oh it's you! {louisa's birth story}

so this is how it happened...

{story told by me, of course. illustrated by the beautiful photos of michelle taulbee photo}

taken the day before louisa was born

our second baby was a week late. and honestly she probably would have stayed in there longer if we had let her. knowing how she is now--such a snuggler--i'm convinced she was just too comfortable, despite the fact that my body started trying to have her more than a week prior.

"induction" was not something that i looked on fondly. definitely not part of the plan. when everyone and their mama told me for sure that i would have this baby early, not only was it irritating that everyone got my hopes up, but the fact that i had to have the conversation with my midwife about what to do if i passed 41 weeks sent me into a whirlwind of unexpected worry.

a few days before i was due i had my first bout of false labor. all through saturday afternoon and night until 3am i had mild contractions (a few toe curlers in there) that tried organizing themselves and then fell apart. on my due date i had my membranes stripped and was directed to drink more than the standard dosage of castor oil. let's just say that wasn't a fun day. it kicked me into my second round of false labor, which once again ended as quickly as it started. the friday following my due date i was once again "stimulated and aggravated" (as my midwife says), bringing on round 3 of false labor. but still nothing.

saturday night and sunday i started trying every trick in the book to make my body go into labor. i mean, really. everything. people were texting me, calling me, passing me waddling down the streets of my neighborhood telling me the things that worked for them. and none of them brought on so much as a single decent contraction.

4cm dilated, 75% effaced, baby sitting directly on my cervix. ready, but not ready.

i'll say here that waiting on a late baby is far worse than not knowing the gender. my husband and i were a ball of anxiety. we sat around at home doing nothing for weeks because we assumed at any moment we could be in the throws of labor. eventually towards the end we had to agree to resume life as normal. it wasn't doing any of us good to sit around. so on sunday afternoon, i put away my phone, and we took a drive out to a farm by the river and took some time away from things. it felt good not to think about baby for once.

when i showed up monday morning my midwife saw me in the waiting room and said "you know i skipped sunday school! i thought for sure that baby was coming!" (she had a knack for keeping me in high spirits.) she had mentioned inducing me before, but on that day we had the serious conversation. it was agreed that i would be back in a couple of days, and if i wasn't having contractions that the next morning would be the induction.

the i-word. ugh. luckily she hates pitocin, which put me a little more at ease. her method would involve 1. a cervical ripening agent applied to my cervix in order to thin me out all the way; 2. an enema; 3. breaking my water.

it was a lot to take in, but honestly, i trust her. when on tuesday morning i felt not so much as a single contraction despite my very typical day around town (trying to encourage a very inconvenient location for my water to break), i became at peace with the induction plan. everything about that morning was peaceful. the whole time i fought the idea, saying "why can't this just happen the way God planned it? why won't my body just go into labor?" but what i realized was, God's plan doesn't always look like what we think it does. i tend to follow the theory of "it should be done as closely as God designed it; how nature does it." but we don't live in some primitive basic world anymore. science exists. modern medicine exists. and i was blessed with probably the most perfect health care provider to take an interest in me and my pregnancy. in her experience, letting a baby go too far past term presented more risks than the induction.

wednesday morning, july 1st, one week past my due date, my husband and i packed our car (just in case), called a sitter for our 2 year old, and went off to what was supposed to be my last appointment. but by the time we got there we had become so open to this new plan. our midwife saw us out in the waiting room, came out to us, and we mutually decided to have a baby that day.

she had to finish her daily appointments, but admitted us to the hospital where we would slowly begin the induction process.

this whole time i envisioned laboring at home and making the drive to the hospital towards the end of labor to deliver there. but looking back on how it all happened, it was perfect. we had the morning and afternoon to just relax at the hospital.

at 12:30pm my midwife came over at lunch and administered the cervical ripener. it brought on some mild contractions so i walked the halls, squatting during contractions.

at 3pm i was administered an enema to clean out my insides and make better room for baby to move down the birth canal. (once again, super fun--almost as fun as the castor oil.)

at 5:30pm my midwife arrived and broke my water.

almost immediately contractions picked up with great intensity. they wanted to get a bag of fluids in me before things got really intense, so i laid in the bed, on my left side, for about 30 minutes while they monitored baby and hydrated me. by the time that was over, i could barely talk through contractions.

