Birth Story Of Cora June
I want to share our birth story, because it was an amazing experience, and honestly it went by so fast that I need to make sure to have it in writing so I can properly remember it!
My pregnancy was not easy. Morning sickness (aka all day sickness) began around 4.5 weeks. It was really difficult to give attention to Tyler while feeling like absolute garbage. He was usually really sweet about it and would ask, “Mommy, are you sick because of the baby in your tummy?”. I took Unisom and B6 up until 27/28 weeks, and also used Scopolamine patches during the worst weeks, which helped a ton but were crazy expensive!
From 18-20 weeks, we vacationed down in Florida, and I felt decent as long as I kept taking my meds. We went to the beach almost every day, did a fair amount of walking, and I got to do yoga a few times per week.
Around 26/27 weeks was when the COVID-19 / Coronavirus pandemic began. Non-essential businesses were forced to close, and everyone was encouraged to stay in their homes and not interact with people outside of their households. With so much uncertainty at the time, we weren’t sure what the state of the hospitals would be when it came time to deliver in June. We had considered home birth before, but we initially stuck with Family Beginnings birth center since we had a good experience there with Tyler.
I started researching home birth and set up a few initial visits with home birth midwives. Emily Schultz was the first one that we met with, and I immediately felt better from her calm and confident presence. Our first visit lasted over 3 hours… she answered all of our questions and I was now 100% convinced that a home birth was the right choice for us!
My care with Emily was extremely different from the care I was getting with the hospital midwives. She humored Tyler and his requests for her to give his stuffed animal dinosaur a checkup every time, and had suggestions for my nutrition, supplements, and overall health. She genuinely cared, and listened patiently to my pregnancy complaints and anxieties. It didn’t take long for her to feel like a long-time trusted friend, who just happened to know a ton about pregnancy, birth and babies!
I also hired a doula, Katie Sword, who was super helpful in talking through my emotions regarding the birth, ideal plans for this birth, and discussing the logistics and what-ifs. She also enabled Jon to help me cope with contractions during labor and made everything go smoothly.
During the 3rd trimester, I had a lot of hip and pelvic pain. I found a new chiropractor and started going regularly, which helped a lot. I also had a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions, which were not painful most of the time… just annoying. I didn’t have any with Tyler until the day before he was born, so it was pretty annoying to have them for such a long time. The last few weeks of pregnancy, they picked up a lot more and were sometimes painful. I had a few moments when I thought actual labor might be starting, but the real thing didn’t start until my due date, June 15th!
On to the birth story….
June 15th was my due date. Because Tyler came almost a week early, I was partially expecting Cora to come early as well….. So when she didn’t, I was already pretty anxious to meet her and felt like she was ‘late’. Around 4pm, Emily came over for my scheduled weekly midwife appointment, and we discussed options for naturally inducing in the coming weeks, if necessary. During my checkup, she realized that Cora’s position was posterior (aka sunny side up), so we thought that might be the reason why she was still cozy inside. She also checked my dilation and found that I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced. I was convinced that if I could get Cora to flip back over to the optimal position that she had been in my entire 3rd trimester, then labor would start pretty soon after. Emily left around 7 and we ate dinner (enchiladas that my friend Jennifer graciously brought over earlier that day), and I did some exercises to try and get Cora to turn over.
Around 8:45, I put Tyler to bed and had several strong contractions that I couldn’t really ignore. After that I went to the bathroom and noticed some bloody discharge. Around 10, I decided to lay down to see if the contractions would stop (as they had done in the past), or if I could possibly get some rest. I started timing the contractions and they were consistently 5 - 6 minutes apart. By 10:45 I was pretty certain this was real labor, notified the birth team and they were quickly on their way!
Emily and Katie showed up around 11:15 / 11:30 and an assisting midwife and an assistant were on their way as well. By 11:45, Jon was setting up the pool while Katie and Emily helped me through contractions and checked on the baby’s heart tones and position. Cora moved around several times during labor so the posterior position didn’t end up being an issue at all. Although I did have a lot of back pain / pressure during labor and really needed counter pressure on my lower back during every contraction. Katie, Emily, and Jon all traded off helping me.
Around 12:30, the pool was filled up and we talked about me getting in, but I wanted Emily to check my dilation first, just to see where we were and make sure I wasn’t getting in too early. I stood up to go to the bathroom before getting into the pool, but then my water broke with a loud POP and SPLASH! This was at 12:35am.
I waddled to the bathroom with Katie’s help but didn’t even make it to the toilet before a huge contraction completely took me over. It was insanely strong and I felt like it lasted forever. The midwives heard me from the living room and rushed in. Jon said it was fun to see the looks on their faces go from relaxed and chill to GO TIME. Emily comes into the bathroom and says “Ok, I don’t need to check you - you are about to have this baby!” They helped me get my shorts off and get into the pool.
When I got in the pool, I reached down and could feel Cora’s head. Especially after having that last INTENSE contraction, I felt a sense of relief come over me that this is not going to last much longer, and she is going to be in my arms SO soon! Jon noticed my mood shift too, and mentioned how empowered and excited I sounded. I had just one or two contractions in the pool before pushing her head out. It felt fast and I knew I was going to tear, but couldn’t really stop my body from pushing her out! The wait for the next contraction to push the rest of her body out felt like forever. I was feeling her head and talking to her. I tried to feel for a cord around her neck but could only feel her little ears. Finally, another contraction came and I pushed her shoulders out, which was surprisingly difficult, but then I had her in my hands! Once she was out, we had to keep her under the water until her cord was untangled. The cord was pretty short, and it was tangled around her leg, body and neck. Emily said it was the most tangled cord she’s ever seen! But Emily was able to untangle it and bring her up to the surface for her first breath and first snuggle with mama. Cora June was born at 12:46, just 11 minutes after my water broke.
She was pretty relaxed and didn’t cry loudly, but she was breathing well and all her vitals were great. I birthed the placenta, which happened easily and without complications. After about 20 minutes, the umbilical cord stopped pulsating, and Jon cut the cord. Right afterwards, she nursed for the first time, with a good strong suck, but I could already tell that she was going to need a tongue / lip tie revision.
We stayed in the pool for about 45 minutes after she was born. I hadn’t planned on staying in for so long, but the water was still warm and I was comfortable. Ultimately, I passed Cora to Jon and got out of the pool so I could get stitched up from my 3rd degree tear. The stitches took a while….. Not fun! Emily also did a quick tongue and lip tie revision on Cora, which we further revised 2 days later. I was happy to have a proactive response to her tongue, lip and cheek ties, as breastfeeding has been much easier than it was with Tyler. Cora, by the way, measured at 8lb 13oz, and 21 inches long.
My postpartum recovery went pretty well, aside from an ER visit at 8 days postpartum. I had a lot of bleeding and called my midwife over…. She ultimately sent us to the ER because it turned out to be an internal hemorrhoid that ruptured. It was a long night / day, but my bleeding stopped and everything turned out to be fine. I tried my best to take it easy and stay off my feet so I could heal properly and quickly!
Congratulations if you made it all the way through our birth story. This is our last baby, which makes me sad that I won't be able to go through the birth process again.... but I am glad that I had such an incredible experience! I want to give a huge thank you to my birth team for supporting me and for taking so many beautiful photos!
