My Birth Story #3

I cannot express how blessed I feel to get to be writing out a birth story for the third time! I’ll continue the trend of starting this birth story with the same disclaimer I did my first birth story and my second birth story…

Disclaimer: This is my story as I lived it. Everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s perspective is different. I am sharing this because others have asked, but I request that you are respectful with your opinions and not read yourself into my narrative. Every birth is beautiful for what it is! Thank you.

Going into my third birth, I had everyone telling me that third babies are “wild cards” – so basically, throw away all the expectations that I thought because of how my first and second panned out, and expect something totally different. In some ways, I suppose this birth could be considered a wild card, because of how fast the active labour was, however, I have found that there does seem to be a similar rhythm to my pregnancies and births.

With all three of my births, I always experience prodromal labour – basically a “pre-labour,” or you could think of it as days and days of contractions and early labour, that is bringing me closer to my baby, but that kind of messes with my head wondering when this early labour is going to jump into gear and be full blown birth! With this third pregnancy, I expected to go close to two weeks past my guess date, or “due date,” as I always do, and my hopes for this baby was to just let them be, and not try to convince them to come out (with all our natural interventions). But, yet again, I chose to question and change and pivot that desire as time went on, for many reasons. My original guess date was November 14th, and prodromal labour started on November 16th – we would eventually meet our baby 11 days past that original guess date, meaning this birth was my longest prodromal labour yet.

During this period of prodromal labour, a lot of crazy things happened in our world, so I feel like I was confusing the baby by asking them to come join us, and then soon after asking them to stay put where they were safe and cozy and warm, while we navigated the crazy. What were these crazy things? Well, we experienced our first ‘bomb cyclone’ in Washington, which left us with a multi-day power outage – which meant no heat, no hot water, no electricity. And I know we were the lucky ones, as many people went without for over a week! We, however, only had 3 days of this, and I am insanely grateful for friends who came over each day to give me a few hours with their generator to save all the postpartum freezer food I had prepped! I contacted my midwives asking if a home birth would still be possible, and was re-imagining a birth without a tub, by candle light, if necessary. Thankfully, baby stayed cozy and waited for us to get power back! Then, my husband (Jordan) got injured at work and required pelvis surgery – this surgery (which we are still navigating as I write this) required/requires the first 6 weeks to be no weight-bearing, so our basement is set up with a hospital bed and a wheel chair for him. Although I knew he would not be able to attend the birth since I would be two flights of stairs up, I think baby also decided to come when he was home from the hospital and settled in. He was in the hospital for three days where I went to visit him daily, but once he was home and we had a little bit of a rhythm of what his care would look like, baby joined us earth side the next day!

On top of that, I think our baby also wanted the date to change over for them to become a Sagittarius, baby wanted my sister-in-law/doula to be in town, and baby wanted the midwife I had envisioned at our birth to be on-call. Truly, even though I was physically ready for baby to come long before 11 days past the guess date, everything fell into place at the perfect time, for the most loveliest birth story!

I had many people ask if my birth plans were going to change with Jordan being basement-bound, and I did think about it, and talked about it with Jordan. However, after weighing everything out, we decided the best plan was to stick with the original plan, Facetime Jordan in, and then after birth (and the golden hour), to bring baby down to meet Jordan and do the newborn exam with him.

Okay, so now, let’s get to the actual birth story – the day of!

We arrive at the day – 11 days past my original guess date, and 9 days of prodromal labour in -I talked to my midwife and she offered to come to my house to check my cervix. I hadn’t had a check up to this point, and was hoping to never have one for this pregnancy and birth, but by this point in the story, I was ready for one, because I was ready to move things along with a gentle little nudge. I knew baby was ready, and I wanted to talk through a plan. The midwife came over at 1:30pm and I was 5cm dilated, 80% effaced, and baby was at a +1 station. This is usually how my births are with my prodromal labour – I will walk around for a week at 5cm dilated! So, at 1:30pm, I opted for a cervical sweep from the midwife. I had many sweeps with both C and D and they never produced active labour, so I wasn’t necessarily hopeful. The midwife left with the intention to stay close by my house, because she thought if birth was going to happen, she didn’t want to be back at her house, which was an hour and a half away. I had also let my birth photographer, who lives two hours away, know about this plan, and she headed into the area too, just in case. I took two ounces of castor oil in ice cream at 2:30pm – again, this is something I did with both C and D, and it also didn’t lead me to active labour.

