Elie's Birth Story!!

Photo cred to Sarah Wiseman Photography. Love her!! P.S. this is her very first cry :')

I literally wrote up my entire 40 week bumpdate post for nothing since this little lady decided to arrive on her due date, like who does that?? XD But let's get down to the nitty gritty! Expect some gory details.

Saturday, June 24

I woke up feeling like poop. The baby dropped hard, and my pelvis could really tell. I was incredibly sore doing anything other than lying down. I had maybe 7 contractions all day. I just wasn't feeling too hot. I told Husband before he left for work that there might not be a point in him going in but insisted he go anyway just in case. Around 2100 I ate half my dinner (read the only thing I had to eat until after this baby was born). Around 2300 I started telling myself I should probably go to bed, but I got way too distracted by Zuma and ended up staying up later than anticipated. I kept going to the bathroom after each contraction because for whatever reason contractions made me have to pee.

Sunday, June 25

0148 my water broke while walking to the bathroom after contraction number 4 in 2 hours. I immediately called my midwife to tell her and determine what our course of action should be. She advised going back to bed (little did she know I hadn't been to bed yet). Then I called Husband's work to let him know we were having a baby TODAY. To help pass the time while I waited for him to get home, I called my mom and sister. While on the phone with them, my contractions really picked up from every 30 minutes to every 3. The intensity was very mild, about a 2 on the pain scale. 0248 Husband got home and got our birth pool set up with all the birth supplies in the kitchen ready to go for the midwife.
0308 my contractions started to intensify. I put on a movie to try to stay distracted. By 0405, my contractions were consistently 3 minutes apart but were only lasting 40 seconds which told us that Elie was busy trying to turn herself around and get into a better birthing position. 0644 I had managed to do some sleeping between contractions, but they were getting stronger. Still just 3 minutes apart and not lasting long enough. I got in the shower three times to try to ease the back labor. My pelvis was in so much pain. When the contractions were in my uterus instead, it was a lot more bearable. I had been losing pieces of my mucus plug all morning and threw up twice. I was so hungry, but I just didn't feel like eating. Even water was hitting my stomach wrong.
1112 the contractions are starting to get bad, about a 4 or 5 on the pain scale. I woke Husband up to microwave a rice sock for me to put on my back. Getting on my knees with pillows under my chest and the sock on my back really helped with the pain. Gravity kept the baby off my pelvis, and the heat helped my pelvis to relax and let Elie move around as she needed to. Eventually, all the weight was too much for my knees, and I had to move, but it felt great while it lasted. I asked Husband to apply counterpressure to my back so I could sleep a little more because I decided that at 1400 I was going to get up and try to eat and drink before birthing this baby.
Bad idea, though, because I woke up at 1357 to contractions that were finally five minutes apart and lasting longer than a minute, but these contractions were no joke. They had two peaks. Right as I thought it was starting to taper off, it would build again. Most of these were lasting 2 minutes, sometimes even three. I hit a 7 on the pain scale, but the midwife was thinking it was still going to be a few more hours. At this point, I lost my composure. I was really concerned that I wasn't going to be able to handle this after all.
1425, the contractions were coming right on top of each other, and I was feeling the need to push. I finally got some bloody show. I was having a hard time staying calm at this point and was yelling at Husband to get my midwife here now. He started filling up the pool. My midwife said I was probably dilated to a 7 so to help stall labor until she could get here (she lives in Stillwater so it would be about an hour before she could get here), I had my butt up in the air with my chest down to try to use gravity to keep Elie off my cervix so I would stop dilating. I texted the photographer to tell her to go ahead and head this way.
1457 even with my butt up, I was starting to feel like I had to push again so I got in the pool. We had run out of hot water, of course, so we started boiling water to get it up to my body temp so as not to shock the baby. Luckily we were only off by 4 degrees so it didn't take too many pots of boiled water. The photographer got here around 1520. About 10 minutes later, so did the midwife. She did a quick vitals check and made sure the baby was handling the contractions just fine. All was well. We talked through what to expect and how to move through the next stages of labor. I got the okay to start pushing her down further.
Around 1640, fetal ejection reflex kicked in. Husband was having trouble not passing out so he was elsewhere, but the midwife said we were about to have a baby so I called him into the living room. At this point the contractions were far apart again so I was getting plenty of time to catch my breath between pushes. I had a mirror and actually saw her head even before the midwife did. At the point where she should have crowned and stayed out, she got sucked back in so it looked like the cord was probably wrapped around her neck. After I got her head out a second time, the midwife got the cord unwrapped. Then just a couple more pushes, and I had our baby girl! She was born at 1704.
She started screaming as soon as she came to the surface which really surprised me, but it got her a 9 on the APGAR at one minute old. Her second score was a 10. The placenta took its sweet time exiting my body because I had my legs too close together so it didn't have room to escape.

They are so protective of her already

We went into the living room to do our checks. Baby Girl weighed in at 7 pounds even and 20 inches even. We both looked good, but my blood pressure was on the lower side probably because of how little I had eaten. I had no perineal tearing and no hemorrhoids. I did have a labial split on each side, but those heal so much faster than anything else. Also, we did no perineal prep. No perineal massage. No Red Raspberry Leaf Tea. No Evening Primrose Oil. Nothing. So if you take your time through your birth and go through the journey together with your baby trusting your body, it doesn't have to be a rough experience.

Now that it's all said and done, had I known how close I was to the end of the labor, I would've handled it a lot better. I was just convinced I had so many hours ahead of me. All in all, we had about 15 hours of labor, most of which I spent sleeping on and off, followed by 28 minutes of pushing after the fetal ejection reflex kicked in. And I got to have my baby girl in the comfort of my own home in my own way. I didn't have to worry about our dogs who handled meeting Mommy's new puppy very well (I attribute this to them being around at the time of the birth instead of us showing up with a stranger). We do have a chiropractic appointment lined up for little miss Elie, but the midwife says she didn't have a rough journey out so it should be routine. So ya! That's our story :) Feel free to ask me any questions. I'd love to share!