The Birth of Baby Z

My sweet lil miss is 2 today so I thought I’d re-live her birth story and share it with everyone too!

Saturday September 5th, 2015

My midwife had my due date as the 6th (going off my LMP and an early sono). I had my due date as the 9th. This wasn’t a huge deal to me unless I were to go over again because that’s a 4 day difference. So I was just preparing myself to go at least to 41 weeks again.

10:45pm
We had just laid down in bed to watch a movie. (Alex & Emma for my future curiosity) The baby had been moving like crazy and we were maybe 10 minutes into the movie when the baby stretched out real hard and then I felt it. The feeling I had been dreading since the moment I found out I was pregnant. My water broke. I was thankful I wasn’t at a restaurant again but why oh why does my water have to break first?!?! ((We had even been doing extra Vitamin C because apparently that was going to cure me of my water breaking first.)) I had just went to the bathroom so I knew exactly what was happening when I felt a little gush. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom and was completely soaked. Here I go again with the hyperventilating and shaking and crying because my water broke first. It happens every time. I’m pretty dramatic. Having been through my first 2 births I was terrified to give birth again. Being trapped in my body as it went through these waves with no escape. Awful. Horrible. I can’t do this again, I’m not ready, is what I was thinking. For all you people thinking I’m strong and brave for having babies at home… The joke’s on you!!

The boys were actually still awake too so Jared explained to them what was going on and that the baby would be here soon so they should go to sleep. Jaidan was excited to announce boy or girl when the time came so I was expecting it to be a fight to get them to sleep but miraculously they fell right to sleep.

I then text some people. Obviously my midwife, doula, chiropractor, photographer, hair doula and then some friends. (Nicole, Tia, Megan and then Jill Nichole and Megan from work) So just a few people. Oh, I text my mom too. And my dad. And Jared’s dad. Dang, I text more people than I thought.

Once I was calmer I realized that I was already having contractions! I text Jamie at 11:15pm telling her this because I’ve never had contractions this soon after my water breaking and I had 4 in the past 30 minutes. After I thought about it I did have a couple super small ones before the baby had stretched out too. The ones I was having though felt super strange and in my back. I had never felt that before. And they weren’t braxtons, they were the real ones!

Rachel Whaley came over right around midnight. She adjusted me and oiled me up and really helped calm me down. She braided my hair too. My midwife, Donnellyn, told me to rest and not count contractions yet. I decided to at least time them for a bit just to get an idea of how they were coming since this has never happened to me before, then go to sleep. They were pretty consistent for early contractions so I was excited!

((In the texts with my midwife she refers to the baby as “she” but we did not know the sex at the time. She just felt it would be a “she”))

My bff Nicole had been on a date & apparently it was not going well so she was saved by the friend in labor. You’re welcome, Nicole!! 🙂 On her way over she ran to the store for us. ((We had been at Walmart earlier in the day and decided against getting the birth team food because we didn’t want it to go bad- :P)) She came over about 1:30am. My doula, Jamie, got there just before 2am. We all chatted and laughed for a bit & my contractions seemed to space out a little more. Nicole and Jamie left to go get some sleep and I went to go lay down with Jonah. He kept waking up and wanted me.

I let Jared sleep until I could no longer stand it. It wasn’t that bad but try sleeping with your snooze button going off every 8 minutes. Not very peaceful sleep. I decided to wake Jared up when I felt the need to massage my own back. That was about 4:30am. The contractions were 8 minutes apart but lasting longer (45-55 seconds) and getting stronger.

Sunday September 6, 2015

Around 6am we called Jamie to come back. Contractions were about 6 minutes apart and lasting about 45 seconds. They weren’t bad yet but they were going. It was getting to be daytime so it felt very odd to be gearing up to have a baby. Me, Jamie and Jared went out and walked the driveway and talked just naturally stopping for a contraction. I was drinking my raw unfiltered apple juice with water in my mason jar. So hipster of me.

Oh, so one of the conversations I had was how during labor I always ‘get in the zone’ and I don’t know how to laugh or smile and I’m just so serious. So one of my goals this birth was to stop and smile more… at least as long as I could. So here, proof that I am capable of a laugh during labor.

