After carrying Elsie for 40 weeks and 5 days she decided she was ready to come into the world. I used a birthing technique called Hypnobabies, which helped a ton—the language Hypnobabies uses is a little different so instead of contraction you say pressure wave and instead of labor you say birthing time (just so you know as you’re reading through my birth story)
On December 3rd and 4th I was having a lot of Braxton Hicks pressure waves on and off throughout the day. I started having them the last month of my pregnancy but they were never really noticeable but I started to be able to tell that I was having them they weren’t uncomfortable at all though.
Around midnight the morning of December 5th I was still having Braxton Hicks pressure waves but I noticed they were changing, but still not uncomfortable. For some reason I was really shy about waking up Neil and tell him I thought I was going to have a baby so after every pressure wave I’d think to myself “Okay, after the next one I will tell him”—well that went on until about 4 am when laying in bed started getting uncomfortable. Luckily the pressure waves were still easy to handle I just needed to not be lying down.
At 4 am I woke up Neil and told him that I thought I was in my birthing time. He woke up and asked if I was okay and if there was anything he could do for me and I said I was okay but wanted to go downstairs and I wanted him to come with me. Before we went downstairs I asked Neil if he thought I should text me midwife and he said yes so I sent my midwife, Rachel, and doula, Katrina, a text telling them that I was pretty sure I was in my birthing time. Katrina responded and asked if I needed her to come over and I said no because I was doing well without her for the time being. My midwife didn’t respond but I knew Elsie’s birth was going to happen in the next few hours so I was fine with it—better to have a well rested midwife, right?
So Neil and I went downstairs and of course Grandee came down with us and I could tell she was confused about what was going on but she pretty much just fell back to sleep on the couch. Around 5 Neil started to fill the birthing pool because we were planning a water birth (which I highly, highly recommend). He drained our hot water heater into the kiddy pool (which filled it up about 2/3rds of the way) and then laid a plastic cover and a comforter over the pool to keep it nice and warm. During this time I decided to go back up to lay in the bed for a little bit and Grandee and Neil joined me when the pool was done being filled.
At around 7:30am I still hadn’t heard from my midwife so I texted her and her husband again to make sure she got the message—she did and responded asking if I needed her to come over and of course I didn’t know because I had never had a baby before but I assumed Elsie wouldn’t be born until the evening so Rachel decided she would come by in a few hours and check me and we’d go from there.
Neil and I just laid around the house and Rachel came over around 9:30am and said I was dilated to 2cm and that she thought I would have the baby today and to call her when my pressure waves were more uncomfortable and closer together. Currently they were about 5 minutes apart and I was able to handle them very easily.
Around 10am my doula, Katrina, stopped by for a few minutes and gave me a foot massage and did some acupressure, which was so nice, and we decided that she could leave because my pressure waves were still easy to handle by myself.
Both Rachel and Katrina told me to just sit around and wait to have a baby but to go out and act like it’s a normal day—I did not follow their advice, haha. I wasn’t really just sitting around waiting for the baby to come but I wasn’t about to go out either. So around 11:30am Neil went and got me a vegetarian salad at Costa Vida (something I craved regularly during my pregnancy) and I ate that at home and while eating we stated watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone to pass some time, which was quite helpful.
My pressure waves continued to be about 5 minutes apart but I could still handle them nicely. Sometime during the movie I decided I wanted to get in the pool because I was have a lot of pressure in my hips and I thought the water would relieve the pressure, which it did instantly so I stayed in the water for the remainder of the movie and for the first part of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
At some point during the second Harry Potter movie the pressure waves started to be more intense (but thanks to Hypnobabies I didn’t feel like they were painful) so I decided to call Katrina back to help Neil and I out.
Katrina got to our house between 1:30 and 2pm and we stopped the Harry Potter movie and started listening to the First Stage Hypnobabies track to help out during my pressure waves and around 3pm Rachel came over and she checked me and I had dilated to 7-8 cm, and I was literally amazed because considering the progress that was made I experienced minimal discomfort.
Rachel then called her assistant and the other midwife that would attend my birth, Angie. They both arrived around 4pm and I was in the tub and Neil and Katrina were helping me through my pressure waves and at some point Neil got in the tub with me and I was laying against him which was so nice.
Between 4:30pm and 5pm Rachel asked if I was feeling pushy and I responded with “I don’t know, I haven’t done this before”, and she said that I could try to do a few pushes and see how it feels. I tried a few pushes and apparently pushing didn’t come naturally to me because Rachel said I wasn’t really pushing even though I felt like I was. I pushed unsuccessfully for about an hour or hour and a half. With every pressure wave Elsie head was going into my pubic bone (not fun) so there was only one position that was comfortable for me to be in (on my hands and knees) but this position was also causing Elsie’s head to go into my pubic bone, so obviously I wasn’t making any progress, but I could feel her head which was awesome but also frustrating because I could feel that I wasn’t pushing her out.
