Birth Story Of BEnjamin Aaron

“After three very unnecessary hospital inductions in my 39th week, I began to wonder if I had tricked my body into forgetting how to go into labor on it’s own. Sounds silly, but it was a very real thought I had when my guess date came and went. Each day that passed was more emotionally taxing than the last, but it was undeniably well worth it.

On Thursday October 22nd, I had what would be my last prenatal visit with Emily around 2 pm. Baby wasn’t completely engaged and there weren’t any signs of labor yet, so she helped try to make some extra room around my cervix for baby to wiggle down.

I left the visit and went straight to the chiropractor to be adjusted. I dropped my husband off at work for a short time and went to the store at about 5:30 to grab food for dinner. In the store I began to have a strong back pain that came and went. I then arrived at my parent’s house to pick up my 3 children. At this point the pain was hard to ignore, but I kept it to myself. I was sure it was nothing. I went home to cook dinner and there realized that these pains were coming consistently every 10 minutes. I wasn’t ready to call it labor yet, but these were a bit more painful than I had felt before.

By the time my husband got home at 6:45, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and were stopping me in my tracks. I texted Emily to let her know and then moved to the couch to eat dinner. As soon as I sat down, I could tell this wasn’t just “nothing”. I got up on my knees and leaned over the back of the couch, where I would stay for about the next hour and a half. My mom was the first to come over and helped put the kids to bed while I called my entire birth team. By that time the contractions were coming every 2.5-3 minutes and were much harder to cope with. Everyone arrived at 7:50 and Emily and Katie began to set up. My husband kindly reminded me to breathe as things got tough, and my doula, Serena, applied counter pressure to my back. At 8:30 we checked to see how dilated I was and I was at 8 centimeters! Shortly after, I got in the birth pool.

Emily intermittently listened to his heart rate. The first urge I got to push, my water broke. It was the first time my waters have ever spontaneously broke. My little guy decided to flip posterior towards the end of labor, but rotated back before crowning. Pushing with him was harder than any of my other children because he was quite a bit bigger than they were. At 10:06 pm, he was finally here! I was able to be the first one to touch him and bring him to my chest. It was the most incredible experience. He was 8lbs 10oz and 21 inches long.

I delivered my placenta in the pool and then laid on the couch to breastfeed Benjamin for the first time. I had quite a bit of bleeding afterwards, but Emily handled it with amazing skill.

The entire experience I felt respected by the space everyone gave me, I felt trusted to be able to listen to my body, and I felt so fortunate to have the support I had throughout this process!”