A Week of Labor
One year later, I reflect on Holden’s home-birth. A year ago I actually shared a quick blog post about his birth story, in a way that felt attainable at a few weeks postpartum. Now, a year later, I can look back on all of the details and perspective to really lay it all out there. After a traumatic birth and postpartum experience with my oldest, I had prayed for a redemptive home-birth. I also prayed that I would be able to stay present and remember all of the details. Although I was definitely in labor land, I remember my birth very vividly, almost watching myself from above as I labored through each stage. I did experience an interesting turn of events before the day he was actually born. It was a week before and I had never heard of it happening until it happened to me. Turns out, it is somewhat common. I want to fully share my story in the hope that if it happens to you or a friend, that you are able to have hope in that you will not be pregnant forever, your body isn’t failing you and that you didn’t do anything to mess up your labor. And all you have to do, is trust, wait, and see.
I sit down to write this on the eve before the one year anniversary of the day that I *thought* Holden was going to make his debut. Saturday, September 24th of 2022 around 1 o’clock I started to feel my contractions ramp up from light cramping to full blown surges. I had to stop and breathe through them and from my first birth, where labor was only 8 hours, which is shorter for a first time mom, I knew that this was the point at which I prefer to have support. I sent this information to my midwife and within a few hours, I had taken a bath and my contractions were continuing to intensify. I welcomed their presence into my home, sent 1.5 year old Hayden on his way with my mother-in-law and my husband got to setting up the birth pool. I sent text messages out to my entire prayer team asking for spiritual support.
Looking back at this day, I still struggle with the emotions I felt that day.
My entire birth team, including my photographer showed up to support me. I remember thinking that the scene seemed a little too perfect. In fact, I remember thinking, “why am I able to think this much?”. The feelings in my body were very real, the contractions were doing good work, but, I was still very much present in my head. I had listened to so many hundreds of hours of birth podcasts at this point that I knew that birth was unpredictable. At any moment, I could go from a 40ish to a 100 on the made-up-scale of labor that I had in my head. I assumed that as the night progressed that my labor would continue to intensify and that before the clock struck midnight I would have my sweet boy in my arms. The issue with this way of thinking? Birth is unpredictable. Rather than continue to intensify, my contractions started to space themselves out and they chilled out until eventually I was able to fall asleep to my friend’s voice speaking scripture over me. My full birth pool and sleepy team in the next room over.
I remember waking up to my midwife and I just cried. I felt like I had wasted everyones time and energy. Not a single person expressed that in any way, but I’m not unaware to the reality of spending an entire day and evening supporting a laboring mother, only for it to completely stop. It’s not fun sleeping on someone else’s couch. I have such a deep respect for those women because they still stayed to support me, just in case it started back up.
I had been laboring for 9 hours in and out of the bath, birthing pool, on my ball, on the toilet and finally, in my bed. I was exhausted after all of it, despite resting in-between. I was dilating slightly, but looking back, I believe that day was given to me to get Holden into a better position and to teach me to fully surrender to the process of birth that I so fiercely declared I believed in.
At the time, I didn’t know that. All I knew was that I felt like I was a waste of space, that somehow I had failed at the most basic biological process and that there was something wrong with me. All I could see was what was right in front of me. The reality was that I had experienced a false-labor of sorts. It looks like, talks like, walks like, labor, but it’s a prodromal labor. The good news? It still did some work. And although I was very angry with my body in the moment, I had done a lot of work so that at the foundation of it all, I still trusted that my body would get the job done when it was time.
The next morning, everyone was gone (after letting me know they were leaving) and it was just me and Dustin. My in-laws still had Hayden and so we had the day. I was still hopeful that things would start back up and through the advice of my midwife, I was trying to stay positive. It wasn’t working, so I let Dustin stay positive for the both of us. He took me to breakfast, took me on a walk, we watched the longest movie he could think of, the Titanic, of which I had never seen, and we waited for any action. When nothing happened, we decided to bring Hayden home. He also made the executive decision to call my mom and ask her to come from Michigan to stay with me until Holden made his arrival. He knew I wouldn’t want to be alone while he was at work during the week, that I needed help with the rambunctious toddler and that I was on the cusp of having a baby at any moment. My midwife had suggested that it was possible that my labor would go quite quickly once it did start up again, so we wanted to be prepared with help. She was right, by the way.
