Micah

Birth of Micah in his mothers worlds!

Pt. 1

Saturday morning (7/16) at 9:30, I woke up to what felt like period-like cramps but with a little bit of that tightening feeling so I opened my pregnancy app and timed them half asleep. When I fully woke up again around 10:45, I looked at my phone and realized there was actually a pattern - they were about 10 minutes apart. I got out of bed, because they had never been consistent like this for an hour, and went to the living room to sit on the couch. Noah woke up and then my mom came out and I explained I was possibly having real contractions this time.

Around 12pm, I lost my mucus plug - which slightly sent me into a panic because I knew this was it, seeing the tinge of blood in it and all. I texted Kalob, who was at work, and let him know that “I’m pretty sure I am in real labor lol”. He immediately dropped everything he was doing and told his boss he was leaving, which made me laugh because I was under the impression, I still had all the time in the world. Being 41 weeks exactly, I had this voice in my head trying to play it down like - this isn’t REALLY happening right now.

Kalob came home and went into focus mode. He cleaned the room, blew up the tub, attached the hose to the shower and started filling everything up. About 3pm, contractions started to get further apart until they were like 30-45minutes apart, so I went outside and did a couple laps around the driveway.

About 6pm, I was hungry and so Kalob and I got in the car to go to subway - the car ride was enough to bump the contractions back down to 20 minutes apart.

Pt. 2

9pm rolls around and my doula, Hanna, checks in - I let her know they are definitely stronger but nothing I couldn’t breathe/talk through. She suggested doing the Miles Circuit so I did. By 11pm, I was exhausted. Everyone went to sleep and I laid in bed watching tv, dozing off here and there, but then waking up because the contractions were getting more painful - but still too far apart.

I used the TENS machine throughout the night to help me get through them. Luckily, 1 minute really flies by when you’re in pain LOL. Throughout the night, I kept getting up because I felt like I had to go to the bathroom - but I would sit down, pee a little, breathe through a contraction and then nothing. That in denial voice in my head kept saying, this is probably just gas pains or constipation and you’re not actually in labor. Ha.

Around 1am, after some really strong and exhausting few contractions, I shut the tv off and just tried sleep because I figured things were actually happening at this point (clearly, dalis lol) and I didn’t want to be super sleep deprived in active labor.

This whole time, I am thinking to myself wow if this hurts, I can’t imagine what labor feels like. In hindsight, I am cracking up because that WAS labor - but apparently, I have a much higher pain tolerance than I thought I did… (as far as early labor goes. active labor was another beast).

Pt. 3

From 1-4am, I was sleeping for about 10 minutes in between each contraction until they were 5-6 minutes apart and I could no longer ignore the fact that this was really happening. I ACTUALLY thought in my head, “I don’t need to text/wake anyone up yet… these could stop at any point”. Talk about in denial! 😂 There were two people in my head, one played it down - the other was panicking saying I should have called hours ago lol.

After psyching myself out about calling everyone too late & possibly having to do it alone, I woke up Kalob and told him my contractions were 5 minutes apart. He sprung up so fast and started getting things ready. He called Hanna (my doula) for me and I texted my midwives, Patricia + Celeste. Everyone immediately said they’d be on their way. Kalob woke up my mom and set up the back living room for Noah & my mom to sleep in. But of course, my mom did not sleep whatsoever, haha, she just kept an eye on Noah for us.

My doula showed up around 4:30/5 and the midwives came around 5:30. I sat on the ball and rocked through some contractions while everyone started setting stuff up. Because my contractions were so close together, my birth team told me I could get in the water at any point now. They started boiling pots of water to throw in the tub because the water Kalob had put in the day before was already cold.

I wanted to wait as long as possible though because I was nervous that once I got in the water, the contractions would space out and I’d be in labor longer. I didn’t want to have to get out of the tub because I had read so many stories about mamas having to get out and how the contractions just felt worse once you’re out of the water. 😬

BUT my doula explained to me that for some people it’ll slow down labor but for others, it can actually move things along so we wouldn’t know unless I tried!

Pt. 4

At this point, times are a blur to me so I am just guessing lol. Around 6ish, the midwife takes all my vitals, listens to baby’s heartbeat and for the first time in my entire pregnancy - checks my cervix. I told her, I don’t know if I want to know the number because I am nervous with this amount of pain, that I will only be at like 4-5cm. She checked and said, oh you’re at 7cm, you can get in the water at any time you like! When I tell you I was SHOCKED, I mean wow. Baby was almost here.

This is also around the time I stopped timing my contractions on my phone. They had been around 3 minutes apart and my doula was like, you can stop timing them if you’d like — I definitely wanted to stop because although it kept me busy, I kept looking at the times and once 3 minutes was up, I started anticipating the pain and I feel like it made it worse.

I decided to get in the pool as they were still working on bringing pots of boiling water to add in. I got in & immediately felt relief. My feet & legs had been freezing so getting in the water helped me to relax all the muscles from the waist down. About 10 min in, I start to feel the water kind of cooling off & contractions are coming in closer now. I moved over from sitting on my bottom, to on my knees hanging over the tub, holding Kalob’s hands. This is when my anxiety kicked in & I was uncontrollably shaking but Kalob would squeeze my hands hard enough to keep me leveled out mentally. I think the shaking was partially because the water felt like it was getting cold too.

I was still able to just breathe & quietly groan through the pain but it was absolutely getting harder each time. Once the contractions would stop, my entire body would relax and I’d start to fall asleep.

Then, I got a contraction that was so painful, I had to move back over on my back so I could hold onto the handles of the pool. I feel like this is when things started moving quickly and I started getting vocal — moaning ow through most contractions.

Pt. 5

Wave after wave got stronger & I could feel the pressure building. I didn’t consciously make an effort to push because I could feel my body doing what it needed to do. Similar to the reflex when you poop or throw up, my body was ‘pushing on its own’. After a few really painful waves, I could have sworn the baby’s head was out — the pressure was so bad, it had to be.

My midwife reaches in and checks me & I could feel that nothing was out. She says, “I feel your bag of water! It’s right there. Once you push baby’s head out it’ll burst!” For some, that could have been exciting but for me it was the point where I started to feel defeated. Like, nothing was even out yet and I don’t know how much further I can go. I remember just dropping my head back & crying.

The next wave came & was so strong, I had to move back over on my knees. When I moved over, I remember sobbing & pretty much hyperventilating, saying “I can’t do it, I can’t do it”. But I could hear my birth team encouraging me, “Yes you can, he’s almost here, you got it, you’re almost done”

So, I had to really breathe and think: ok what could you possibly even do? get up and go to the hospital for an epidural? LOL. he’s right there, you just have to push through these last few and he’ll be here.

Another wave & I decided to consciously push with it. The ring of fire is really freaking real but only lasted for a bit until his head came out! I believe this is also when my vocals went from the groaning to screaming and my doula had to remind me to keep the tones in a low pitch to help me move through it.

As his head was out, I waited for the next wave and tried to just relax. I could feel the cord pulsing which was woah, so cool/weird lol. Then it came — my body started to push and I didn’t even really have to push much before the rest of him came out!

As my midwife caught him, I instantly started sobbing. I kept my head down and stayed in that position for a bit just crying. This huge blanket of emotions just came over me. I did it. I am freaking did it. My entire pregnancy flashed before my eyes; now it was over AND I have a freakin cute baby to show for all my hard work 😭