It’s hard to know where to begin a birth story, and for me that is even more true than for some. My first child was a planned home birth, ending a hospital transfer due to a stalled out labor. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with the assistance of a pitocin augmentation and no pain medications. It was a good ending to a stressful situation, but left me wondering about a lot of what-ifs regarding that experience and feeling in some ways a sense of doubt over my body’s ability to go into labor and stay there and whether or not my husband and I would be able to tell when it was time to head to hospital the next time around.

Fast forward 9 months... I was now pregnant a second time. The hospital my first child was born at had closed their obstetrics unit, so they were no longer an option and my husband and I had not been pleased with our midwife, the only one in our area. The closest two hospitals were both 45 mins to an hour away and were our only realistic option. 

I began researching the two hospitals immediately and ended up deciding on the smaller of the two. My main reason was that the larger hospital had a rotating doctor system and it would mean that any of the several doctors on-call could end up delivering my child. It also was a more rural route to that hospital vs. the one I chose, which was located directly off of the freeway. I liked the idea of a small, personal hospital where I would have my own doctor and be able to get a better idea of what to expect ahead of time.

As my pregnancy progressed, I began to wonder about my doctor and whether I’d made the right choice in picking that particular hospital. He didn’t seem very eager to talk or explain things to me and my husband during appointments and we wondered if he would be difficult to work with during the birth, especially since I wanted to go as natural and intervention-free as possible. I seriously considered switching hospitals at the beginning of my third trimester, but decided to go to one more appointment with every possible question for my doctor to test if he would be attentive to our concerns or not. He was. We were impressed. He assured us that he was very pro-natural and would do everything he could to help us achieve our goal of a natural childbirth. I realized later that he was just a really shy/introverted doctor and took a long time to warm up to us as a couple and become more talkative.

As the third trimester plugged along I had a series of nerve-wracking situations that really tested my patience. At 29 weeks we had a bout of false labor that sent us to the hospital with contractions less than 5 minutes apart for several hours. It petered out once we arrived there, but sure got us nervous. At 35 weeks I lost a chunk of mucous plug. No other symptoms followed, but I wasted no time researching what to expect in the event of a 35-week delivery. Then, at 37 weeks, I had 3 false runs to the hospital during just that one week, with intense, close-together contractions, each time feeling more real than the last. Each time I was told that my body was not progressing and I needed to just rest up at home and wait for real labor (Rest? Yeah right! How do you rest with contractions two minutes apart?)

The false labor gave Eric and I a lot of time to prepare ourselves and get any last-minute nesting out of the way, but it also got us more and more frustrated and impatient. An hour is a long way to drive only to be told to head home again and it really wore on both of us to think the baby was coming over and over again, only to learn we’d been mistaken. But we did get a chance to get very familiar with our hospital and learn which nurses we liked best and what to expect upon arrival there.

After the 3 false alarms, things slowed down a lot. My body continued to randomly contract at times, but it was obvious that I wasn’t experiencing real labor at any point. Time seemed to drag by sooo slowly and Eric and I felt more impatient every day. I packed and repacked the hospital bags and made checklist after checklist of things to do before Baby’s arrival. I sewed everything I could think to sew and made baby gifts for all my friends and relatives who were also expecting. All my friends and family members due in April had their babies and I found myself waiting around, wondering when my baby would decide to show up too. I found myself at 38 weeks, 39 weeks, then suddenly I was almost 40 weeks pregnant! I never expected to make it to full-term. Umbriel arrived before I had even hit 38 weeks so this was feeling like a very long pregnancy!

At 39 and a half weeks I began noticing that suddenly my baby was no longer locked into a head down position. He/she began a daily cycle of cartwheels and flips, ending in a side-lying (transverse) position. This started to scare me after a couple of days because I knew there was no way I could vaginally deliver a transverse baby. He/she needed to get back into a head-down position. I researched what causes babies to turn sideways in the womb and learned that often this happens with mothers of toddlers because of carrying the child on one hip. One hip ends up higher than the other one and they no longer form a bowl-shape for the baby to sink into. This seemed extremely likely to be the culprit for me. So, on Maundy Thursday, the day before my due date I arranged a Good Friday appointment with a chiropractor from my church. 

At the chiropractor I learned that my guess was right. One hip was much higher than the other and in addition my pelvis was tilting the wrong direction. The chiropractor told me that this was likely the cause of the baby turning as well as the extreme amount of discomfort I’d been in during the last few days and he estimated that my baby would come within just a couple of days after the adjustment. I felt worlds better and the baby clicked back into proper position immediately after the appointment. What a relief!