At this point I was getting really tired. Rachel was having me drink coconut water with wheat grass to keep me hydrated (which is also really yummy) but I was getting so tired that it was literally difficult for me to keep my eyes open so Rachel had to keep reminding me to wake up and that I needed to be present for this because only I could birth my baby. She tried to get me to eat some clementines which did not seem appetizing but they wanted to get me some sugar fast so I got a spoonful of raw honey which was difficult to choke down but it did help.
Around 6:30pm Rachel told me that I needed to get out of the tub and go upstairs with Neil to get out of the intense environment and just be together. We got upstairs and I tried to lay down—bad idea. I had to literally hang off of Neil during my pressure waves and while I was upstairs I had probably 5 pressure waves and they were so intense that at one point I thought to myself “I can’t do this, what am I going to do?” and then I finally felt the urge to push so we went back downstairs.
I continued to try to push on my hands and knees because being in any other position was painful (the only time I felt pain). Rachel had been toying with the idea of breaking my water and at this time she decided to go ahead and break my water—my water bag was so strong that it took her a few minutes to break it—but after she broke it there was a definite pressure release. Angie then decided to have me get in a supported squat position so Neil was sitting in a chair behind me and I was squatting between his legs with all of my weight on him (Neil got a great workout during this whole process) and Rachel’s assistant was on my right side and Katrina on my left holding my hands and Angie and Rachel were in front of me and Angie was holding up a mirror so I could see Elsie come out.
After getting in this position I pushed for maybe 30 minutes and then Elsie was out and in our arms. It was so amazing being able to watch her come out and hold her in my arms for the first time. I remember looking at her and saying how beautiful she was and then making sure she was a girl (she was) and feeling so strong. I was amazed that Neil and I’s love was able to make a perfect person and I could grow her inside me and then push her out and now I’m able to nourish her body with my body—isn’t that so insane!?
I was definitely feeling on top of the world and then Rachel told me it was time to birth my placenta, which did not sound appealing, but she told me I was bleeding more then she liked (not something you want to hear, but I wasn’t worried) so I pushed out my placenta, which looked great, and then had to stand up and walk over to the couch (don’t worry it was protected) and they checked me out.
I had a bad 2nd degree tear, so Neil got to hold Elsie while Angie and Rachel numbed me and stitched me up (fun) and by the time I got to hold Elsie again she was passed out and not wanting to latch on, but again I wasn’t worried but Rachel and her assistant were.
They continued to try to get Elsie to latch on unsuccessfully because she was so tired (can you blame the girl?—but no worries she an amazing eater now) and they were also cleaning up the house so that by the time they left the house looked just like it did before. I know a lot of people assume there’d be blood everywhere and such but there wasn’t.
After they left Elsie latched on like a champ for a few minutes until she fell back to sleep and Neil ordered pizza—delivery and everything. And then we texted the family and told them that Elsie had arrived. She was born at 7:44pm and weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 21 ½ inches long—Elsie was and is perfect and so beautiful. Neil and I were instantly in love the moment we saw her.
A lot of people have been asking me why I would want to do a home birth so I’ll share some of our reasons:
1. Birth is a natural process a woman’s body was created to go through—it is not a medical emergency and if a woman is having a low risk pregnancy a home birth is very safe. 2. I don’t feel comfortable in hospitals at all, I thought if I was in a hospital I wouldn’t be able to relax and let my body do what it was made to do because I wouldn’t feel comfortable here, and where are you more comfortable then at your home? 3. Hospitals are where sick people go—I didn’t want my brand new baby to be born in a place with all those germs (yuck). 4. Neil and I both felt very good and confident about doing a home birth our entire pregnancy—if we were afraid we wouldn’t have given birth at home. 5. Hospitals do way to many interventions, which create the need for more interventions, and I believe every woman gives birth differently and the rules in hospitals don’t accommodate for that. Honestly if I were in the hospital during my birth I’m pretty sure I would have been threatened with a c-section because generally in hospitals women push on their back (which makes the pelvic opening small—not good when you’re trying to push out a baby) and when I tried to push on my back Elsie’s head was going into my pubic bone so I wouldn’t have progressed with pushing in that position. I had a friend who’s baby was also getting stuck on her pubic bone and the hospital ended up using forceps and threatening her to have a c-section when since I was at home I was able to just change positions and Elsie came out nicely.
I’m not saying a home birth or unmedicated birth is for everyone but Neil and I felt strongly that this was how we wanted our birth to be and I was having a great, healthy and low risk pregnancy and Elsie was healthy and strong so we went forward with our home birth and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