That week was beautiful. It was the hardest mental game that I have ever faced, but it was one of the most memorable weeks. I will never forget it. The week honestly felt like getting a second chance at embracing the time I had left with Hayden as my only child to care for. It was also a beautiful time to fully lean into what God had for me to learn.
Every day that week week we did something I had been wanting to do but hadn’t prioritized yet.
We went to several parks, my favorite coffee shop, the Farmer’s Market and finally, The Farm- yes, the famous one, if you’re into the midwifery world. I had been wanting to visit during my entire pregnancy but I was overwhelmed by the drive and going by myself with Hayden as it was almost an hour away. My mom offered to drive me so we made our way to Summertown to the infamous clinic on the Farm where my midwife and her assistant (also my doula with Hayden) held clinic hours for clients. We drove over and as we made our way over there, I felt the serenity and the history of the farm bring peace to my soul. It was like Holden and I were working together to come to a shared agreement that we were both ready for him to arrive. On my checklist of things that needed to be done before I birthed him, I had checked them all. But I had not rested. I had not done the things that my soul felt like they needed or memories that I felt like I needed to make. I found that this week was both a gift and a surrender to my will. It turned out, that through the surrender, through the gritting of my teeth in disappointment and annoyance, I was blessed tenfold with the memories I made with Dustin, Hayden and my mom during that week.
Also, can we just give it up for midwifery? I mean, c’mon. In the majority of birth settings I would’ve been given medication to keep things going or I would’ve been wheeled off to an unnecessary c-section. I would’ve missed an entire beautiful week with my family. Instead, I was incredibly intentional with my birth team and they blessed me with space. They simply held space for my body to do its thing and they trusted my body and my baby. I was so privileged to have them in my corner and I am forever thankful to this profession and the women in it who choose to offer their support with the focus on the mother, baby and intuition. We can get into all of that another time. 😉
I went to the Farm on Friday, September 30th and I knew that Holden’s “guess date”, was the next day, October 1st. I also knew that I was in pain, over being pregnant and I had completely had enough of my beautiful week. I was ready for that baby to be out of me. I also knew that the next morning was going to be exactly one week since the day of my prodromal labor. I was truly feeling stuck in-between wanting to be done and wanting to live out what I believed about trusting my body and ultimately, God. That being said, I have so much compassions for mamas and rash decisions that are made in those last few weeks because it is so hard physically and the mental games may just be worse. It’s part of why I advocate so heavily towards choosing a healthy, supportive and committed provider/birth-keeper to help you stay centered and committed to your desired plan while also giving you room for flexibility, nuance and informed consent for changing circumstances. In my case, my midwives knew how important it was to me to stick to my plan and they were my cheerleaders to help me push past that last hump. I left feeling heard and supported, which was all I really needed.
The next morning I woke up, still feeling absolutely nothing. My friend’s baby was a week old (she had her baby the Saturday before when I was going through it) and I was very jealous. I also was very aware of the fact that it was Holden’s guess date and I decided I wanted to ramp up my methods to get him out. I sent my mom and Hayden away for the day so that everyone could have a little bit of alone time. Dustin and I spent some time, umm, reconnecting, as that’s a great method of induction and then we decided to go walk around Walmart and get the rest of what we needed to make tikka masala for dinner. While walking around Walmart, around 1pm-ish (the same time I started contracting the week before) I felt my contractions start up again and they were instantly strong. We quickly finished up and got home. I went and put on the comfy clothes I wanted to labor in, Dustin put Friends on for me and he started making dinner, just in case, so that it would be done. I was rocking on my labor ball and within an hour, I knew this was the real deal. I wasn’t able to even make the phone calls or text messages to let my birth team or prayer team know that I needed them. Dustin got busy making calls and sending texts to get my mom back to the house because she had the liner for the birth pool in her car for some reason. By the time everyone got there, I had completely gone into labor land, on my face, surrendered to prayer. I remember just holding on to Dustin for dear life and in-between contractions he would run around and try to finish the dinner he had started while I had a brief gap. I was fully out of my head and in the sky. I heard and saw people around me, but I was getting ready to enter into a new dimension as I pushed through surge after surge. I swear God meets you in the stars while you’re in labor.