"good!" proclaimed my midwife. "now out of that bed! let's get you in the shower!"

while i remembered to tell my husband to pack swim trunks for himself, i forgot the fact that i too would be in the shower. but honestly at that point i didn't care! send in an audience to watch me labor fully nude, whatever. all i knew was that shower felt so good. 

i'll interject here and say that the process beyond the breaking of my water gave me the greatest anxiety. if you've read my birth story with june or know about it, you know how long it was. it put a bad taste in my mouth for attempting natural childbirth in hospitals. i was so greatly let down. by the experience. by my body. if it hadn't been for my amazing support team, it may have been worse than it was. in short, i delivered a healthy baby--safely--but i labored for 30 hours, the environment was high-stress, my body responded slowly, and it was far from the natural childbirth experience i had hoped for. i feared that--despite not being stressed this time around--that i might still labor for a long time. that i wouldn't know how to read my body. that i wouldn't make it through without pain medication.

but my fears didn't take long at all to dissipate.

i stood holding the shower grab bar, switching between rocking my hips and squatting. my husband stood behind me and sprayed hot water across my shoulders and upper back. it felt SO good. i totally get the whole water thing now. my midwife stayed close by, asking how i was doing, getting me to move into new positions. what ended up being the best was sitting on a yoga ball in the shower, rocking my hips and then bouncing during contractions.

within the hour contractions were nearly back to back, each one more intense than the last. i focused on my breathing and moaned through the exhales as i neared and entered transition. my midwife told me to let her know when i felt like it was time to push.

"when can she push?" asked my husband

"when she feels like she's ready. she'll know."

i thought back to that feeling when i pushed out june. my epidural had worn off at that point and i felt everything. the intense pressure. the relief that came with pushing.

very soon i started bearing down gently through contractions to relieve the pressure. "it can't be time," i thought. "there's no way i've dilated the remaining 5cm in this short amount of time." but i felt like it was time, and my husband let my midwife know.

she came and checked baby's heartbeat. "ain't nothin' wrong with that boo-boo!" then she had me sit with my husband straddling me on the bench seat in the shower so she could check me.

"no kidding, girl! you're 10cm. baby's right there. you wanna deliver in here? just like this and i'll hand you baby?"

i sat against the body of my husband, still spraying water on me. my midwife sat on the yoga ball across from me, holding my feet on her thighs.

in my head i was thinking, there's no way this is happening. i felt disbelief and intense elation all at the same time knowing that our baby was about to come out. but despite all that, all i could only muster out a

"yes. YES."

"ok. push when you're ready."

so i started pushing. groaning. probably growling. there were a lot of sounds. i remember my midwife looking into my eyes going "that's it. don't run from the pain. push through the pain."

and so i did. two more times.

and then she was here.

just like that.

two short hours after my water was broken.

i cradled my baby, marveling over the miracle of her little body. that she was a girl (you can see from the photo above even my midwife was shocked to see she was a girl). that she was here. that i was DONE. and i did it. i worked with my body and the way God made it to function. what a privilege and honor. i thought of all the answered prayers.

this one totally melts my heart

she came so fast that her head kept it's round little shape! 

***

although, admittedly, i felt like a superhero when i was done, laid up on the hospital bed while i was stitched up, i contribute so much more than my own self to the success of this birth. if you are finding yourself in a similar situation--either wanting a different birth story than your last, or just wanting the success of your first, i'd like to share what i think made all of this so different.

1. prayer -- with my first birth, i had the mindset of "people do this all the time. i can do it, too. i'm strong." but i had no idea what i would actually be facing. i was very naive. this time i tried to swallow my pride and realize that the only reason my body has carried a child and would deliver a child was because of God. and that no amount of prayer was too great. when people asked if they could do anything for us at the end of pregnancy, i almost always said "pray" and welcomed the prayers of others. it's probably the most i've ever asked for prayer outright.

