Kade and I had a normal Monday , cleaning, playing , a mile-ish walk etc. While Kade was napping I did the miles circuit again ( I had been having so much prodromal labor I had been doing it every day or two to get baby in the best position for labor) But just like all the other times, the circuit didn’t seem to “kick start” labor for me but just made me and baby feel even more comfortable, which I definitely won’t complain about.
Later that evening I lost my mucus plug and had bloody show. But my body felt so good. No contractions. Super comfortable. So I figured I would have a few more days and honestly was hoping baby would decided to come on 11/11 since my Birthday is 10/10 and Kade’s is 7/7 so another matching birthday would make it very easy to remember for my mom brain.
Tuesday 11/9
I woke up to another chunk of mucus plug and more bloody show. Kade and I headed into the midwives apt for my regular apt. I was having Bi-weekly NST’s to monitor baby since stopping blood thinners for my MTFHR & PAI 4G/4G at 36 weeks. I was 39w2d and had been having prodromal labor on and off for the last few weeks, so when I had 3 contractions caught by the monitor in the 20 min session, I didn’t think much of it. I started to feel crampy and really thought maybe today is the day. But even tho these were great signs that labor could happen very soon I also didn’t want to get my hopes up after going late with Kade and having so many false signs in the previous weeks.
After I got home from My NST I did another miles circuit and by the end of it felt GREAT. No cramps. No pain. Super comfortable, so I figured baby probably wanted to hang out for another week …or two.
Kade was acting so different that night and would not go to bed, he wanted to tell us everything, show us everything, read one more book, get one more toy etc. etc. now I’m wondering if he “sensed something”. As we were starting to get impatient with him I joked to Nick, “ahhh it’s fine what’s 1 more book or 15 more minutes of playing esp. when this could be his last night with just us.”
Nick and I just had a regular evening. We started watching an episode of our latest binge, Poldark, and I started having a few contractions. Nothing abnormal, my on and off contractions would pick up on random evenings. An hour later and 6 more contractions Nick asked me to start timing them and I reluctantly agreed. By 11:30 my contractions were 6 minutes apart and lasting over a minute. I knew if this was real labor I wanted to relax as much as possible through it and NOT do what I did last time and bank on my high pain tolerance and fight pain (making my labor way longer ) rather than cope and let it be productive. I got into the Bradley method relaxation position and prayed a rosary, listened to Christian HypnoBirthing and Mary Haseltines Birth Pray List. After over an hour of that the contractions started to get more intense and were in my front and my back. I decided to take a hot shower I figured it would either:
1. make the contractions go away completely and I would know this was once again not real labor
2. they would go away enough I could sleep for a few hours
3. they would stay the same intensity or continue to intensify and I would be 100% certain it was Baby day.
It was option 3.
Even tho my contractions were “intense” they honestly weren’t painful. And I truly think it was because I spent hours and hours this pregnancy trying to learn how to relax. Last labor I banked on my “high pain tolerance” and spent 30 hours griping bed posts, counters, Nicks hands and “walking off” contractions.
I told Nick I thought this was still going to be a long labor so I wanted him to go rest and at 6 AM I would wake him up and we could call the midwife or if I was still in early labor he could go to work and we would see how the day would go. He came to check on me at 5am and my contractions were 2 1/2 -3 mins apart and he insisted on calling the midwife and us leaving immediately but I continued to say how it “wasn’t that bad” and “didn’t really hurt” (looking back now the contractions were to the same intensity as my first sons labor, I was just coping with them WAY better! And this time they truly weren’t painful just intense but it all felt like progress which was much easier to wrap my mind around positively)and wanted to wait a few more hours. But I reluctantly scarfed down a few scramble eggs and left with him for the 35 min drive to the Birth Center. When we got there the midwife came out to our car to help me in and as I was waddling in with both hands holding up my belly I said “Sorry to wake you so early I’m probably only at like 2, if you need us to leave we can go to the adoration chapel down the road or walk around a little bit” and she looked at me confused and said “Um…. From the way you are walking you are way past a two… let’s just go right to the Birth room you don’t even need to go to triage” she checked me quick and said I was 7cm+ and my bag of waters was bulging.
And of course Nick said “I told you so” and I was just happy we were already so far along and labor was still super manageable.
With Kade's labor I had my water broken at 8cm after 28hrs of contractions but this time I really wanted it to break on its own if it could so we started walking around the Birth center and lunging up and down stairs. The next few hours were peanut ball, shower, and dilation station aka Toilet . I always get the strongest contractions on there and started feeling “pushy”. I did not want a toilet baby (no offense to anyone who has had a toilet baby ) so once I said that, the tub was warmed up and we got in.
