AJ's Birth Story

On Saturday, April 16, I had gone grocery shopping. I struggled the whole time and almost thought, "I probably shouldn't be out shopping right now." I was so tired when I got home; I cried to Matthew just out of exhaustion. An hour later, we were watching Moon Knight. Matthew had left the room to pee I think. I was sitting on the couch and felt a gush of warm liquid and said, “oh shit!” And ran to the bathroom.

Liquid poured out of me. There was a lot of brown stuff sunken at the bottom of the toilet. I texted the midwife at 4:24 a photo of it. She didn’t answer so I Face Timed my mom. She and my grandma both believed my water had broken. 

I spent a lot of time on the toilet because I just would not stop leaking. I leaked through a pad in just a few minutes. So I ended up putting on an adult diaper.

Libby called at 4:58 and said it was likely meconium in the amniotic fluid. She said it is typical of overdue babies. She talked about the risks of meconium respiration and said most babies born at the birth center with this issue are fine. A small few have to go be monitored at the hospital. She said this causes some people to want to just go to the hospital to begin with. I told her I would still like to go to the birth center.

She told me to please eat normally. She told me to not be in a tub of water, but that a shower would be fine. She wanted me to have some juice to see if I could get baby to move.

I let her know that after drinking juice I did not feel the baby. So at 6:15 she asked if I would come in for a non-stress test. We went and everything went great.

We finished a little after seven. We called in an order for sushi. We drove through Swig. We picked up our dinner and came home. We started to finish Moon Knight. Our upstairs neighbor Natalie came downstairs to braid my hair.

I started getting ready for bed a little bit before nine.

I got very little sleep. I was up every hour until 2 with contractions. I probably got a two or three hour stretch. I had another one when I woke up. But they sort of stopped progressing by 9am.

I texted the midwife on call, Kayla. And since it had been 17 hours since my water broke, she wanted to get things moving to keep him safe.

Matthew and I went to the birth center at 10am for the midwives brew (basically a castor oil and lemon verbena smoothie). The appointment took way longer than expected because we did another non stress test. It took a long time for him to respond how they wanted. We even had to go on a walk to see if that helped. It didn’t. On our walk, Matthew pointed out that birds had pecked holes into the sides of the buildings to make nests. It was a lovely sunny day outside; I really hoped he would be an Easter baby, but no luck there. 

We left the birth center at 11:30, with my smoothie. I was so disappointed and dreaded drinking that smoothie. I was on the verge of tears and looked at Matthew, already tired, and told him I didn't want to do this. Why couldn’t he just come on his own? Why did diarrhea have to become part of this? I wanted labor to start and not make it harder.

We left and went to Walgreens for more castor oil for later just in case I needed a second dose. Then we got breakfast at McDonald’s. The smoothie hit while we were in the drive thru at Dutch Bros. So that was a fast and fun car ride home as I tried not to poop my pants in Matthew’s car.

I proceeded to be in and out of the bathroom for the next three hours. It wasn’t until that point that it slowed down, and I could do some curb walking at that point. We stayed busy watching Ted Lasso. I periodically got hugs from Matthew as I cried from the misery of diarrhea and a chafed bum. He was so sweet and supportive. 

I spent some time in the nursery meditating, asking this boy to come down and out so I wouldn’t have to take another dose of castor oil.

We called my midwife at 3:25 to tell her I had some contractions but nothing regular. She asked me to keep things going with a second dose. I told her my hesitations. The smoothie really wrecked me. She said I could wait a while and didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do.

Matthew made me a fruit smoothie. We added the Castor and lemon oil to it. I had it at about 5:00. I lifted my empty cup and said, “This will work. He will come!”

Kayla wanted an update at 5:30 but we didn’t call her until 6:30. Just forgot I guess--too busy on the toilet. She said we could plan to meet at the birth center at 10, and to keep snacking and rest as much as possible.

I thought I would have a whole lot less to lose than I did after that first castor oil smoothie, but I still was in the bathroom a ton. By 6:30 I started to have some contractions. It was hard to tell the difference between bowel cramps and labor contractions. At 6:50 Matthew noticed it was getting regular.

