As a mom blogger, Sophie Cachia is used to sharing personal details about her family life. But on her page, The Young Mummy, this Australian mom got real about an intimate strategy that she and her husband tried to induce the birth of their second baby, Florence.
"I want to start off by saying that despite the pain, the fear, the poo, the recovery, the glory, I had a WONDERFUL birthing experience,” she wrote.
Sophie is grateful that unlike many viral birth stories, she didn't have any complications — and she doesn't want other moms to feel like they have to be in a constant battle between whose birth was worse. "I'm here to put my hand up and say that YES it does hurt, YES I was terrified at times, YES my recovery SUCKED second time around compared to first – but you know what? My labor was pretty straight forward and I left hospital 13 hours later with a gorgeous baby girl in my arms. How blessed I am," she wrote.
But what Sophie and her husband did before even meeting Florence is what makes her story a bit more unique.
Sophie was scheduled to be induced on January 21 at 41 weeks pregnant, but this expectant mom was anxious to get the process started sooner.
"I was done. D-O-N-E," she wrote. "I remember bursting into tears to [my husband] Jaryd around the 10th in the morning because I was so sad I hadn't gone into labor overnight, again. It's quite surreal, going to bed every night, wondering if this is it. Will this be the night I wake up in a pool of water?"
Sophie decided to try to induce labor. "I was that crazy overdue pregnant woman googling EVERY possible natural induction technique," she wrote.
"I bought a bottle of clary sage oil and as per the instructions I poured four drops of oil into a nice warm bath and laid there for about an hour. I also rubbed the oil into my pressure points on my feet –- as suggested by the 450 pregnancy forums I read," she wrote. "I then chopped myself up an ENTIRE pineapple and despite the burning of my mouth, I powered through that baby. And now for the part some of you will find highly uncomfortable. Which we kind of did at the time. But when you're an overdue sweaty walrus and you need this baby to come out, you do what you gotta do. And when you're the husband of this highly hormonal overdue sweaty walrus, you do what you're told."
Sophie instructed her husband to go into the bathroom for some "alone time with his hand."
"They say that sex brings on a baby, when in fact I learned it's actually the semen itself that can have an impact. Semen contains natural prostaglandins which help to ripen, or soften, the cervix and cause it to open," she wrote. "Additionally, the hormone that causes contractions is oxytocin, which is the same hormone that is released during orgasm. Let's be brutally honest, there was more chance of me farting and shooting the baby out pain free than there was of me having an orgasm this heavily pregnant, so his swimmers were going to have to do!"
Despite sex being the last thing from her mind, Sophie wanted to try anything to induce this baby.
"I got in position on hands and knees, whilst eating an apple and watching Suits, Jaryd came from behind and did what he needed to do. Literally."
"NOW – call it a coincidence or absolute pure genius on my behalf, but at about midnight I started to have really light, irregular contractions."
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Since Sophie had been experiencing similar contractions every night over the past two weeks, she didn't think much of it -- until they grew stronger
"I'd also heard that nipple stimulation can induce labor, so with these contractions – again, very light ones – I jumped on my breast pump to see if they would increase," she wrote. "It was about 9am at this stage and within a few minutes I'd called my sister and my mom AND the assessment center at the hospital who all confirmed that I was in fact in labor. BOOYAH!!!!!"
Over the next eight hours, Sophie calmly labored at home with Jaryd and at her mom's house before heading to the hospital.
In under two hours, Sophie says she went from four centimeters to fully dilated -- and she thinks the semen might be the reason.
Unfortunately science is still divided on whether or not semen can actually induce labor. One study by Ohio State University College of Medicine found that woman having sex at term wasn't associated with causing an earlier labor. However, other researchers found that women who had sex were more likely to go into labor, but when they repeated the study, they found the opposite result.
After her experience, Sophie has some "new mom" advice for other women.
"1. Figure out a communication system with your support person. 2. Go in with the mindset that it's only going to get worse – I find that brutal honesty helps with the pain as you have no expectations 3. Do NOT name your baby 20 seconds after it comes out," she wrote. "Have a breather, gather your thoughts, maybe even ask your partner what they think first before announcing it to the world."
