My Birth Story
I wanted to share our story in the hopes of exposing more people to how natural the birth process can be. That’s not to say that this path is for everyone, but there’s so much fear unnecessarily spread around the birthing process that we rarely get to see how capable our bodies actually are. Yes, it hurt, but also yes, I did it. And I’ll never doubt my strength or power again.
My water dramatically broke at 5am, it jolted me out of my sleep and I woke Zach up asking him to get me a towel. I waddled to the toilet and sat there looking at Zach in disbelief. I turned to google and reassured us both that it could still be days until our baby arrived since this was two weeks before our “due date.” I decided to take a shower just in case and by the time I turned the water off, my contractions were full on. Each surge was around a minute long with 1-3 minute breaks in between. The intensity grew quickly and stayed like that for 9 hours.
My amazing doula, Meghan, and midwife, Karly, arrived and assisted me through each wave of intensity. Zach and I were not ready so it took some time to set up the birth tub and affix the hose to the shower). I labored about 4.5 hours on our bed and then happily moved to the tub in the living room once it was ready. With every contraction I exhaled with a deep sound that my amazing prenatal yoga instructor taught me to ease the pain, I also lost my voice from doing this for 9 hours.
Every time the pain felt like too much, Meghan and Karly reminded me that I was strong enough, that I was made for this. They never showed an ounce of doubt in me, which helped me remember that for myself. I was on another planet in between each rush, and then brought back into my body as the intensity roared through me. I repeated this dance over and over sitting in the tub in my living room surrounded with love and faith in me.
I was in active labor for the entire time, and it was starting to feel like forever. I didn’t have the urge to push yet and started to doubt myself. I needed reassurance which Karly provided only with my asking for it. She gently told me I was very close and all was progressing as it should. Shortly after that I felt like I had to poop. The time to push had arrived. And so did the poop (sorry Karly)!
After about an hour and a half of pushing and pooping. I felt like my vagina was going to explode. I was sure our baby was practically out but was not able to feel his head. I was feeling defeated yet again and asked Karly to check if he was close. She told me he was about 3 inches away from being in my arms. It was motivating but also I was in shock that with how intense it felt, he wasn’t right there yet! I reminded myself that this was our baby’s journey too and they were working just as hard to join us. After more pushing I was finally able to feel the softness of our baby’s head. It was all I needed to continue on.
Zach joined me in the tub so he could catch the baby, and Karly reminded me that if I felt like it, I could switch from pushing to blowing outwardly to reduce the possibility of tearing, or if it felt better to push that I could continue in that way. The journey was always mine, and I felt empowered to flow with my instincts. Zach held our baby’s head in his hands and as he began to emerge further he gently passed the baby through to me. I held his head in my arms and barely had a moment to grasp him before his entire body left mine. In that moment I felt my soul drop back into my body from the journey it went on to retrieve our child.
And there we were, a family now, holding each other in that tub, taking in our first breaths together. All the pain had subsided, I already had forgotten it, and all that mattered was this beautiful life in my arms. I birthed the placenta about 20 minutes later and felt even more of a release. We sat there in the tub with the placenta floating in a bowl next to us, reminding us of how magical this life is.
Zach cut the cord about 7 minutes after it was birthed, and when Zion began to cry, the wolf made his way inside and stood right by us to check out his new baby brother. We then slowly moved back to the bedroom and placed Zion on my chest to breastfeed. He latched on and pretty much stayed there for the next two days. That evening Zach and I held our new son, held each other and cried tears of joy over what we had just experienced together.
Zion slept well, but Zach and I could barely sleep. Still so high on adrenaline and taking in the beautiful sight of our child. We couldn’t take our eyes off him, how clear and pure this little light beam in our arms was. Zion’s birth was the most empowering experience of my life. The whole journey of pregnancy took me through so many highs and lows, and the birth itself was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. But I trusted myself, and I trusted Zion. And we did it together. I’ll never be the same, and I feel so blessed and honored for that.