We learned all kinds of ways to cope with the pain. Breathing techniques, focus and non-focus awareness, he learned how to help with massage and hot showers and we prepared a 5-pages birth plan to the hospital, mostly stating what not to do…
The due date for our girl’s birth (March 1st 2006) came and went and there were no signs she wanted to come out. One day I got a call from a “Birthing-from-within” instructor who prepared us for the coming birth. She told us about a brand new water-birth center in Xin-Zhuang (30 minutes from Taipei) and that Barbara Harper, an international water-birth specialist is in Taiwan and is willing to help with a birth at the center to share her experience with the local staff. Barbara is the founder and president of the Water Birth International Organization ( http://www.waterbirth.org ) and has been a midwife who delivered about 2,000 babies if I am not mistaken. I was the 3rd women to give birth in this new waterbirth facility and Barbara was to train the local nurses and doctors on me…
The very next day we went to check out the new center and met her. The LDR (Labor-Delivery-Recovery) was so warm and welcoming, the doctor was very pro natural birth and understood immediately all of our wishes. Although the nurses didn’t speak English at all, I felt much safer in their hands than in the fluent English speaking hospital we originally intended to give birth at. Barbara Harper turned out to be a warm, loving person, whom we both connected to immediately as if we have known each other for years.
I started to feel very mild contractions here and there a few days after, and in a routine checkup at the doctors’ office on Thursday I was already 1 cm dilated. On Friday evening at about 9:00 PM, strong contractions begun. At first every 10 to 8 minutes, allowing us some time to get organized and pack last minute things for the hospital. But soon enough they came every 4 minutes, and so strong and painful that all the pain-coping techniques went strait out the window.
At midnight we were on our way to the birth center. I was sitting at the back of the car, twisting all over the place and my moaning and yelling got lauder and lauder. During the entire drive A was telling me how close we are getting, but I didn’t want to pay any attention to the road and just ignored it all. Funny enough, I was able to notice a road block with police officers checking inside the cars looking for someone and for the 20 seconds that we approached the officer, the contractions stopped and I sat still so that we won’t attract any attention and get further delays. As soon as we moved on it all came back again.
At 12:30 AM we finally got there. They didn’t even have a chance to check how dilated I was or to do a short monitoring checkup. Barbara Harper arrived 10 minutes after we did. She helped me into the big birth tub and the “ahhhh effect”, as she puts it, kicked right in. It was an amazing pain relief which gave me a few moments to get myself together. But there was still a lot of work to do and so labor carried on. A was in the water with me the whole time and gave me a strong sense of safety just by being there.
Barbra was right outside the tub and didn’t leave for one second. She was there with me in each and every contraction. Helping me focus, giving me Rescue Remedy, water, and just calmly stroked my hair.
I can’t fully explain it, but I feel like we couldn’t have done it without her. I think that she was the only person in the room who didn’t have a worried expression while I was moaning and yelling. This let me feel that everything is OK and that I can go on with my way of coping.
I guess that Barbara could tell that the birth was approaching and she asked the Obgyn to check me. The Obgyn said I was fully dilated, and in the next contraction which was about 1 minute later, I had one push and felt my baby's head gently gliding out of me. No one noticed and so I announced – “The head is out!”. One more push and there she was, all warm and white with varnix. She immediately opened her eyes to check us out. I was cradling her and A was hugging me and it was the most rewarding and the happiest moment of my life.
My baby girl was born at 2:20 AM, Saturday, March 11th. A total of 5 labor hours, 2 gentle pushes and a perfect perineum after birth made it an amazing experience. I am grateful to my baby girl for being so clever to choose her birth date just in time for us to realize we must change hospitals and give birth in water. I also have to thank Barbara Harper who helped us materialize our dream-birth, the hospital staff for being so helpful and open minded and most of all, to A, my husband, my hero and my true love who is a full partner of our child’s birth and raising and should get all the credit for it.