At 3pm the midwife texted me and I said, “Getting more juicy contractions but still doing totally fine through them, so haven’t timed them yet.” I was walking, and talking, and living life. At 4:30pm, I texted the midwife asking about taking more castor oil, because I was still doing totally fine and I felt I was experiencing the same thing as I did with Deacon’s birth, where I did a sweep and castor oil and it didn’t produce any further labour. I was starting to feel a bit down, and just so eager to meet this baby. However, I didn’t take any more castor oil – instead, I started timing my contractions on a live stream, so my midwife could see. At 5pm, the midwife asked if she could come back to my house and set up, even though I was saying I was still walking and talking through contractions just fine. I said, yes, of course, and let our birth photographer know the same – offering her to just come hang out and have pizza that we ordered. I figured the midwife could at least check me and see if I had made any “progress.” I was hoping for a 6 dilation…maybe. 

My friend came over to drop off food and have a Taylor Swift dance party (she said the song, Are You Ready For It?, would be the perfect song to bring on birth!). I told her how disheartened I was that things weren’t picking up and I was just so, so, so, so ready to meet this baby. My friend left at 5:03pm. Pretty much 2 minutes after she left, I got my first solid contraction – thank you, Taylor Swift?!

My birth photographer arrived at 5:10pm and by that point, I had experienced two more good contractions. Now I was hopeful that things were actually happening! The pizza arrived and I took two bites, followed by such a big contraction, that my sister-in-law/doula said I should head upstairs. My brain was contemplating heading up or not, because I really wanted pizza – ‘should I bring the pizza with me,’ I wondered? But, I figured the pizza could wait, and I headed upstairs and used the bathroom – labouring on the toilet is my least favourite ever (I know some people love it!). The first midwife then arrived at around 5:35pm and started setting up. I went into my room where the birth tub was set up, and noticed pizza sauce on the carpet and was concerned about that being cleaned – my sister-in-law was on top of it. I share this, just because I laugh at how far along I was in labour, yet my attention and concern was still somehow on the pizza sauce.

Luckily, we had fully prepped the birth space prior – even the tub was mostly prepped and now we were just adding hot water. The midwife never ended up checking me, because I knew I was far along and just wanted to get in the water. As I was labouring in the water, the hose came apart and water got all over the bathroom, and sweet Collins, and my niece, cleaned it all up – mini-doula extraordinaires! By this point, I was definitely in labour land, because I look back at the pictures from my incredible birth photographer and see the beautifulness and togetherness of Collins, Deacon, and my niece in such a vivid way – I adore how invested they were in the birthing process, and it makes my heart swell to know that my kids have had the opportunity to witness their siblings join our family!

I was not in the water for long, but birth water is always magic. Every contraction was very intense and I did lots of low vocalization. My water broke at 5:55pm in the water. I announced it with fury and reached down to feel my baby’s head (in my mind, I was hoping baby’s body would be born right after, because with Deacon’s birth, I had to get out of the tub, because two contractions after his head came out, his body was still not born…so I birthed the rest of him on my bed), but, that was not to be a concern, because baby was born at 5:56pm…one minute after my water breaking! Baby came so fast that their head did not mold at all. I got baby on my chest in the water, blew air on their face (to stimulate their first breath, triggering a reflex called the ‘diving reflex’), and cried with joy that they were here – that SHE was here. Majority of people had guessed I was having a boy, but from the moment I knew I was pregnant, I felt feminine energy, and predicted a girl! While in the water, I birthed the placenta – which I swear is always the hardest part.

I got in bed, and we had such a long, beautiful delayed cord clamping experience, while I nursed baby Landyn, who was ready to latch the moment she was earth side! At this point, the second midwife showed up – although she didn’t make the birth, she was a lovely source of energy in the postpartum birthing space. I didn’t experience the shakes as intensely this time, because I got the tip to stick out my tongue – who knew? [Just in case you too want to keep that tip in your back pocket]. And while we are talking tips, the AfterEase tincture was an incredible addition for those third baby postpartum contractions that work to shrink your uterus – each baby, I have found them to get more intense.

Finally the time came to go introduce little Landyn to her daddy! We walked down two levels to become a family of five!! Insert my hormonal tears here. We did all of the newborn exam together. Then it was time for bed for all, with a very exhausted Deacon, and a Collins that wanted to get in as many Landyn cuddles as she could before going to sleep.

I know that visualization and outcome do not always match up, but so much of what I did visualize came to fruition, from my support team, to the fetal ejection reflex, to a ‘quick, easy birth,’ and so much else in between – I’m grateful to have gotten the gift of getting to experience birth again and getting to bring another human into the world!!

With all my babies, I always wonder how long they would stay in if I did not intervene at all, but it turns out with this being defined as a precipitous birth, I’m so glad I was able to line up support, and that my support team was willing and able to be at the ready. I believe if we didn’t line this up, neither of our midwives would have made it. 

Is it crazy that I already want to do this again?!

Some other posts that may interest you:

All Your Hypnobirthing Questions Answered

How I Prepared for an Unmedicated [Natural] Childbirth

So, You’re Interested in Home Birth – Q & A

Preparing for Baby Number 2

How I Prepared for Pregnancy