Later that afternoon Eric, Umbriel and I went to the community Good Friday service. I couldn’t get over how good I felt and was so happy that the baby had moved into proper position. I was feeling really happy to have made it to my due date and proud of my accomplishment.

We had an OB appointment after church, so we got in the car and drove straight there after the service. Umbriel napped in the car. At my appointment we learned that I had finally dilated one more centimeter and was now 3 cm dilated and 75% effaced, I’d been 2 centimeters for 3 weeks, so hearing that there was some change, however small it might be was exciting. My doctor offered to induce me on Monday, but I turned him down. I’d made it to 40 weeks. I really wanted to know my body could do this. I had the doctor strip my membranes, but asked to wait a week to schedule an induction. Doctor was fine with that and said babies have better outcomes when they arrive on their own terms.

After the appointment I began contracting. We went out to dinner and my contractions intensified. Eric was frustrated wondering why my body would start tricking us again by contraction this way and said he wished I would have scheduled an induction on Monday. The waiting game wasn’t exciting anymore. He was ready to throw in the towel. I tried my best to comfort him and reassure him that the baby would come soon, but “soon” didn’t sound quick enough for him.

After dinner we went to the grocery store and I continued to contract the whole time we were there. We bought some easy meal items and I got some evening primrose oil, a supplement that helps to assist in cervical effacement. I was hoping to avoid a medical induction, but was ready to start doing what I could to move things along at home.

All the way home my contractions kept coming. Eric joked at one point that it felt like we were driving the wrong direction, but I was not convinced that it was real labor. The contractions were still a ways apart and not too uncomfortable.

Things didn’t slow down at home, but didn’t pick up either. We went to bed and I continued to contract through the night (before I went to bed I made sure Umbriel’s overnight bag was packed, just in case). Eric checked my dilation (a skill he gained in our attempted home birth last time around) and thought I felt like I was 4 centimeters, and more effaced than before. It seemed like things were plugging along, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up, so we made a mental note and hunkered down for the night. 

The contractions were intense enough to wake me every time they came, but I slept in between them. By 6am though, I had done enough waking repeatedly and needed to move through the contractions. I got up and went out to the living room. I tried working through contractions on an exercise ball and that worked okay for a while. After a bit they intensified more though, so I got in the bathtub. I worked through them in there for a while, then thought I should eat some food in case these kept building. I got out of the tub and managed to eat a couple of granola bars while rocking on the exercise ball, but that was all I could do before feeling the need in the tub again. 

Eric got up at around 8am and I was in the tub. He offered to check my dilation again and I told him I wanted to wait a little bit. He called the hospital to see what they had to say and they said to just use our judgement on when to head in and that they couldn’t really tell us one way or another if it was time yet based on what my body was doing at that point. Umbriel woke up and seemed frightened by my contractions. The cried and ran out of the room every time one started and it was hard for me to see her behave that way. After a while I agreed to let Eric check me and he said it felt like I was at least 5 cm and really really effaced. I told him we should call a babysitter, so he did. It was about 9:30am by that time.

After he called I decided to get out of the tub so I could get dressed before the babysitter arrived. As soon as I was out of the tub the contractions hit me really hard! It was a struggle to get dressed and I had probably 5 or 6 contractions while getting dressed. They were coming close together and very strong! I soon discovered as well that my water must have broken while I was in the tub (I felt a gush at around 9:30, but didn’t think much of it at the time). I soaked through 3 menstrual pads in the process of getting dressed. When the babysitter arrived we handed Umbriel off to her and then scrambled around and grabbed any last-minute items we needed (camera, phone chargers, extra socks and underwear, etc,). Eric called the hospital and told them we were coming and then we headed out. 

On the drive, we still wondered if this could be another false run. It felt real, but so had all those other trips. I was managing to stay on top of the contractions way better this time than the last three times and that made us wonder if this was false labor too. I was quite certain my water was broken though because with every contraction I felt a gush of fluid and my pants were completely soaked by the time we arrived in Gaylord (the town of our hospital). I told Eric that last time things had progressed really slowly, so it could happen that way this time too... if this was even the real thing this time. I asked him to drive through Wendy’s so we could get some lunch just in case I had a really long labor, or this was false labor and we got sent home again. I knew in either of those cases we’d be super hungry by the time there was a chance to eat anything.

