Westley had just turned two years old, and I recall wanting to space my children two years apart, like my brother and I were…But come August, I wasn’t ready. Westley has been a handful, and honestly, I still hadn’t completely gotten over his birth. So when I found out I was pregnant a second time, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the big day. I spent several months worrying about it being too quick, or too slow, I worried that my baby would be gigantic, and I assumed that I would tear. I really wasn’t ready for all that. I was still in the “pregnancy sucks” phase of motherhood. My first birth story was about as good as you could expect–or so I thought–and I still had a horror story to contend with the best of them. It hurt and it was scary and crazy and the only consolation was basically the baby at the end (and the fact that it was so short). I won “bragging rights” for doing it naturally and drug-free, but it wasn’t something I was excited about repeating!
Until I managed to get ahold of a book called Hypnobirthing: the Mongan Method by Marie Mongan. Then, at 8 months pregnant, I took charge of how well it was going to go and stopped worrying. People knew I was the kind of “brave crazy person” to have a natural birth, because I’d already had one. But I couldn’t convince anyone that this time I was going for a painless, enjoyable birth. I might as well have told them faeries were acting as my midwives.
But wow! As it turns out, labor really doesn’t have to be the boogie man under every mom’s bed. It doesn’t have to be this big, loud, dramatic event. Or difficult and painful. Or long, slow, and overall frustrating. Pain, intensity, trauma; these are not inevitabilities. But we have heard it all our lives; doctors have cozied into their interventional procedures, and it has become a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, every birth is different, and there are SOME special cases, but not as many as we think. Womankind uses it as this proof that women are strong and can endure more pain than men. But how much greater would it be if we could brag about bringing life into the world without all the screaming and drugs? I am fairly certain it’s not a coincidence that I read that book and had this labor story. I’m not going to outline any of the book, for brevity’s sake. I’m just going to tell my story, and if you are or will be pregnant, maybe it will inspire you to pick up the book 🙂 So here’s my story!
The doctors set my due date at May 21…However, my original guess was May 27. I won!😜 On May 28, I was sitting on the couch with Westley when what had been Braxton Hicks contractions suddenly started presenting themselves more in my back than my belly. As they started occurring pretty regularly, I had a hunch I’d gone into early labor. Luckily West was in a rare snuggly mood, so we sat on the couch and watched Tinkerbell and the Neverbeast while I tried to time contractions. Daddy got home and I still couldn’t fully tell, but it just felt right. My mom and little brother came over just in case.
Quick note: An important Hypnobirthing tool is music, plus recordings of certain relaxation, breathing, visualization and affirmation techniques. I had some quiet worship music, tracks from an album called The Comfort Zone, and some with an Australian woman talking me through the relaxation I needed to help my muscles work efficiently. I called it my Hippo Birthing playlist 😁
Contractions were coming roughly twenty minutes apart. I walked around the house getting things ready. I sat on an exercise ball and watched Game of Thrones. I sat on my couch listening to my hippo birthing playlist. These tracks are fantastic. I’d practiced them for a couple of weeks. By the time labor came along, my brain was trained to relax simply upon hearing any of the music in that collection. But the soothing voice was also quite helpful. So on Thursday night, I was going about my life, noting when a “surge” came (surge = contraction) and slowing down to breathe through and let it do its work. Again, it didn’t really hurt. Though some were more intense than others, it was never more than a tightening sensation, with a slight crampy feeling in my back. I went to bed around midnight and slept soundly through them. I thought it odd that my water hadn’t broken–my first labor started that way and went by quickly–so I was hesitant to stand everyone down, just in case. But, we needed rest while we could get it.
