The Birth Story of Rachel

This pregnancy was harder than the first from the beginning- longer morning sickness, major discomfort, prodromal labor- all of it. That’s partially why I was sure it was a boy- it was so different. I was flabbergasted and it took me a while to adjust after the ultrasound where the tech said, “That is definitely a girl picture.”

This girl was sitting very low, and I had people mention it even when I was only 7 months along, and it didn’t take me long to realize it. It was terribly uncomfortable.

Several times in my 38^th week I had real, regular contractions, and twice I called my midwife into the birthing center (once staying overnight) but nothing was progressing enough to produce a baby either time. I found out that what I was experiencing was called prodromal labor, where the contractions are real and regular for a given amount of time but they don’t progress in intensity and then stop, often happening the same time of day. So this is what I dealt with that week.

On that Sunday I went home early from church not feeling well, and slept for a couple hours before my family got home. Since I was able to nap during church, that afternoon I did some hypnosis from the hypnobabies track on turning a posterior facing baby. The next few days I dedicated myself to working harder than ever to get baby into a good position by doing all the exercises my midwife had given me to do and by listening to the hypnobabies track. A couple days into it I felt the baby move into a different position, but I couldn’t tell if it was a favorable position until the midwife confirmed that it was at my appointment that week. And she didn’t move from that position, and the prodromal labor finally stopped. No more contractions. Thank heaven.

A week later the contractions came back with a vengeance. I woke at 1:30 in the morning that Wednesday to contractions so intense I couldn’t sleep through them. They were 7 minutes apart. They stayed that way all night. I was excited when my husband’s alarm went off and told him it was probably going to happen today so he could stay home from work, which he did. Then my contractions started getting further apart instead of closer, but they stayed just as intense all day long. I was thankful for him being there with our two year old because it would’ve been a very hard day trying to take care of her through those contractions. As the day wore on the contractions became more and more sporadic. It’d be 45 minutes between contractions, and then two hours, and then I’d have three in the course of five minutes. I decided this was just more prodromal labor. By the time 9:30 pm rolled around I was miserable so, in desperation, I called my midwife, and told her my situation and asked if there was anything I could do to get things to speed up or slow down enough that I could sleep. So she told me to lie down on my side and see if the contractions would regulate and if they did then I could call her. So I went to bed, lying on my side as instructed. The contractions were 7 minutes apart and didn’t get any closer together, but they got more intense. They started getting intense enough that I couldn’t stay quiet through them, so I went to lie on the couch so I wouldn’t disturb my husband. They still stayed at 7 minutes apart, but they were more intense than I could try and sleep through, and soon they got more intense than I could even lay down through. Around 1:30, while heating up a rice bag for my back, I had a contraction that was bad enough that I was basically screaming through it, doubled over the counter. My husband came out of our room and asked if it was time to go in, and all I could say was, “Yes!” He had to help me sit down at a chair after that, and I had him grab my phone so I could call the midwife. When I called her she said she was on her way to Logan to deliver another baby but that she would call in another midwife to sub for her, then I called Amanda, my doula, and told her I was on my way there. Suddenly my contractions got close enough together that there was basically no break in between them. We got everything in the car and drove as fast as we could to the birthing center.