Wendy’s was having technical difficulties and their debit card machine was not working. We didn’t have any cash, so we couldn’t eat there. A block down the road on the same side was Arby’s, so I told Eric to just go there instead. I ordered their special angus three cheese and bacon sandwich with curly fries and an unsweetened iced tea and ate in the parking lot, since my pants were now totally drenched (down to the knees with what I could only assume was amniotic fluid). The fries tasted so good, but I told Eric that I probably shouldn’t have ordered fries as I was eating them, since they weren’t the easiest thing on a contracting tummy. There was a bank right next door and at one point I glanced at the clock and it was 11:12am. I got halfway through my sandwich and told Eric “we need to go NOW!” So away we zipped to the hospital.

Upon arrival we checked in at the front desk and signed a check-in form. Eric wheeled me to the “birth center” and I breathed and rocked through the contractions. When we got to the room I immediately flung off my pants and underwear and ran to the bathroom. It was very obvious that my water had broken as my pants were soaked and I was dripping fluid and gushing more of it with each contraction. The nurse came in (the ONE nurse we were hoping we wouldn’t get... not a mean lady, but sort of gruff and not very helpful or sweet). I asked right away if I could get in the bath, since that had felt so good at home, but the nurse told me I couldn’t since my water had already broken. She said the shower would be ok and I was ready to hop in right then and there, but she insisted that I get in bed so she could get a good tracing of the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions on the external fetal monitor strip. 

I begrudgingly headed to bed and the nurse said I was 6 (but super close to 7) centimeters dilated and completely effaced. She confirmed that my water had broken and said we would for sure be having a baby that day. I managed to stay hooked to the monitor for maybe 10 minutes, then the nurse left the room and I told Eric I needed to pee really bad so he unhooked me from the machine and I waddled into the bathroom. The nurse came back in and I was rocking on the toilet moaning through contractions. She told me to come back to bed so she could get a good tracing on the monitor. I told her I couldn’t. She said she really wanted me to so she could check on the baby. I managed to stand up, but just paced around the room swearing and saying I couldn’t go to bed. I just couldn’t and that I was probably dying. I must be! Then I tried to hop back on the toilet but the nurse told me I needed to come back to bed or else I might have my baby in the toilet. I thought it was weird that she was talking about my baby being born already, but managed to angrily tromp back to bed. I hopped into bed and felt my body starting to push (but didn’t tell my nurse). Nurse checked me and said I was complete, but that I should not push. Little did she know my body was already pushing. I couldn’t stop myself and started pushing along when I felt the urges come. She continued to shout “don’t push!” off and on as I quietly pushed. I thought to myself “you’re a nurse! I know you can catch my baby if it comes to that, even though you’re telling me not to push!” and I couldn’t go against what my body was doing. My body was pushing whether I pushed along or not.

Soon the doctor came in and as soon as his gloves were on he said I could go ahead and push whenever. The baby’s head was out pretty-much by the time his gloves were on. The nurse proceeded to stand by my head and hold my left knee up to my ear while directing Eric to do the same with the other knee and screamed “PUSH, PUSH, PUSH!” at me three times and then suddenly my baby went flying out of me in one push. Eric gasped “It’s a girl!” And I felt SO relieved that it was over.

Eric cut the cord and they laid Baby (Zaniah Io) on my chest while they rubbed her off. She was really blue from coming out so fast, so they took her away quickly and put her in the warmer and worked on getting her to pink up. Her color came quickly and I delivered the placenta and got stitched up (had a second degree tear from her coming out so quickly), then they showed her to me really fast before taking her away to the nursery for newborn testing. Eric went along, so I was left along in my room for what felt like an eternity. I was dying to nurse her and congratulate Eric. He says it was only about 15-20 minutes but it felt like at least an hour to me.

They returned and I nursed my little Zaniah. She did a great job! The nurses told me she was 9 lbs exactly and I was shocked. That nine pound baby had flown out of me so quickly that I had a hard time believing she was actually that big. She looked great, with a dark head of hair and ruddy skin tone like her daddy. She was born at 12:11pm, less than an hour after our arrival at the hospital. We didn’t even have a chance to sign everything we were supposed to sign before she was born.

Overall, I am so pleased with how the birth went. I feel so relieved that we made it to the hospital in time and am quite certain that it was solely because Eric knew how to check my dilation that we knew to go. It was such a short labor! I’m still blown away at how quick it was... only 2.5 hours from my water breaking to Zaniah’s birth!