So we started birthing in my room, mostly on my ball and on the floor. Shivani and Matthew were amazing in these stages. I rested between contractions and was encouraged when they were closer together. Matthew did great supporting me with counter pressure. Shivani took some photos and videos, and was great with moral support. 

By 8 Matthew called Kayla. She asked if we felt comfortable continuing to labor at home. I said that’s fine. I'm not sure what time it was that my entire fruit smoothie came up. Shivani had to run and get a bowl for me, and I filled that thing with puke. 

8:24pm

8:50pm

8:53pm

8:57pm

9:09pm

So grateful Shivani captured so much of the home labor process. 

It was impossible for me to rest or get comfortable. Lying down hurt. Everything hurt. Matthew called Kayla about the 10pm meet up. We got there a little after 10. Getting to the car was hard. I had a contraction at the bottom of our stairs while Matthew was holding a bunch of stuff. Bless his support and patience. I had a surge on the way and a surge when we arrived. They were regular and intense.

We took the elevator up, naturally. It made us panic because it did a weird thing as it lifted. For a minute I thought we would be having a baby in an elevator. 

After that, my mind felt foggy the whole time. I came in already tired from diarrhea and laboring at home. I was totally wrapped up in my physical self. Like my brain took a back seat. Even my vision felt blurry.

My midwife Kayla had the bath filled for me. It was too hot initially. Probably not for a bath I would normally take. But for laboring it was hot, so we had to wait for it to cool down. The bath is where we started. It calmed me, but didn’t feel effective for me because I couldn’t lean over the side since it was sloped. I couldn’t get my bearings the way I wanted to. Kayla offered to do a check to see how far along I was. I was at a 6 and 100% effaced. She said she would call her birth team, especially seeing my contractions; she said she was convinced this was happening.

Eva arrived and was coaching me through some surges in the tub. She asked if I was bearing down and pushing with my contractions. I told her I didn’t know. A couple of surges later, I knew what she meant. It was a switch that made me cooperate more with the surges, and felt way more productive. I was grateful she asked the question. Matthew was with me every step of the way, putting cool towels on my head. He got in the bath with me too. He kept reminding me to relax my face and slow my breathing. 

After the bath, I tried the toilet. The sensation started to switch to my back, like I needed to poop. Just like my birth teacher said would happen. They had me face the back of the toilet so I could lean forward. Matthew did shoulder anchoring for me. 

I don’t know how long I was in any of these spots. I felt like I was constantly moving, making everyone follow me around. Good thing it didn't occur to me to consider everyone else. 

After that I went to the shower. I had done some contractions standing up before. And gravity can be really helpful. So I stood in the shower which took a long time to warm up. I held onto Matthew. He sprayed me with the shower head and tried to help me relax and breathe. I tried to sit in there too but didn’t like that very much. I don’t feel I was in there for very long.

After that I went to the bed. They wanted me to lie on my side on the bed. I hated this position. I think they were trying to move baby, but that’s what Matthew said later. I couldn’t hear anything or anyone, honestly. I was only there a few minutes. I basically yelled at everyone and said, “I don’t want to do this! I need to move!” It honestly was the most uncomfortable I was in the whole process.

After this I went back to the toilet and was front facing. Something that I hated about walking back and forth was the blood dripping down my legs. It felt really unpleasant to me; I wished someone would just wipe it off, but I didn't have the energy to ask. While I was on the toilet, Kayla explained why she wanted to do another check. She said the direction he was pointing meant I needed to do my pushes with my pelvis tilted forward (instead of backward like squatting or being on all fours). She gave me a few different options for positions. All fours was not one of them, sadly. She encouraged me to get back in the bath. I didn’t want to do this because I didn’t like the floating sensation. But I trusted Kayla. Thankfully Matthew was my anchor and held me steady through each surge in the tub, reminding me to breathe and relax. I am very proud of how I rested between those surges. I literally fell asleep a couple of times at least, dead to the world; these breaks were a huge help. Kayla kept encouraging me to bring my groans lower and more gutteral because I was starting to get high pitched.

