Birth story - Danielle and baby girl

Pregnancy - my first pregnancy, 9 years ago with my son, was full of doctors filling my head with concerns of his size and growth. I was 24 and felt like I had to listen to them. Even then I wanted a fully natural birth even if I would have him in the hospital. I wish I had known about classes available like the hypnobirthing courses and about midwifery led care. I was forced into an induction, then told that wasn’t right then made to feel my only option was a c-section which I did - worse experience ever. Recovery was terrible and so far from what I had hoped for.

Fast forward to this pregnancy - I had a midwife and felt fully empowered throughout my pregnancy. Even when at the anatomy scan they told me she was running small - since my son was small too they wanted to keep monitoring her growth - I used my BRAIN and spoke to my midwife who said after two more good scans that there was no reason to worry. AND that I checked out to have my VBAC.

My due date came and went and I kept working (real estate) and managing my studio I even taught yoga on my due date lol.

When we passed 41 weeks I started getting nervous - I DID NOT want to go to a hospital again. Our plan was to have her at the birth center since my husband was nervous about being far from a hospital if something happened - we live an hour from a hospital with an OBGYN on staff.

I had my midwife try a sweep on the 29th which wasn’t a full sweep but I started feeling uncomfortable at dinner that night - my husband was in Long Beach for work and we agreed I wouldn’t make him come home until I knew for sure I was laboring.

Well 2.30am rolled around and I woke up with cramps and knew it was real when I walked around and nothing stopped.

Waited an hour before calling the hotel my husband was at to wake him up to drive the 3 hours home.

Texted my midwife at 5am to tell her I had started early labor that morning.

She came by our house at 11.30am to check on me since I was still having mild contractions but nothing more.

I continued to get more intense but manageable through the day - the midwife came back at 6pm and checked my cervix and I was only 2cm - my contractions were painful but still manageable through breathing and nothing much more. I took a bath and tried to ease into the harder part.

We went to bed at 8pm where I laid in bed and labored on my side as it progressively got worse and worse - I squeezed my husbands hands and tried to maintain breathing techniques. I added the tens machine and that helped for the almost two hours I used it.

I kept asking my husband for when we could call the midwife to check again since she said to wait until I was having longer contractions.

I was supposed to get to 70-80 second contractions and I was at like 65 seconds when my mucus plug gave and my water broke.

Then he called her and she came over - by then I was on hands and knees on my exercise ball next to my bed in what I know now was active labor. She had me crawl on my bad to check my cervix after checking that the baby was sounding ok and said “well you’re fully dilated - we can go to the birth center or stay here” the birth center was an hour car drive away and moving was not in the cards for me - every time I moved I had a contraction and so I made it clear I was staying put lol.

I was still hopeful for a water birth so they drew a bath in our big jet tub but as I was still on my ball with each contraction releasing more fluids I wasn’t moving.

My husband laid on the bed facing me and gave me his hands and talked me through each contraction- then my body pushed and I have to say that was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever experienced! I will say the contractions were more uncomfortable than pushing. Yes it was painful but in a different way than breaking a bone or something.

I don’t remember ever transitioning but that first push gave me a light at the end of the tunnel. My body would start to contract and then at the end of a few seconds of that it would push a few times and, like the absolute miracle our bodies are, I would do just enough and then I’d get a break collapsing on the ball to breath and rest - then it’d start again. I did this for an extra hour on the ball and finally my darling girl was born!

Not totally as planned but by far better than my first experience.

My midwife’s team took care of us and cleaned up everything- left us to sleep in our own bed and wake up in our own home - it was the best experience - and our little family is so happy.