It all started Tuesday Nov. 29th at my prenatal appointment. I was 3 days past due and asked my midwife if she could help move things along. So she did the usual stripping of the membranes and gave me some black and blue kohosh to take and told me to go for a 30 minute walk. I’m not sure what did it, or if it was simply the combination of it all, but soon after I got off the treadmill I began having contractions.  I was so excited, but still a little skeptical as to whether or not I was really in labor. I continued to have light contractions that evening but didn’t think to time them yet because they didn’t seem too strong. I sent a text to my midwives and doula around 10:00 pm just giving them a heads up, then started to keep track of the frequency of my contractions. At that point they were about 10 minutes apart. I took some melatonin and began listening to my hypnobirthing audios to help me relax and hoping to get a little sleep in before the contractions got worse…

Well, that didn’t exactly happen. I laid in bed for about two hours until deciding to go downstairs to sit in the recliner.  At about 2 am the contractions were coming about every 6 or 7 minutes so I decided to call my midwife. I was afraid to call her in case it was a false alarm. I didn’t want to wake her up or make her come over unless I was sure things were progressing. She said she’d come over and see how far dilated I was. After I got off the phone with her I called my doula and photographer and told them to come over. I went upstairs to tell Sean, he had only been asleep for about an hour so I told him to try to sleep longer and I’d let him know what Melissa (my midwife) said when she got there. So of course Sean couldn’t sleep after that and ended up coming down stairs anyway.

Melissa arrived with all her gear, she then gave me a quick examination and was shocked to find I was already 7 centimeters dilated. I was shocked too because I didn’t think the contractions were that bad. At that point I was thinking, this is going to be easier than I thought.

Sean and Melissa quickly started filling up the birthing tub thinking I’d probably want to get in soon.


After everyone arrived I think the labor progression slowed down a bit. Probably because I felt bad about them being there on little or no sleep and felt pressure to be fully dilated and pushing out a baby as soon as possible.

We sat around and talked for a while, my awesome doula gave me like a two hour massage using essential oils which was so nice. I went upstairs to take a hot shower, drank some calming tea, listened to more of my hypnobirthing audios. Then around 4am Oliver woke up. We were afraid this was going to happen because he went to bed so early that night. He came down all wide awake, wondering what the heck was going on. Especially when he saw the birthing tub all full of water in the middle of our living room. He was pretty excited about that.

Sean decided to call his mom over to come help with Oliver. When she arrived my contractions suddenly became very intense. I started shaking like crazy and finally broke down in tears. My thoughts that this was going to be easy quickly became thoughts of, WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING!!!

I got into the birthing tub knowing I was getting close. We promised Lily that she could be there to watch her sister being born. So Sean went up to get her. The first thing she said when Sean woke her up was, “BABY”!

Photography by the amazing Crystal Pickering at Pure Photography and Design

Soon after that I felt the huge pop and gushing fluid of my water breaking. The contractions continued to intensify and I was getting very weak and overcome with the immense pain. I began to wonder why I had chosen to do this. The pain was much worse than I ever expected. I prayed over and over in my mind that it would be over soon. I kept my eyes closed the whole time and couldn’t even muster up the energy to respond to anyone when they asked me questions or gave me guidance. I felt like any movement at all, even just to open my eyes was too much to bear. At this point I felt I should probably try pushing even though the thought of it seemed impossible. I couldn’t imagine using all my muscles to push at the very moment the pain was at it’s highest.  I screamed and wailed, which is funny to me now because when I watched all the birthing videos on youtube I thought for sure I wouldn’t scream. I kind of laughed at the way some of the women reacted in these videos. But here I was making all the funny noises I swore I wouldn’t.  Anyway, I’m not sure how long I pushed, but pretty soon her head was half way out and I remember screaming, “can’t you just pull her out now”! I had to wait for the next contraction to push again with the burning pain of her head stuck half way. A couple more pushes and out she came at 6:59am. I had never felt more relieved. I took one look at this little baby and couldn’t believe my eyes. What a miracle this was.

Photography by the amazing Crystal Pickering at Pure Photography and Design

I felt like I was on top of the world. I couldn’t believe I did it! Although, I did actually make a comment about not ever wanting to do it again… but that was before the amnesia set in.  Already I’ve seem to have forgotten exactly how painful it was. Probably because the feeling I have now makes it all worth it. I said something about the next baby to Lily yesterday and she said, “but you said you didn’t ever want to do this again”. Well, maybe not anytime soon, but I think I could definitely do it again. The best part of the whole thing was getting to be at home and the fact that Lily got to be there to welcome her little sister into this world. I loved how calm and relaxed everything was when Brooklyn came out. I got to sit and hold her as long as I wanted and also nursed her before we even cut the chord. This was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had and couldn’t be more grateful to my midwives, doula, photographer, and especially my husband.  He was absolutely amazing! He only got one hour of sleep that night and stayed up all the next day with the kids while I rested. He’s been catering to my every need, doing the dishes, laundry, and taking care of the kids. He’s such a wonderful husband and dad. I couldn’t be happier and more content than I am now.

Here’s the video.

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