Friday morning, I had my “week late” appointment at 10:00 am. I was awake around 5:30, aware of the contractions. Justin made us breakfast. I took a shower, and Westley kept asking to join. Finally I switched to a bath and let him get in! So I sat in a bath with my two year old for a while. He stuck his foam letters on my back and thought it was hilarious 😊
At one point, everyone was in our main room, living life, while I lay comfortably in my bedroom, sleeping and/or relaxing through what were now obviously contractions about 10 minutes apart. But it didn’t seem urgent. I listened to my relaxation tracks, reading, pushing a button on an app with every surge, until I fell asleep. My husband found my timer going on 80 minutes, as I’d fallen asleep in the middle of a contraction! The contractions weren’t even so bad as a stomach ache. I was feeling them come on, and it almost felt like I was moving them through my body with my controlled breathing. I was so relaxed!
Eventually I had to drag myself out of bed to go to the hospital, even though I was perfectly content to labor the rest of the day on my bed.
Good call.
Justin and I got to the hospital, sat around for over an hour. I have to say, sitting in that stupid waiting room was definitely on my list of three worst parts of my labor. So here I am, in this hard chair, apart from Justin, in a small hallway filled with women. Pregnant women and new mothers, dressed in their maternity best, with flowers and matching stripes and solids hugging their beautiful bellies, and looking expectant and hopeful. …I was basically in a t-shirt dress with no bra on, no make up, hair wet and stringy from the bath. I was getting a little irritable. It’s like when you’re trying to concentrate on something important, and people keep barging into the room and making noise, oblivious to your important work. Arg! I was in there for like an hour.
But, when I eventually saw the doctor, she checked my cervix and announced I was 6 cm ( the midwife later said 5) with a bulging bag! 😖 Sounds disgusting, but it meant my water could release at any time. So they brought me a wheel chair and my husband, and we made our way to our birthing room in the midwifery center. I got several comments about how it didn’t seem like I was in labor. But every time a surge started, I simply relaxed!
[My mom and brother in their labor team outfits. Justin didn’t have a matching shirt 😉]
Such great timing! We got comfortable, my labor team converged, and Sebastian continued his journey!
I had a lot of freedom here. I liked to lie on my side with a pillow between my legs, but to encourage my water to break, I kept being gently reminded to move. Sitting on the birthing ball while Justin lightly massaged my back was divine. I sat in different positions, walked the room, took a shower. At 7 cm, I got out of the shower, rummaged around for my robe tie, and had a completely coherent conversation with my team about whether or not we should break my water.
At 7 cm, I was chilling. We were laughing and talking. This was not the 7cm I had with Westley! In hind sight, the way I responded to the contractions was definitely a part of it.
We decided to break my water. I’d been in labor for 24 hours and, while it had been pleasant, it had been long. I hadn’t eaten–not in case of c-section–but because I’d planned on a water birth, and pooping or vomiting in the tub wasn’t in my birth plan! Everyone agreed that I could handle the sudden speed that would come. So, we broke my water, which felt fabulous. Then I went ahead and got in the tub.
Transition began pretty much immediately. My hippo birthing playlist wasn’t where I wanted it, so I asked for my Australian lady when it started getting serious 😉 Instead of feeling like a sporting event, with words of encouragement and instruction shouted around me, it was more like a spa. I was being gently prompted to envision a rainbow mist, surrounding me one color at a time. I was thinking about my baby. Justin talked about how he’ll be here soon and we’ll get to hold him.
And the neat thing is that last time, I knew it was transition because, more pain, more intensity, big waves. This time, I knew it was transition because I could feel a distinct difference in how the surges made my muscles move. They were longer and I could basically feel them waving up and down. This called for long, slow breaths, and I started moaning. Not screaming. It was a big feeling, but it wasn’t painful in the same way as my first labor. I knew that my baby was almost here. I was able to participate in my contractions, work with them, use them. It started getting intense so I felt the urge to move to the middle of the tub so I could kind of float.
Then I felt it.
How do I describe it? The baby’s head bore down and I lurched a bit and said “I think he’s coming.” I mean he might as well have been like “Heeeere’s Bastian!” And, though the Hypnobirthing book doesn’t fully describe the third breathing technique, it came to me naturally. Suddenly the slow breaths didn’t feel quite right. And I can’t explain it, but the book describes it as “breathing your baby down.”
