The morning of Jan. 2nd (after weeks of promodral labour and a few false alarms) I started my day early with surges that could have been more practice or could have been the real thing, but after weeks of not knowing, I just carried on...with some strange sense that it was the real thing but not getting my hopes up. I made breakfast and cleaned the house and then had some bloody show. All this was about my norm for 41+3 but I really hadn't ever had much in the morning, which made me wonder. I let dh and dd sleep in just incase we were getting started. Then at about 10:00 (I'd been up since 6:00), I decided that they needed to get out of their morning snuggle and I wanted to share the excitement that something *might* be starting. We ate together and then started colouring some mandala pictures and dh was timing contractions. It was a nice calm morning, but at this point I was pretty sure it was starting. We called our midwife around 11:30 to let her know what was going on...she said she wanted to come and check things out and arrived at about 12pm. Sometime during the wait for her to come, our friend stopped by and this was when I knew I was actually in labour...the contractions were getting to the point that trying to avoid bending over the ball while she was there, was getting tricky. I don't think she knew I was in labour...but I did!Â
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Our midwife arrived and checked me (my one and only VE), I was between 4-5cm and she said, she wasn't ready to call it active labour yet, but things were getting going and she was just going to stick around for now incase it moved along quickly. She told me to call my doula and mom to have them come over now. Everyone arrived while dh and dd were filling the tub and I was just enjoying some yoga postures and breathing. I was not really in active labour and I could tell but I was preparing my body for what was coming...I wondered at this point if things were going to be slow going even. But once everyone got there it really started to progress...I was eating all the wonderful snacks that my mom was preparing and then our doula became involved while I was standing for each contraction and started with a double hip squeeze which was heavenly. After a while, around 2:30, I wanted to get in the tub but thought it was too early, my midwife gave me the definite go ahead and declared active labour based on my contractions. Dh got in the tub with me and our doula showed him the double hip squeeze...it was perfect! I remember being in the tub during one moment and crying with joy. I think I told my midwife that i was so happy that this was really happening! Â it was so amazing for me that I was at home and in our tub and really in labour. It was a dream come true. Â At one point though we realized that the tub wasn't really warm enough. Â Everyone seemed to be working on getting the tub up to a good temp and I was kind of in an oblivion, trying to get comfortable...now I understand that it was really that I wasn't comfortable because things were moving so quickly and the tub was really just not warm enough...I was shivering a lot. I knew that squatting wasn't working in the tub, I wanted to be standing and couldn't because I was so cold. I think I only stayed in the tub for an hour or so and then moved to the bathroom to be on the toilet when I felt like I needed to poop. My midwife kept reminding me that it was probably my baby...but I just needed that position (I did with dd's birth as well).Â
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In the bathroom I was sitting on the toilet with our doula holding my bathrobe around her arms and it was pulling on my hips and sacrum. It felt perfect. Dh put his hands on my lower back and was applying the most wonderful pressure (later he told me he was pressing me forward because the tank of the toilet looked like it was going to bust off the toilet and he was worried about that lol). Â I then was told that maybe we should head upstairs if I wasn't going to be in the tub anymore so the bed was available for me. The walk up the stairs was really really hard...though dh said I wasn't looking like I was in anymore pain getting up the stairs than someone who had broken an ankle! Â I got onto the bed and tried every possible position, but just wasn't digging anything. I just wanted to go back to sitting on the toilet. At one point I was lying on my side with my hand holding the back of my knee to keep my leg up and I decided it would be better to grab my foot and hold it in the air...my midwife loved this...only a yogi she said!!
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I ended up back in the bathroom, upstairs this time...but this time it was much more intense and powerful. Suddenly there was a head and I was freaking out (from my perspective...but apparently I was quite calm). My midwife suggested a move back to the bedroom and somehow...though I couldn't figure out how, I walked into the bedroom with his head between my legs (though it was actually just crowning). I coudln't make my way onto the bed and decided to stand at the end of the bed and with a few more really wonderful pushes, the head was out. Everyone was in the tiny little space at the end of our bed and it was so perfect. The rest of him came out with a final push at 6:28pm and dh caught him and passed him up to me. Dd announced that he was a boy and there we were, our beautiful family of four with my mom at our side and our birth team doing their thing so quietly and calmly. I was just so elated...I couldn't believe it was real. Cedar was 9lb2oz and 23" long we later found out during his newborn exam. Everything was done nice and slowly...there was no rush for anything. His placenta was born while he was still attached and we took a print of it for his "tree of life". He layed on my body skin to skin all night and we just starred at one another with this newfound love.Â
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Our life together began with such a perfect, peaceful birth...it was everything I had ever dreamed of and his alert eyes tell the story of this perfection. I birthed him with so much joy, so much love and with instincts guiding our way.Â
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