Ezra
March 2023
All 4 of my previous babies were born 9 or 10 days early with each labor progressively quicker. This was my 5th pregnancy so I fully anticipated that this baby would follow suit, but I should’ve known he would be different because everything about this pregnancy was different from the start. He was our first unplanned pregnancy, the first baby we didn’t find out gender for at the 20 wk ultrasound, and our first home birth.
At 38 weeks I prepared as I usually did for an early baby, but the 9 and 10 day early mark came and went and I had all the emotions you would expect someone with unmet expectations to feel. I felt overdue even though I technically wasn’t, and I was miserable. I spent the days leading up to his birth trying all the things people say will help induce labor. Starting 5 days before my due date I had 3 days of prodromal labor, with contractions coming regularly for hours at a time and getting my hopes up, but instead of progressing, they eventually just tapered off. It was so frustrating and mentally exhausting!
Then finally, on March 23, (2 days before my due date) at around 4pm, I started having contractions again. I was hesitant to get too excited after several days of false alarms, so I tried my best to go about my evening as normal. I made dinner for my family, took a shower, and cleaned up the kitchen. Contractions were noticeable but not prohibitive of anything I was doing. At around 8 my husband and my mom went up to put our kids to bed and I started timing contractions. They joined me in our living room when they came down from getting kids to bed, we turned on our fire place, and the 3 of us just chatted and joked while my body did its thing. Initially, I would drop out of the conversation a little bit each time a contraction came, but as things progressed, I would tell them both when I had one coming because I needed it quiet so I could focus and breathe through it. It wasn’t until probably 9:30 that I was able to admit to myself that it might be real labor this time, and I was SO excited that it was finally happening!
Because things took such a fast turn towards the end of my labor with my 4th baby, we decided to err on the side of caution with our timing for having the midwives come. My husband texted Jen at 10 and she and Emily arrived around 10:30. I had been a little apprehensive about what it would be like to have them in my home essentially just watching me be in pain, but they did such a nice job keeping a quiet eye on me from a distance without disrupting me at all aside from checking baby’s heart rate every 30 mins or so. I continued to labor in our living room and kept waiting for a sudden shift towards pain and frantic feelings that baby was coming like I had experienced on some level toward the end with each of my previous pregnancies, but that frantic feeling never really came. Everything happened so smoothly and gradually.
It was probably around 11:45pm when contractions started to seem noticeably more intense. I stood in front of our fireplace with my arms around my husband’s neck, swaying side to side through each contraction and eventually started to feel the pressure of baby’s head and decided to move into our bedroom. We had a birthing pool available to us, but since it was cold and snowy outside the idea of being wet and naked never appealed to me, and we had a waterproof mattress cover on our bed in case I wanted to be there, but by the time I got into our room it seemed like too much work to climb onto the bed. I ended up on my hands and knees on the floor for a few contractions and then eventually settled in on my knees with my upper body resting on the bed. My husband knelt on the opposite side of the bed corner and held my hands. After only one or two contractions in this position I felt my water break and began to feel a strong and involuntary urge to push. Jen and Emily helped me get my pants off and put some pads down on the floor under me to catch the mess. I gave it a few strong pushes while I tightly gripped Bryan’s hands, resting with my head on the bed between contractions. Jen instructed me just to breathe through the surge when I started to feel the burn of baby’s head coming through, and then after a few pushes, out he came! My FIFTH baby. My FOURTH SON! I held him to my chest, still wearing one of my husband’s big t-shirts and just marveled at the fact that he was finally here, in my arms, on my bedroom floor. I loved him instantly, despite the fleeting moment of disappointment I had when I saw that he wasn’t a girl! He was perfect. The whole experience was just steady and peaceful and beautiful.
