I decided early on that I wanted to have a natural childbirth, no medications, and hopefully, no hospital. I had researched quite a bit before making my decision, I do things like that for fun, and Eric and I had been going to a birthing center in Pleasant Grove run by his cousin who is the midwife there. Going with Birthing Your Way has been a wonderful experience for us and we had all of our prenatal appointments there. We had the option of having the birth at the birthing center or at our home and we finally decided on having the baby at our house. We had been slowly compiling all that we would need to make the birth as comfortable and easily cleaned up after as possible.
I had my appointment for my 39 week check up at 5:15 on Thursday with Eric. Eric had been driving the car to work every day that week instead of carpooling so he could come home if I went into labor but on Thursday, because I had my appointment, we decided he should carpool and I would pick him up after work and we would drive to my appointment together because I had no indication that I would be having the baby any time soon. The one day he didn't have the car I went into labor.
The contractions began around 1:00 pm after I had eaten lunch. They were not too painful, not any worse than an average period cramp for me but they were rather frequent and regular being about 10 minutes apart. I decided to take a nap to see if this was just false labor or the real thing, if the contractions went away. They did not go away, they just got a bit more intense. I had called Eric before my nap to let him know that my contractions were pretty regular and he told me to call him back if anything changed, even though he would be in a meeting. When I woke up I decided to take a shower because I was still having increasingly strong contractions and when I went to the bathroom there was blood. I panicked, just a little, I couldn't seem to remember that blood was ok. I called Eric and interrupted his meeting to tell him that I was bleeding. He was great and calmed me down, reminding me that that was normal. At that point it was about 3:00 in the afternoon. My contractions began to pick up in frequency and intensity to the point that at around 3:45 I called Eric to see if I could come get him from work. Luckily a coworker of his offered to take him home and he got home around 4:00.
At this point my contractions were about three minutes apart and had gotten to the point that they were a bit worse than any period cramps I had had. We called our doula and midwife to see if they thought I should still come in for my appointment. They both felt that I should still come in, first time moms don't usually have so short a labor, if I had only been contracting since 1:00. We left for our appointment and I'm pretty sure that is when I moved into transition. These contractions were terrible and that car ride was the longest ten minutes of my life. When I arrived they hurried me into the prenatal room and checked to see how dilated I was. I was already dilated to 9 centimeters. I think we were all surprised that I was pretty much ready to have the baby right then and there.
Heather, our midwife and Eric's cousin, asked me if I would like to go home and they would meet me there for the home birth. But after that intense car ride I decided that there was no way I was getting back in that car and that I was just fine having the baby there at the birthing center. Heather and her assistants worked incredibly quickly to get the birthing pool ready for me and after only a few minutes I was in the tub and trying to keep calm through the contractions. I think I only had a few more contractions until I was dilated to 10 centimeters.
I was suddenly overcome with the urge to push and I pushed for about an hour and a half in the tub. It was a lot of work and very exhausting. Everyone there at the birth was very helpful and supportive. Eric was amazing and helped me keep focused when I would begin to feel overwhelmed.
After about an hour and a half of pushing I hadn't made the most progress. He had moved down but I couldn't seem to get him out. I moved from the water onto a birth stool and things seemed to become more intense and progressive after that. Another hour of very intense pushing and he began to crown. That was probably the most painful. I wanted to take a break because it was hard and I was extremely tired but the pressure was too intense so I just kept pushing and he shot out.
While I was pregnant and we were preparing for the birth I told Eric that I wanted him to catch Elias but Eric was very nervous about this, thinking the baby would shoot out and what if he missed. I told him he was ridiculous, that usually the head comes out, then you have a little break and then I would push the rest of the body out, it wouldn't be difficult. But Eric was right, that little boy of ours came shooting out with no pause at all. Heather was the one who caught Elias because there was no time for Eric to even know that he needed to be in position to catch him.
As soon as that baby was out the relief was instantaneous. They brought him to my chest immediately and I got to hold him as they checked him and me and I have no idea what everyone really did around me, I was too busy looking at my baby boy and attempting to nurse. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Eric and I had decided to wait to cut the cord until all the blood had flowed back into Elias. I birthed the placenta, which was relatively easy, I just didn't want to push any more, and then we cut the cord.
We cuddled that sweet baby and had our families come in to see him for about a half an hour or so before Eric went with Elias to get him weighed and measured and all that while I got stitched up. I had decided against an episiotomy and let myself tear naturally. Heather stitched me up very easily, but that was definitely a painful few minutes. I talked with my doula about food and cooking to try to distract myself from the pain. I handled the labor and birthing pains much better than the stitching pains. I'm not sure why, maybe because the labor pains were coming from me and I could predict them a little better than having the pain be inflicted on me by someone else.
After all of that we rested for a while and then drove home at around 1:00 in the morning. It was wonderful to be home with our new baby boy and we spent the rest of that night trying to figure out how to get him to eat and sleep. It has now been a week and we are still sometimes trying to figure out how to get him to eat and sleep but things are calming down as we get more and more into a rhythm with him and our new lives. We love him so much.
My favorite picture: Eric holding Elias, not that you can see Eric very well
The lighting makes him look very concerned
Sleeping after being fed. Also, the red on his eye runs in my family and goes away after a while. I sent this picture to Eric and he asked me if Elias had a black eye.
All bundled up
