Let me tell you about my Pelvis

Because I know you are all dying to know!

I've always known I have a relatively easy time birthing babies. Don't get me wrong...I work at it, and I work hard. My labors are relatively "normal" in length. Nothing special there. But the actual get-this-big-thing-out-right-now decent, now that is where I really excel. With my first baby, they told me to start pushing when I was 10cm. Because I was a first time mom and I had an epidural, they laughed at me when I asked if they were calling my Dr. yet. They assured me that it would be a couple of hours. 10 minutes later they were yelling at me to stop pushing until they could get the stuff set up for baby. The on call Dr. came running in throwing her gown and booties on. Since I had an epidural, it was no big deal to stop pushing for 5 or 10 minutes...had I been natural, I'm sure that baby would have been born not 2 minutes after they told me to stop. Not bad for a first timer!

My second child was born after just a few contractions. My third took a little longer (maybe 15 minutes?) because I slowed things down and tried to just breathe so that I wouldn't tear. She also came out with a perfectly round head the minute she was born....no molding what-so-ever. I've included the picture as proof. This picture was taken as Melia was being lifted out of the water as I birthed her....so approximately 10 seconds old! Look at that round head!

Now I know why. I went to a Pelvic Mapping class the other night with a bunch of doulas. We got to map our own pelvises(is that plural of pelvis? Pelvi?). It was quite the site. Since everyone in that room has seen our share of women's most intimate parts, you would think it would have been normal...but it was not. 30 women sitting around, legs contorted as we became way to friendly with ourselves in an attempt to map our pelvic outlet.

Every woman has a different shape. Some women are long and thin, others have a wide and short pelvis. We mapped our pelvis and drew it on a piece of paper. My pelvis was HUGE! A woman's pelvis also has a lot of movement in it during birth so it can change shape and open for baby. In addition, the baby's head can mold and become quite a bit smaller in order to navigate through the pelvis. Let's just say that if both my pelvis and baby's fontenels (plates of the skull) were fused together, we would still have had no problem! Now I know why my babies come flying out at the end! I do have an incredibly curved tailbone, however, which could possibly help account for my intense back labor despite baby's good position.

Lest you get jealous of my cavernous pelvis, and think that all things childbirth related come easy to me, please note that I am in search of some decent boobs, because mine suck (no pun intended) at breastfeeding.