Kayla wanted to do another check. Basically a lip of cervix was keeping him from descending/ progressing. She gave me the option to have her push the lip of cervix over his head during my next contraction. She told me it would suck really bad. But I would do whatever to have him progress. So we moved forward in the next contraction. We skipped the one in between. Then she went in for another one to finish the job. It was successful; everyone cheered. He would be able to descend.

From there I switched to the birthing stool. That’s where the magic happened. I had my feet up on yoga blocks. Matthew sat on the bed behind me. They wrapped a warm blanket around me.

The clock was right in front of me in that spot. I noted the time: 1:15am. I had been at this for over three hours. How much longer?

13 minutes longer.

It was at this point that my screaming felt out of control, but my pushes felt strong and productive. They told me he was crowning. Kayla asked if I wanted to reach down and feel his head. I couldn’t. It was taking all my focus to stay where I was at. Leaning forward or moving my arm felt impossible. I did see in a mirror though!

Kayla told me my tissues were stretching beautifully. She advised I slow down and take my time. I tried to but honestly couldn’t. I just wanted to do the rest of the pushes and get him out. I am wishing I had slowed down because I did get a second degree tear that required stitches. Sometime in this time frame I remember them checking on his heart rate and saying it had slowed a little bit. I don’t remember worrying. But maybe it made me want to hurry?

It felt like five pushes or so. With each one I felt my screams rattling up and out of my throat. I wanted to bring the pitch down but just felt like I had no control of my body. I looked at the clock. It was 1:28am on April 18. He was in my arms and on my chest. I couldn’t really focus or see him. But he cried right away, and that was a relief to me.

I can’t say I was overcome with tears and joy like a lot of women are. It was mostly relief and gratitude. I don't remember what Matthew said or did. The lack of consciousness is still blowing my mind, honestly. I just was not mentally there. 

They told me we would stand up and move to the bed. I guess I was quicker than they were expecting because I just stood up with my baby in my arms.

We moved to the bed, where we stayed for the next four hours holding the baby. After the cord finished pulsing, Matthew cut it. Another funny moment was realizing that the baby pooped all over me and himself. It was a task to clean up. So messy. I wasn’t bothered at all.

The placenta delivery was a little more than I expected, but it was fine. One thing I didn’t love was having my stomach pushed on and massaged.

They weighed and measured him a little earlier than normal so our photographer Sarah could get back home to her baby. Sarah and Shivani both headed out for the night.

Kayla helped us get him latched and left us to spend some time with him, just us. 

They brought Matthew a Jimmy Dean breakfast bowl and brought me some protein waffles. 

When she came back in later, she did his foot prints for the birth center quilt and for our baby book. The last bit of business was the stitches on my vaginal tearing. Kayla had done the shots way earlier which sucked. There were some parts of the stitching that weren’t totally numb. It wasn't fun. 

We left to come home at about 5:40am and got home by 6:00. We were in bed by 7:00. 

The story goes on, obviously, as we've been figuring out new parenthood for the last 8 days. It doesn't help that the minute I got home from the birth center, I had a cough. The next day it turned into a fever, and the next day Matthew and Shivani both got it by Wednesday. They stuck me on antibiotics Tuesday evening, and my fever was gone the next day. But unfortunately, I get to be on antibiotics for another week, worsened only by the fact that I have to take them every 8 hours (that's 6am, 2pm, and 10pm, which may or may not align with how my baby is waking or sleeping, so it's a lot of fun). Also love the belly cramping. 

For now, that's our birth story. I'm grateful I was healthy my whole pregnancy and delivery. I am grateful my boy came out perfectly healthy and has stayed healthy even with sickness running through our home. 

I sure love him and am so grateful for my midwives and their support, Shivani for coming up to help me, and my husband for being the best partner. I'll have to figure out how best to document how this last week has gone. It's been a doozy. I didn't plan for it to take 8 days to post this! Hopefully I'll get to be back into a routine someday. A mom can dream, right?