Birth story - Alexandria and baby Theodore

At around 8 pm while putting my daughter to sleep I felt my first twinges of something happening. I finished putting her to bed and came out to finish cooking while waiting to see if it was the real thing. I didn't experience Braxton Hicks with either pregnancies.

By the time it was 10 PM I knew that it was the real thing and so I message my friend who came to pick up my daughter and my midwife and photographer to let them know that things were starting. I finished packing my daughters bag while my man put up the pool. When my friend came to grab my daughter I hid back in our bedroom so she didn't see me and get upset 🙈🤣 and then got completely in the groove of things once she was gone.

The surges gained intensity faster than they did with my daughter. I had to focus completely on my breathing through each surge and felt most comfortable and relaxed when my man was right next to me, breathing in my ear to help me focus solely on that.

Around 5:30 am I called my midwife, my surges never got closer than 5 minutes apart, and I told her I would feel more comfortable if she was there with us at this point. I now know that this wobble in my confidence was for sure transition as the very next surge I felt my waters go and my body pushing the baby down.

I called her right back and told her my body was starting to push and she started rushing to me as she lives a good distance away. I called the photographer right after and let her know she should start heading to me as well.

The next three or four surges I felt the baby bob up and down, slowly stretching me out for his final drop. This is something I didn't really feel with my daughter because after 51 hours of laboring I was so tired that when my midwife offered for me to push forcefully with a surge I did it (this was still a super positive experience just way different).

Around 5:45 am my photographer arrived and my midwife arrived maybe 5 minutes afterwards. It was funny when the photographer showed up because she walked in between surges and I calmly told her that I think his head is coming out with the next surge. She dropped everything and started shooting very fast lol.

I felt absolutely zero pain when his head came out. Our bodies are simply AMAZING when we just relax and allow it to do what it needs to. The next surge the rest of his body came and my midwife put him on my chest. We saw his lil bits and were ecstatic we got our baby boy!!!

After weighing him and finding out he was 10 lbs 1 oz I felt on top of the world y’all. And I had no tearing at all. I legit forgot to use the peri bottle when I peed after labor. No pain!!! Whenever anyone hears I do home births they always have something negative to say about not being able to do it with a large baby at home and I now I have ultimate bragging rights 🤣🤣. By the way, at my 39 week appointment I was measuring slightly on the smaller side too so it's all really a guessing game I swear.

First nursing was beautiful and then shortly after we had my daughter come home to meet her new brother 🤧🤧

I'm now 3 weeks pp and my healing process has been so smooth I pretty much stopped bleeding around 1 week pp unless I do really overdo it. My pp recovery was a little rough with my daughter and I just wanted to mention this because it is for sure way better the second time around.

This overall was even more positive than my last birth and I had no idea that was possible. 1000000/10 experience I am so grateful for hypnobirthing.