My water still hadn’t broken but I thought by chance it was leaking. Once I was in the tub the surges of each contraction were getting more intense. And by this point music was off and the only thing I wanted to listen to was the Christian Hypno Birthing affirmation playlist - I was in a full daze/labor land/ hypno birthing mindset and would half come out of it between some contractions but wasn’t fully there. During Contractions I would repeat to myself in my head the lines Nick was saying to me in early labor (that we learned in the Bradley Birth Book) "Relax your forehead, relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, relax your hands, etc etc" (You can tell in certain photos esp in the tub when I was having contractions because I would relax my body, let go of my stomach and let my arms and hands float.) All the nurses/midwifes / birth workers were wearing black shirts with the yellow logo and Nick was wearing a black shirt with a light blue graphic on it (the same shirt he wore when Kade was Born, Because he’s that dad) but I remember being inbetween contractions and I would squinty open my eyes and I saw , black & yellow , black and yellow , black and yellow, black and blue “ah there’s my husband.” I continued to have contractions and tried a few pushing positions but something just wasn’t feeling right. I tried to feel for babies head in me and couldn’t , pushing felt like a ton of pressure and no progress so the midwife suggested checking me again and seeing if my water had broken. She did and the water was still intact but I told her not to break it. I really wanted my body to do whatever it wanted and needed to for baby to come out on its own terms. I pushed a few more times and started to get discouraged with what was happening, I asked Nick to pray for me between contractions. I kept vocalizing “I just want this baby to be OKAY!” I knew the risks of manually breaking your water, but I knew we had done it with Kade and everything was fine, I also knew we were SO CLOSE and it wouldn’t be broken for long. Nick and I decided to do a few more contractions and see if it would break on its own while pushing first , but if not we would let our midwife break it.
My water didn’t wind up breaking with the next few contractions so we let her break it and when she did she said baby was as low as they could possibly get without technically crowning, but she thought by chance I had a cervical lip. As she was explaining all this immediately another contraction came and everything felt SO DIFFERENT, but In the best way possible.
There was no more all over pressure but burning pressure and I could fully feel the baby’s head. I did a few contractions in a sitting position in the tub and could feel all my amniotic fluid coming out and then switched to all fours to continue pushing. I could feel baby inching out with my breaths and pulling back when I inhaled. ChristianHypnobirthing Affirmations for birth was still playing , probably for the 100th time that morning (I knew the outro music and as soon as I would start to hear it I would mumbly yell “click it again, play it again” I didn’t want to come out of the labor land hypno daze.)
Still feeling internally concerned for baby’s health and guilty in a way because I let the midwife break my water, and having my own irrational fear of horrible tearing I could feel my self starting to give up. The next affirmation that played was “I give this birth over to Our Heavenly Father Lord Jesus and Holy Spirit........I am relaxed and happy knowing that I will see our baby soon “ I remember half mumbling those words out loud with the soundtrack. And decided the baby was coming out NOW. The babies health was in the Lord’s hands and I needed to give up being worried about tearing. I had another contraction and fully pushed and roared…. Roared…. I had no idea I was even capable of that sound since the rest of labor I had been silent, heavy breathing or a soft low moan, but all over generally “chill” through each contraction. Even the midwifes and nurses commented on how well and calmly I was coping. I came out of that contraction a bit in shock and in that quick break thought to myself “WTH am I doing! This is horrible! How In the world am I going to have more children?!?!” And then within one second I quickly flipped to the thought, “OMG! YAY! I WANT TO GIVE UP!! THAT MEANS BABY IS SO CLOSE!”
Another contraction came and more sounds I thought I was incapable of came out of me. The midwife and nurse kept yelling at me to stay low enough in the water to keep baby in water when he came out. And the Nurse, midwife and Nick were all trying to push me down and keep me down in the water. In that next quick break I looked to my right and the nurse said “Theresa this is all normal, and everything is going perfect” I think I mumbled “Thank you” but also quite possibly just said gibberish in that moment.
The next contraction came and the midwife yelled “Grab your baby! Grab your baby!”
And in that moment time stood still and everything felt so unreal. Like when your whole life flashes before your eyes in the split seconds before a car crash. But in a beautiful positive way. Getting smacked in the face with the highest dose of Oxytocin and Adrenalin. The next 10 seconds felt like slo-mo, pulling up a slippery lil perfect human and imagining his whole future and him being a part of our family on earth. He was here and he was healthy. I pulled him onto my chest and started crying and saying “Oh I’ve waited so long to hold you!!” Our lil BOY was here. SAFE & HEALTHY after 2 losses, our perfect lil double rainbow baby Pax.
Post Birth :
The next 15 minutes were full of oooing and awwing over the perfect lil boy in our arms. Then Nick cut the cord and took the baby for Skin to skin so I could deliver the placenta and get out of the tub. Birthing the Placenta and Post Labor bleeding all went so much smoother than my first labor. The placenta came out with ease as soon as I stood up to get out of the tub. My bleeding was totally in normal limits and as soon as I got from the tub to the bed sweet baby Pax immediately started breastfeeding. I was out of labor land and in post labor lala land and already was wondering in my head when I would be blessed enough to do it all again.
…. Then my midwife came over and asked if she could check me quick to see if I had any tearing that needed tended to. I said sure in my happy baby lala land daze. Then she looked at the nurse and said “Can you go grab me a flash light?” . It was 11am. The room was fully lit and in my brain every panic alarm was going off.
I had torn horribly hadn’t I? I waited a second and then timidly said “….. how bad?” My midwife said “oh no! You didn’t tear, nothing needs stitched I just wanted to double check- baby came out with his hand on his face and you just have a slight internal laceration from his hand”. *Phew* I Went back to staring, snuggling and sniffing our hour old baby. An hour or so later I took an herbal bath, Nick cuddled Pax and packed up the room. They did his measurements and weight. We then headed out in time to swing by our favorite Chinese Restaurant for the lunch special and then excitingly hurried him home to introduce him to his adoring big brother!
Paxton Ray Thomas
7lb 8oz 20 1/2 in long
Birth Center : https://fortwaynebirthcenter.com
Photographer :