Birth story - Mia and baby Anaïs

Ever since I found out the due date of my baby I knew she would come early. Not sure how, I just did. My pregnancy was pretty straightforward after the first trimester. I didn’t plan on getting pregnant so in the beginning there was a lot of anxiety and fears, accompanied by lots of nausea and complete exhaustion. But from 16 weeks on everything got much easier, emotionally and physically. Because I wanted to have either a birth center birth or a home birth, we switched to a midwife in November (at around 25 weeks). Before that I was just too exhausted to find one, but luckily we found the most amazing one that suited us perfectly.

My guess date was March 19th but I had a feeling something was gonna happen on the 38th week which was the beginning of March. On Wednesday, March 2nd, the day before my labor started my midwife came to our house for a check up, and the funny thing was that when she was leaving she said “so I’ll see you next week or who knows, maybe I’ll see you tomorrow!” That evening I also started taking a Gentle Birth herbal tincture by Mountain Meadow, which was said to make labor easier BUT in some cases also start it earlier according to my midwife. That’s why I didn’t want to start it before 37-38 weeks. And later that night, around 3AM I started feeling the usual period-like sensations that I had been feeling for weeks already, but this time they were coming every hour or two. In the morning I told my partner this and we kind of laughed nervously.. In the morning I also took another portion of that herbal tincture. I sent a message to my midwife telling her about the sensations but that I’m also aware that it might be nothing.

Around 1 PM I went on a walk nearby and stopped by a few local stores to get some snacks in case something did happen that day. I got some soups, popsicles, apple juice, crackers, vitamin water.. The sensations were coming every 1-3 hours now. I even went by my work, which is nearby, and told everyone “now I’ve finally got all the important stuff taken care of (in preparing for the baby) and I can finally relax a bit!” HA! That lasted for a good few hours.

Around 3 PM I was setting up to do a few recordings at home, as I’m a singer and have a recording setup at home. My movements were getting slower and slower and the sensations were starting to get stronger. Right when I had everything set up I started to feel like I couldn’t really focus on anything else anymore. My partner was planning on going to the movies with his brother by around 5 PM I told him I thought he should stay home just in case. We called our midwife and she calmly said this could still last for 10 days or maybe we’ll have our baby tonight!

It was a rainy day in California, which is rare.. My partner ordered some ramen from a place down the street and my sensations were again getting stronger.. At this point we (and by that I mean my partner) started setting up our bedroom. He started getting the birthing pool ready (thankfully we had just tested it a few days ago for the first time!), bringing the snacks upstairs, bringing me my birthing ball, putting on my playlist.. The usual.

I downloaded an app to track my surges but they were very irregular. I was walking around in our room, using up breathing, swaying and listening to the music. I couldn’t even eat the ramen we ordered but here and there my partner gave me some sips of the broth. That ended up being the only food I managed to eat during my labor. Our household has a dog who was constantly coming to me making sure I was alright, he was so attentive! The sensations were mostly just in my back and they were getting very intense. I had my hand pushing on my lower back the whole night and my partner did the same. It felt like my surges were coming in doubles which was strange, right when one ended another one started again. I had my eyes closed almost all the time, and I had to use all my focus to just breathe and moan through it all. I was leaning on the birthing ball, then a chair, then our bed, and finally around 8 PM we told our midwife and her assistant to come over.

It was very challenging to move even an inch but somehow I made it on our bed on my side and I put a heat pillow on my back. At 9:30 PM our midwives finally arrived, silently and calmly. I was in the middle of a surge, with my eyes closed but felt their calming touch on my forehead. I was so happy to have them there finally! As they knew I wanted to try to stay in my birth bubble they didn’t talk or say much, they just quietly set up all their equipment and did some hip squeezes to me. They did intermittent monitoring but each time they did it, it started a really intense surge for me, don't know why!

Sometime around 10 PM as I was still lying on the bed I felt a “kick” inside of me and my water started to break slowly. Soon afterwards I got really nauseous and asked for a bucket which I had already gotten next to us earlier just in case. I threw up a few times and said to my partner “that should be the transition right?” I didn’t want to ask about my dilation at any point and I knew my midwives weren’t going to check it unless I would ask. It felt good that we were letting everything happen at it’s own pace without any extra monitoring or checking.

