Birth Photos

It took me forever, but I finally figured out how to post these pictures in a slideshow. Now, before you watch them, a disclaimer: first, they're obviously not the best ever pictures of me. But come on, I was in labor!

Second, keep in mind active labor, transition, and the pushing stage was less than three hours. That sounds great in theory but whenever labor goes fast, it's more intense. Your body is doing the same amount of physical work in less time. My contractions were 2 minutes apart pretty much the entire time. Contractions are timed from the beginning of one contraction until the start of the next; which means that if my contraction was 45 seconds long, I only had just over a minute until the next one began. In a word, exhausting.

Third, a lot of these pictures look like I was in mass amounts of pain. I won't lie, it hurt a lot! A lot of it was scary, too. But I never wished for an epidural, or to be strapped to a hospital bed. I was able to work with the pain by moving a lot. Gary helped so much by applying pressure to my hips. So while I wish I had "handled it" better, I absolutely don't regret it, and I one hundred percent believe any woman who wanted to could give birth naturally. So if you are even thinking a little about a natural birth, please don't be scared off. If I can do it, trust me, so can you!

P.S. If you put the slideshow in full screen mode, then click "show info," I have included short descriptions of many (but not all) of the photos so you have a better idea of what is going on. Also, Lisa (the photographer), took pictures of the clock as time went on. She began taking photos at 2:00, at which point I was already in hard labor and had been since 12:45 when my water broke. Paisley was born at 2:56.