They always say that every pregnancy and birth is different. That was certainly true for my sixth baby. Just when you think you have it down to a science this whole pregnancy, birth, baby thing, it get’s mixed up again.
My labor started around 30 weeks, after the death of my Grandpa. I began having regular contractions for 28 hours straight. After consulting with my midwife, we decided that I needed to immediately go on bed rest until the contractions were well under control. I remained on modified bed rest until 36 weeks pregnant. During those six weeks, I had multiple episodes of recurrent contractions that resolved with rest and hydration.
Just when we thought we were almost in the clear, the baby engaged very low into my pelvis along with more contractions at 35 weeks. My midwife made it extremely clear that we would not be able to have a home birth at 35 weeks. After getting so close to 36 weeks I was very concerned about NOT going into labor that last week.
36 weeks rolled around and we finally got the OK to be able to have our home birth. But just like that, all signs of preterm labor were gone. Poof! After weeks of wondering if I was going to have a preemie, now this baby had absolutely NO desire to be born. It was almost a cruel joke! I was, however, very happy that the baby wanted to cook a little bit longer.
At 38 weeks, I began having some regular runs of contractions but nothing came of them. In fact, one day, I had my parents come down and hang out at the house all day because of all the contractions but after 12+ hours, they died down once again. I asked my midwife if this was normal because I really had never had that happen with any of my other kids. She assured me that this was a normal part of pregnancy after having so many children.
On 39 weeks, 3 days, I began to have some regular contractions around 2pm. They started out around 11-12 minutes apart and moved to about 8 minutes apart. By 11pm, they were still very regular and picking up in intensity. My mom, who was going to be at the birth, came down to the house at 11:30pm so if I did go into active, active labor in the night, she was already there. I was in contact with my midwife and told her that I was going to try to sleep and if they picked up I would call her.
My midwife is close to an hour away so the timing of getting her to the house in time for the birth was crucial, considering my past history of extremely rapid labors. At 3am, I woke up with contractions 5 minutes apart and strong. Art immediately called my midwife and we got the ball rolling. This was it! I was excited to finally be in labor!!! My midwife showed about around 4:00 am, listened to the baby and just sat and observed my contractions. As we all chit chatted and waited, my contractions began to die down. And by 9am, they were practically non-existent. I was maybe 2cm dialated and 50% effaced. It was honestly infuriating to be going through this and then having everything stop again! I felt like the girl who cried wolf just one too many times.
My midwife left since nothing was happening and I decided to just get up and start my day. My parents stayed for the morning to help watch the kids and make lunch. Since most everyone was running on about 2 hours or less of sleep, we decided to take a long nap in the afternoon and my parents went back home.
Three o’clock rolls around and I wake up with very strong, labor like contractions. I contact my midwife once again and let her know what’s happening. She tells me to watch a movie and to distract myself to see if they will go away. I decided to go downstairs and make my groaning cake and then some sour dough cinnamon buns. All the while having contractions 5-7 minutes apart. Around 4pm, Art decided to call Michelle and say that I can’t talk through my contractions anymore and that she should come back. It just happened that it was also rush hour and we needed to plan for her to have enough time to get through all of the traffic.
She arrive a little after 5pm, checked the baby’s heart rate which sounded great and just hung out with us again. She liked that I was starting to have to concentrate through contractions, but she wasn’t quite sure that labor wasn’t going to die out again. We all sat down for dinner and the contractions were still coming about every 5 minutes. I didn’t feel like getting up and moving around, so Art and the kids cleaned up after dinner while I worked on posting a Facebook game.
I stayed sitting at the table with my birthing ball until 9:30pm and then the contractions were coming every three minutes. I was still enjoying the conversation, but I was freezing cold and upstairs in my bedroom, it is so much warmer, so I headed upstairs and wrapped up in my bathrobe. It was funny because my midwife never noticed that I had left and a little while later, she noticed and said that she had better head upstairs to check on me.
At that point, it was almost 10pm and I was on my knees, leaning on my ball just rocking back and forth. My back felt better leaning on the ball during contractions but I was going stir crazy just waiting. Art pulled out Skip-Bo and we all played Skip-Bo right until that last 20 minutes of labor. I loved playing a game since it provided a great distraction through contractions. At some point, my midwife texted her assistant that she thought I was close to delivering.
I found out later that the assistant arrived at 11:06pm and baby Grace was born at 11:25pm. I remember chit chatting with her assistant after she arrived about local happenings in the area until my water broke at 11:21pm. At that point, labor got extremely intense and I immediately began to push. With maybe four pushes through one contraction, Grace’s head began to crown. I stopped pushing at the point and let my body do the rest of the work for me. Art and the midwife were trying to get the cord off of her neck before she was born, but she just gracefully slipped out and did a somersault right into my midwife’s hands.
It was amazing how quick the actual delivery went! The one thing that I noticed with this labor was just before my water broke, the contractions spaced out but became longer in duration. Usually, my contractions just come one right after another. But having a few minutes between the contractions was a welcome break. The other thing I noticed was how calm I felt. The contractions were intense but nothing that was unbearable. Looking back, I thoroughly enjoyed my evening visiting with Michelle and my parents. I had this nagging fear in the back of my head that these contractions were going to stop because they weren’t unbearable. I felt very calm, relaxed and almost impatient for something more to be happening.
Even though we had a 20 week ultrasound, we choose not to find out the gender. But, based on how I felt in this pregnancy compared to other pregnancies, I was convinced I was having a BOY! In fact, I was so sure that it was a boy that I only washed the boy clothes. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was a girl! Absolutely SHOCKED! I never, ever dreamed that it was going to be a girl. 
After the birth was over and I was settled into my bed, it was hard for me to grasp what had just transpired. Nine months of anxiety mixed with anticipation and pain was gone in just four long and intense minutes of labor. It was almost like I hadn’t worked hard enough to have my beautiful baby in my arms. Words can’t describe the emotions that were going through my head that night. It was almost like the was a dream and I was just waiting to wake up.
For the week following the delivery, I suffered with quite a bit of pain. Pain from afterbirth cramping, pelvic and hip joint pain and breastfeeding pain. Grace has a upper lip tie causing some nursing difficulties that we have had to overcome. Despite my mental energy of wanting to get moving on all those things that I hadn’t been able to do over the past 10 weeks, physically, the pain kept me from doing much of anything.
I feel extremely blessed to be surrounded by my family and midwives during this time. They all provided outstanding care for both me and Grace. By far, this was the best home birth experience I have had. I am also thankful for all of you…my readers and watchers who both cheered me on and helped me to stay motivated even when the pregnancy got very difficult at the end. To each and every one of you…THANK YOU FOR BEING THERE!!!
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