Birth story!
Eliza Kate joined us on July 1st, just a day short of her due date. She weighed 8lbs. 5oz. and was 21 inches long, a full pound and inch bigger than my other babies.
I woke up on June 30th and my intuition was telling me that the birth was very close. I had a few contractions early in the morning while in bed with my daughter, not very different from the past few weeks. During the day I felt a lot of shifting and pressure as she engaged lower in my pelvis. We concentrated on last minute preparations in anticipation of her birth. By the evening, I felt very strongly that she would be born the next day and even joked about waking up in labor.
I woke up at 4:30am on the 1st with a backache and knew it was time. After going to the bathroom and laying down in bed my contractions started, so after about 30 minutes I woke my husband to let him know that we’d be having a baby today. After a quick check I found myself to be about 6cm, much of the work had been done in my sleep. We made our way downstairs and ate a light breakfast while we waited for the children to get up. I felt like my contractions were really inconsistent and didn’t feel that she was making much progress with putting enough pressure on my cervix. I laid down for about 20 minutes around 6am and then had to throw up, something I’ve never experienced while in labor before. I also had bloody show. I called my midwife to give her a head’s up. Around 7am I took a nap on the couch for about an hour. I called my midwife to let her know how things were going and with some extra energy we decided to take a quick walk to see if that would help things pick up.
After going for our walk, my midwife let me know she was on her way shortly before 10am and I worked on doing some squats while waiting for her. We decided to go up and get the birth pool ready and as I made my way up the stairs my midwife arrived with her three assistants. She did a few contractions on the stairs with me and helped out with counter-pressure because I was having a lot of pain in my back.
After we made our way to the bedroom, she did a quick check and found me at 8cm. I wasn’t totally convinced that I had progressed so quickly because I didn’t feel like I had done much work yet. We did a few more contractions alternating with me squatting while hanging off the end of the bed and holding onto my midwife’s legs as she sat on the bed, and with an assistant applying pressure to my back as well as using the birth stool. That seemed to help her move down more into my pelvis and I dilated to 10cm fairy quickly. I was still able to maintain my sense of humor through it all.
The children were in and out and helped fill up the birth pool. Having the extra assistants on hand helped keep them occupied, but they were still able to witness much of my labor. Once the pool was filled I got in and still felt like her head was too high. In my mind, I kept going back to my daughter’s precipitous birth and was hoping that my body would again do the work of bringing her down and birthing her quickly for me so I didn’t have to do the work. I also kept going back to the 2 awful hours of pushing that I had with my son and not wanting to re-experience that, so I decided to be stubborn for a while and not push at all. I knew this baby was bigger and that she would likely need a little more help coming down far enough to trigger my pushing reflex.
After battling it out in my head and going through a few exceptionally painful contractions, I knew I had to stop being my own obstacle and that I needed to push through the fear and apprehension and stubbornness in order to bring her into the world. I was either going to hurt forever, or I was going to push. I knew if I gave one hard push, my water would break and she would be there in moments. I was right. After pulling up into a squat and roaring through about 9 minutes of pushing, she was here at last. Despite the best efforts of my midwife and assistants, I couldn’t pace myself through crowning and just wanted it over with and tore slightly in the same spot as I did with my daughter. They were amused and delighted that I felt comfortable enough to shush them while I was pushing.
My husband and I had the honor of catching her, something incredibly special since he missed the birth of our first daughter due to deployment. He was also able to announce that our baby was a girl since we chose to keep it a surprise as we did with our other children. After getting out of the tub, I birthed the placenta in about 20 minutes and our son was given the job of cord cutter. I am so pleased that they were able to witness the birth of their sister, I know this experience will shape their future perceptions of birth.
I have had three very different births, and while this labor was a fairly easy one I found it to be monumentally challenging to overcome the mental obstacles that my other births presented for me when it came to pushing. Unlike my son’s birth, I don’t feel traumatized by any of it but I do feel humbled. I felt far more conscious and aware than I have in my other births and that made a big difference in my perception of everything. I had to get out of my own way and surrender to the process once I realized there wasn’t an easy way out. Each birth has presented its own unique wall for me to scale and I’m proud to have done it once again, and I’m overjoyed to have this new little girl join our family.
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