So my midwife had to work to get me where she needed me. This is the ONE part that is just, really tough. I can’t claim the crowning to be totally painless. Maybe it’s that I couldn’t get deep enough into relaxation. I think I could have prepared more for it. Maybe it’s just pure physics. But I can say it was still much, MUCH better than last time. Last time, I was screaming. Last time, I felt like I was being stabbed to death. Last time, I was trying to force my son out, which did not seem to be doing my muscles any favors.
But this time I could feel my baby’s head. This time I knew how far we’d come and how far we had left. I reached down to feel it so I could grasp what my body was doing. It was difficult staying focused through this part. I wanted to lose it, but it wasn’t like “the pain is too much!” kind of lose it. It was more like holding a really heavy weight, and you’re getting to the point where you can’t hold it anymore. And your dumb trainer won’t let you drop it, so the rest of your body wants to flop around like a fish. Truly, was there pain? A little; more than there had been the whole labor. But it was nothing compared to what I went through later. Heck, I’d had my toe nail removed a month earlier, and that had more actual pain. This was more intense, but not technically as painful.
So I would get a little wobbly there for a second! But my midwife got me back on track, and had me calling the baby out, talking to him, which calmed me down. I wasn’t pushing really, not in the same way as with my first son. I was breathing, and then I did give a bit of something there at the end, but I was trying to let the contraction do the work. Finally, our little Bash got his head through and the rest of him spiraled out like a baby torpedo. I could tell he was smaller than Westley. Not complaining! I now had my boy in my arms, and we loved on him for a minute. The whole tub part of labor hadn’t lasted very long, but I couldn’t tell you the exact timing. It felt like ten minutes. Definitely no more than twenty. There aren’t any pictures of that part, so that should tell you something.
We got out of the tub–slightly tricky with a newborn literally attached to me–then moved to the bed for all my postpartum things and our bonding time. I anxiously awaited my midwife’s report: I hadn’t torn! Just a small abrasion that wouldn’t need stitches. I was so excited. The birth was so low in pain that the thought of lidocaine and stitches sounded terrible. No tearing! Woo!
We nursed for the first time, I delivered the placenta, we cut the cord after it stopped pulsing. And that is the end of my beautiful birth story. Looking at my beautiful baby boy:
Sebastian Elodin Tolkien Novak. 8 lb 1 oz, 20.5 in
And that brings us to part 2, which will be a separate post. I wanted to do this in two parts because this was exactly the birth I wanted. I want to remember every detail of my actual birth story. It was incredible, and I want everyone to know that it is possible to have a labor that is smooth and relaxing and comfortable. I think this part of the story deserves its own spot light. When asked about the birth of my second child, this is what I want to remember, and what I will always tell first time moms.
Through this experience, I’ve learned that birth can be a TRULY enjoyable experience! It doesn’t have to be a horror story. It can be a wonderful gift, something to look forward to. I also learned that we need to be careful with our horror stories. A birth story is a powerful thing– word choice is a powerful thing. I think positivity made all the difference. That doesn’t mean we should lie, but maybe we should look back and think about what we LIKED about labor. And when someone expresses the desire for a natural birth, we definitely should not look at them like they said “I want to give birth while levitating in a forest of light while magical imps chant well wishes around me.” We shouldn’t scoff or act like what they want is impossible or insane. It isn’t. It’s natural and wonderful!
We’ve been told our whole lives that labor has to hurt, and so we look to all these drugs and man-made interventions. But, God was involved in Sebastian’s birth and it didn’t feel like He wanted me to suffer. It felt as though He was bringing the baby into the world as lovingly as He’d created him in my body. It was special. The baby wasn’t the consolation prize for hours of suffering. His labor fit his birth. It didn’t feel painful and chaotic; it all just felt big and important. It should always be like that.
Hippy Potomus 
I love this 🙂