The intensity was unreal. It was 4 o’clock-ish when my birth team arrived and I moved from the birth ball, to the tub, to the toilet, to the bed. When I was on the toilet I was in transition. Which is, for me, when I think I might not make it out alive and like the baby is never coming and like I cannot physically take one more moment. My team gently coached me through this space, very hands off, and I fully leaned into Dustin. I was DONE with the toilet, literally my least favorite, yet most effective, place to labor. We moved me to the bed and deja-vu hit. I felt like I was going to be back where I was a week ago, all of that excruciating work for, well, not a baby… yet. While in the bed I was laying on my side, legs straddling pillows and I would push my leg up against my midwife’s thigh in an attempt to calm the pain in my hips. It was during one of these contractions that I thought that my hip bones were going to snap in half and I’m pretty sure he was making his way through my pelvis at this point. Without even thinking, and I can see myself from above doing this, I flipped onto my hands and knees half way through a contraction. Instinctively, my feet came together to make room for him and my water broke all over the bed. Dustin’s side of the bed. At that same moment I felt his head was fully engaged and I knew he was coming. My body was pushing and he was just making his way out. With the next contraction, although, I will note that they were right on top of each other, he crowned and within maybe one or two minutes, he was fully out. All I know is that from the charts he was born approximately four minutes after my water broke, only 4.5 hours after my contractions started.
I was in shock as I pulled him through my legs and onto my chest, sitting up on my knees. I pushed how I wanted to, I birthed my baby, I was holding him, nobody pulled him out of me, tore me, took him from me, cut the cord- none of that, I was just there, with my baby, as I was meant to be. In a few minutes I was on my back, trying to latch him. A little while later I pushed my placenta out and that was the biggest relief. I finally felt, not pregnant.
The best part? I had hot tikka masala and warm naan brought to me in bed only a little while later and I got to eat while my midwives did his newborn exam on my bed. It was beautiful. It was everything I had dreamed of. I am so beyond thankful I held out, I trusted the process and that I got to experience both a beautiful week with my oldest and a beautiful birth with my youngest.
If I can give you any advice, especially if you’re reading this and struggling with prodromal labor, just keep waiting on Jesus. Keep resting in His peace. I know that it feels like forever, but it will end. There WILL be an end, you just have to be willing to wait.
If you’re going into a pregnancy or thinking about planning a pregnancy, keep a few things in mind.
The due date isn’t real, it’s a “guess” date. Get rid of it in your mind as much as you possibly can. Don’t tell people what it is and try to go back to the days when they weren’t a thing and we were just happily surprised when out came a baby.
Be intentional about who you choose to support you in your birth. Don’t choose a provider who 75%+ of the time pushes an induction and then be surprised when they push you towards an induction the first time you complain about still being pregnant at 39/40 weeks. If you want to have a certain experience, you have to be willing to take responsibility for who you choose to be in your corner. You cannot expect someone to give you a type of support that they don’t know how to give. Obviously, things will never 100% go to plan. Clearly an entire day spent in labor was not my plan. But I had the foundational people in my corner who reminded me of what I truly wanted and I had spent 10 months preparing myself with education that helped form those desires so that the moment things got hard, I didn’t run away or give up.
I didn’t get everything I wanted, even in this beautiful birth, but I was supported, I was given fully informed consent, space and respect for MY intentional choices and in my surrender, I was able to experience birth to the fullest extent that I desired.