I wanted to get into the pool already but they said it was too soon. Instead they suggested I go in the shower, which I did at around 10:50 PM. At this point I didn’t want my partner to leave my side at all anymore. The surges were getting so intense and any tiny tiny movement made them ten times more intense. At this point things got a bit crazy. The fire alarm went off in our apartment! It was ringing in every single room including our bedroom. This had happened once before and we don’t know what caused it or how to get it to stop. My partner wanted to bring me ear plugs while I was sitting on the shower floor but I told him not to leave me even for a second! The midwives came to ask how can they turn off the alarm but we said we most likely will have to wait it out. At this point I honestly didn’t even care, I had bigger things on my mind..! At some point my partner managed to get some ear plugs and he was stuffing them into my ears in the shower, I remember it being very hard. The neighbours had called the fire department and they came to our door. I guess they had a chat with the midwives and were assured that everything was ok, just one firey baby being born that’s all. After maybe about 20min the alarm stopped.

Around 11:10 PM I was determined to get into the pool, no one could convince me otherwise anymore. I had to move fast again because I didn’t seem to have any clear breaks between the surges! I remember reading a lot of people sleep or eat between surges but this was not the case for me! I got into a very weird position in the tub and my partner kept telling me I need to switch positions to get more comfortable. Eventually I did.. My partner was in the tub with me, sitting behind me. We didn’t plan on doing this but apparently I asked him to get in too at the time. I remember saying “I need help..” but I don’t remember thinking at any point that I wanted an epidural or wanted to go to the hospital, I was just up breathing and moaning loudly. I know my midwife would have had a tens machine but somehow I was too much in my bubble to remember or care.

I started to get an urge to push, or my body started doing it involuntarily. Very slightly at first. My other midwife kept giving me ice cold apple juice with a straw, I remember it tasting so good in that moment! Around 00:15 I was starting to push more and a bit stronger now! My midwife said “oh so we’re pushing now!” I was scared to do it too hard and I felt like I didn’t know how to do it at first. My midwife told me to try to direct it towards my butt and that helped me somehow. I remember asking how much longer still and my midwife said “she’ll come when she’s ready.”

I had no idea how much time was going by or what time it was.. The pushing stage felt better in a way because I could actively do something now. But it still felt like it lasted a long time.. During the pushing stage I felt like I started hyperventilating a bit between the surges but each time my partner and my midwife just calmly told me to breathe slowly and this helped me calm down and center myself. I remember my partner repeating to me “it is not pain, it is power” which was one of my birth affirmations. All of them were so calm the whole time, and no one was fussing at any point which helped me stay calm.

I started to be a lot more vocal and grunted a lot more and made very animalistic sounds! I was very aware that our neighbors could probably hear everything but I didn’t care.

At some point I sighed “I’m gonna die..” (even though I absolutely knew I wouldn’t, I was just exhausted) and my midwife laughed warmly and said “you most certainly are not going to die!” At 1:20 AM my midwife said she was starting to see some bulging down there and two minutes later she told me she could see the head. I felt it myself and it felt so soft! I kept my hand on it and kept stroking it, to make her feel safe as she was arriving. I could feel the ring of fire but since I had read about it I knew it would pass quite quickly. It took about 2-4 surges to get the head out. This happened at 1:32 as I let out a loud animalistic roar. One more big surge and at 1:35 she was finally born! My midwife lifted her from the water and on to my chest. I was still in shock from it all but so relieved she was finally here! After just a few minutes my midwife said my placenta was coming out and I should give one more push. That was of course a lot easier.

About 30min later they helped us get on our bed where we had some more precious skin to skin time with her. No one rushed to do any check ups on her or cleaned her, it was so peaceful and perfect. After an hour I finally had something to eat, a peanut butter toast and some more cold juice. I don’t think anything has tasted so good in a long time! Then they checked me for any tears, and I only had a small 1st degree tear. They weighed her and did her check up and cleaned up everything so all we needed to do was rest.

Even though giving birth was a challenge I’m SO happy I did it at home and would absolutely do it at home again if I ever have more children. During my pregnancy I was often worried if it was crazy to try to have a home birth with my first child but I knew that was just fears from other people, because deep down I knew it was possible and absolutely a better choice for me. I could have done birth center too but that would have meant a 50min drive there while having surges, and frankly I’m very happy I could just deal with them at home in my own bedroom. I know the hypnobirthing techniques helped me a lot as did reading positive birth stories and seeing the positive birth videos.

One thing that also most likely helped me was having a spiritual (not religious) side and trusting that inner strength. Someone once said giving birth is like a dance between life and death and that is what I prepared for mentally. I prepared myself to be at a place where I say “I can’t do this anymore” but still have enough trust to go on. And in the end, as challenging as it was I didn’t even get that feeling.

If your gut is telling you to do a home birth, go for it It's absolutely possible. I really hope this encourages others to do the same if they feel like it's the right option for them!