2. my midwife -- my first midwife never showed for my birth. one crazy nurse hovered over me during labor, and a doctor i'd never met delivered my baby at the last minute. the midwife i had this time was instantly invested in me personally. the whole relationship felt different right away. i love her. trust her. i am eternally grateful that she allowed me to labor the way that i did. she's a pro, y'all. if you're in my area and having a baby, i would recommend her 100 times over. so ask me about her! and if you're not, don't be afraid to "shop around" (so to speak) for a healthcare provider. if you have any doubts about being supported for the birth that you want--no matter what that looks like--find someone that makes you feel like you're well taken care of and invested in. it makes all the difference.

3. knowing my body and the birth process -- the first time i hadn't even researched the stages of labor. i didn't know what to expect from my body. i didn't know the physical aspects behind what happens when you birth a child, which is part of what made it so foreign. this time around i tried to understand every stage and every process and every change that my body would make before baby came. it helped me to know what was going on.

4. specifics for my labor partner -- my husband was a key element in both deliveries (and a friend to act as my doula for the first). i couldn't have done it without him. i love the intimacy that was between us when things got really intense. he was amazing. but with june i never took the time to tell my team what they could do for me. and i suppose that's because i didn't know?? having been through it once made it a little easier. but still, it would have been good to give them a "bag of tricks" so to speak--things that you think might help you through a difficult situation.

5. yoga and the idea of relaxation -- many people recommend prenatal yoga for the physical fitness, but it did so much for me mentally as well. it totally transformed my mind to the thought of how to handle contractions. i learned that not only was it important to relax between contractions, but also during them (as much as possible). i learned what kept my body open and allowed it to work. i learned how to work with it and not against it. and when i took control of my breath when i felt a contraction creeping up, i managed it so much better. a few of them got away from me and that's when i came the closest to losing it. i became emotional, fearful, and near tears.

6. trying the tricks but not relying on the tricks -- i did, took, and ate anything and everything i could possibly read about or hear about to make this thing easier on me. i practiced yoga, ate well, took naps (or tried to), walked almost nightly, drank raspberry leaf tea, took evening primrose oil, ate dates and pineapple--all during pregnancy for a smoother pregnancy and easier labor. i tried nearly everything to naturally induce labor. the labor inducing things obviously didn't work. i can't say whether or not the other things did anything. and if they did, i obviously can't pinpoint which one. all i know is my labor was FAST. maybe it's because of all the false labor and the fact that i was 5cm and fully effaced when my water was broken (the most likely candidate). but who knows. towards the end of my pregnancy i actually stopped doing/taking/eating all the things i was doing because at that point i knew it was in God's hands. we are never in control! we can try, but we aren't!

7. keeping an open mind -- even though my first birth was completely not what i thought it would be, i still got caught in the trap this time around of thinking that things would go a certain way. when i finally allowed myself to be at peace with letting things happen how they happen, i felt such a weight off my shoulders.

birth stories come in so many different shapes and sizes. they are immensely personal. i love to hear them. i don't care who it is or how it happened. i don't care if you scheduled a c-section or if your husband delivered your baby at home or if an adoption agent placed your baby in your arms (because that's a birth story, too)--i love hearing them.

while ultimately the healthy delivery of baby (or babies) is what's important, we as women and the carriers of these children cannot be denied the experience of childbirth. it is so important to be acknowledged not only as a vessel for life, but as an individual having a deeply moving experience. that has to be respected. whatever helps you gain that respect-- do it. invest in it. find people that will invest in your baby and YOU.

even though this birth didn't go as i planned it, i wouldn't change a single thing about it. i am 110% sure that it went how it was meant to. i felt guarded and safe and respected. my baby arrived into perfect health. what more could i ask?

and now i've got some squishy cheeks to smooch and a couple of hungry bellies to feed. motherhood at it's most basic :)

until next time!