Amanda pulled in right at the same time we did, and my husband pulled the car right up to the base of the stairway, and he helped me out of the car. We had to pause several times on the way up the stairs- several times for me, once to wait for Amanda to unlock the door. Once we got upstairs I threw myself on the bed. A few minutes later I got up to use the bathroom, then returned to the main room. Amanda had put out a birthing ball for me to sit on, and I went to sit on it and found that it put more pressure on my hips than I wanted to deal with, so I got on my knees and elbows on the bed. Amanda was rubbing my back and during contractions and tried pressure on certain pressure points to ease the pain, and even had my husband try pushing on some, but all they tried just made the pain worse. Then suddenly my water broke and gushed out all over the bed. I had planned a water birth from day one, and even at that point all I wanted to do was to get in the water. The pool wasn’t filled though and the midwife wasn’t there yet, so I asked if I could get in the bathtub, and we filled it up. Many of the positions I got into in the tub put extra pressure on my hips or my back, but I finally found a comfortable position and remained there. Amanda took down the removable shower head and sprayed it over my belly and my hips, and I was surprised at how good that felt. Sometime throughout this course the new midwife, arrived. She seemed to be overly worried about how comfortable I looked and tried to find a towel I could use as a pillow, and even tried to see if I wanted to get out and lean over a birthing ball in the other room. I remember trying to get up, and then sinking down and saying, “I don’t want to move.” And I didn’t. It wasn’t long after that that I felt the sudden urge to push, and I moved to my hands and knees and began pushing. It was such a relief to push. When she began descending the pain was overwhelming, and I tried to push quickly so that she would come out faster, but I was advised to pause for a minute to let the skin stretch, and it was all I could do to stop myself. I resumed pushing and a few minutes later I felt a huge relief as the baby slid right out into the midwife’s hands at 3:37 am, and she and Amanda worked to thread her through my legs so that I could hold her, and I leaned back and held my baby for the first time. The midwife asked, “What have you got there?” and I double checked, and said, “It’s a girl.” She calmed right down once I started rocking her, and I stuck her partially in the water so she could stay warm for a minute. I then turned around so that I could lean back on the back of the tub. We sat for a bit, and I just held my tiny, dark-haired little one. The midwife was concerned with the amount of bleeding I was having, and gave me a shot of pitocin to get the bleeding slowed down. I soon delivered the placenta and it didn’t take long for the cord to stop pulsing and my husband was able to cut it. 

Soon it was time to move to the bed. I was once again handed my sweet baby. 

We were both examined. Baby was 20.75 inches long, head circumference 14 inches. She asked if we had any guesses as to how much she weighed. My husband and I both guessed something in the 7 ½ lbs range, and both the midwife and Amanda looked at the scale, then to us, then back to the scale with surprised amusement. “8 lbs, 15.5 oz, but we have to round up, so that’s 9 lbs.” 

Not long after my midwife returned from Logan, and the substituting midwife caught her up on the main points of what had gone on during the night. While cleaning up they asked if I wanted to keep the placenta. I refused, but I wanted to look at it and have them show me how it worked. It was quite fascinating.

 Things had wound down and I was getting ready to try to sleep a little bit so Amanda decided to go home, and it wasn’t long after that the replacement midwife left too. My husband left to go home and I was left alone with the baby to sleep and she spent the next several hours sleeping next to me on the bed or in my arms. 

I didn’t do quite as much sleeping, but the quiet was nice. My midwife came and checked on me periodically between appointments and brought me lunch when my husband didn’t show up before I got hungry.

My husband came and brought our little girl around noon. When she walked in, she came tentatively. I asked her if she wanted to see the baby and I helped her onto the bed, and she looked and her, and asked if she could touch her hair. She kept looking at me and saying, “Baby coot.” (Baby cute) Then she asked, “Hold it?” and I helped her hold her sister.

We gave her a baby doll a little while later so she could have her own baby, and she enjoyed playing with it and exploring the birthing suite, and before long we went home to start our new life with our beautiful new little Rachel.

Special thanks go out to my wonderful doula, Amanda of Power Birth, Peaceful Birth, without whom I would have be stuck laboring in the car for an hour, during which my water broke. Her support and help were very much appreciated.

Thanks also to my wonderful midwife. She is amazing and extremely supportive. Even though she wasn't able to be there for the actual birth there is so much to thank her for. 

Big thanks go to the replacement Midwife, who drove like a maniac from Wyoming to be there for me in time.

But the biggest thanks go to my husband for all the love, support, and missed work he gave me to help me through the rough patches. He is a wonderful husband and daddy, and I thank my Heavenly Father daily for the amazing blessing he is in ours lives.