We came inside once it started to get a little too warm. This was about 8:30am. Jamie had me do these lunge things on the ottoman every time a contraction came. Umm that was freakin painful!! I had to do 3 contractions on each side and by the 3rd one it was so intense I was in tears. Mostly just because I had no idea how long this would take and I didn’t want to do this painful thing all day. I’m kind of not good at finishing tasks and this birth stuff is one task that must be done without okay or not. So I stuck with it.

Nicole came back over at some point too. She was in charge of keeping up with the boys. I wanted them to be here for the birth and all that so it really calmed me to know they were in good hands.

I feel like a ton of people got to the house at this point. (midwife, assistant midwife, student midwives, all the midwives- lol) So me Jared and Jamie went back to my room & I laid on the bed. Donnellyn wanted to check me and I was really in no mood to be checked but she wanted to see what kind of progress I was making and if baby was in the right position. I knew I wasn’t in super active labor yet but I knew we were in the right direction so I didn’t even care what I was dilated to. So after a bit of sassy protesting I gave in. (I found out later I was at a 4)

Sweet Jamie and her wonderful hip squeezes!

I have no idea on timeframe here but I had more contractions on the bed. They got VERY intense and I felt the baby move down some during this particular contraction. I told myself I was going to tell them when the contraction was over. Remember earlier when I said I’m kind of dramatic? Well, sometimes I don’t want to SEEM dramatic so I ended up not saying anything yet just to see what the next contraction did. The next one I felt the baby move down even MORE and it was getting closer together so as soon as it was over I was like GET ME IN THE WATER! They seemed a little surprised but I wanted to get in the water quick before another contraction started. These were the ones where water definitely helped.

The water was perfect and I got to relax a little before the next one started. I got my Spark and then Jaidan and Jonah both came in to see me. Jonah asked why I was swimming in his playroom, he thought that was funny. It started to get unbearable but after a few contractions like that it was time to push! And everything turned black & white.

Pushing has been my favorite part of each birth so I was curious to see how this time would go. After the first couple of pushes though it was like I lost my urge to push!? The contractions were smaller and not very pushy feeling so after a bit I just kinda had to push out of nowhere. They started to say you could see baby’s head and they brought Jaidan in to come watch. He was so cute and I could hear him say “aww I see the baby!” ((Leading up to the birth we had lots of conversations of how it would all happen and he knew the process as much as he could comprehend so he did great through all of this!))

They helped me into a different position to push and at 12:14 in the afternoon Baby Z welcomed us earth-side! I pulled him/her up to me & looked at it’s little face and instantly saw Jaidan’s features. I said “omg he’s so cute, he looks just like Jaidan!” Then I realized I needed to double check that it was a boy and I was SO shocked to see NO penis! It’s a GIRL! We have a sweet little girl! Jaidan was right! And ecstatic. Over and over I kept saying how cute she was and how EASY it was and how I couldn’t believe it was a girl.

I had been so freaked out about everything and it all happened so perfectly. 13 hours total from water breaking to baby arriving and only like 3-4 hours of that was active labor. What a sweet birth to get to experience.

When we had our 20 week anatomy scan the lady wrote the sex down on a piece of paper, put it into an envelope and we mailed it off to a friend of a friend who then emailed a lady that made custom outfits/burp cloths and told her the sex. We emailed the custom lady too and told her our boy name and our girl name and she was able to make it and send it all sealed up. We kept it hidden so my mom wouldn’t go peeking. I have will power so my mind was made up we were not finding out until the birth. I’m so happy we waited. It was such a sweet surprise! Here’s Jared showing me the burp cloth after opening the package!

Proud biggest brother below.

We weighed her in this adorable little blanket where little miss was our 2nd biggest baby.

8 lbs 10 oz and 21″

We went black & white again and had our herbal bath. No washing, just relaxing. And warm.

My first picture of my placenta. This is where my baby grew for 9 months. So amazing.

After our herbal bath we came back to the bedroom where my family got to come in and watch them do the newborn exam and we got to announce that baby was ZOIE!