I’m always a little torn about birth stories. I love hearing other people’s stories—I’m just not so sure about sharing mine. It feels a little bit presumptuous, and a whole lot personal.

I've been thinking about it on and off for a couple months now though, and I actually wrote the majority of this post back in March but wasn't sure I wanted to share it. Then recently I turned on the M Is for Mama podcast, only to discover the beginning of a series of birth stories from a mama of ten.

And now I'm excited about my own stories all over again.

So if a birth story is not your thing, find someone else’s blog to read. 🙂

Sometimes the way I approach big, hard things that I know are coming but that I'm dreading is by almost subconsciously telling myself they won't actually ever happen, that the world will end or I'll die or something. Yes, I'm pregnant, and yes, babies have to get out somehow, but surely it won't actually happen . . . Such thinking seems terrible, but it also lends a sort of courage to the days leading up to said event.

And even though I *knew* I wouldn't actually birth a baby, I also knew I actually would (of course), and I did all the things to get ready. Lots of breathing exercises, lots of relaxing exercises, lots of physical exercises and stretches and just everything I knew to do.

Gentle Birth. Dates. Breathe. Stretch. Walk. Repeat.

Still, even when it'd been a whole week of countable, timeable, somewhat reliable contractions, I still wasn't quite sure that the baby would actually come. Even when the nights would become unbearable, I didn't once think maybe we should go to the birth center. With it being my first baby, I'm not sure why I was so confident that he wasn't coming, but I'm glad I didn't spend that entire last week on pins and needles thinking surely this was it, because it wasn't.

I always thought my birth stories were pretty straightforward. A partial day of labor ending with a beautiful baby boy, every time. But looking back at my notes now, I’m realizing that Alec’s birth wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.

Like I said, things were slowly but surely happening for about an entire week before he was born. Lots of contractions, almost painless at the beginning of the week but getting progressively harder to deal with. The last couple of nights before he was born were so bad that I barely slept. I needed Eric's help to get through the worst of the contractions, but it somehow still didn't cross my mind to be worried that the baby was actually coming. I hadn't even reached my due date yet, and usually by morning the contractions would calm down again, and I could maybe even get some sleep.

And that's how September 29, 2017 dawned . . . an almost sleepless night followed by a few sweet hours of rest in the morning. I even managed to sleep in till 11am. Good thing I did, too, because I don't think I have since. As soon as my babies figure out how to sleep, they quickly unfigure it out or they get a new brother who also doesn’t know how to sleep. 🙂

It was a Friday, Eric had gone to work, my due date was in two days, and one of my midwives had told me the baby wouldn’t arrive that weekend, so I wasn’t too worried. Just another uncomfortable day of counting contractions and making sure everything was ready.

By about four o’clock I wasn’t so sure. I called Eric and told him I thought the baby was finally coming and could he please come home early so we could run to Walmart before things got wild. So home he came, and off to Walmart we went, contractions and all. I had to lean over my shopping cart a few times to get through the worst of them, but we got our things and went back home and settled in to wait.

I think we might’ve tried to watch a movie, but it was getting intense, and I was starting to feel that inward pull . . . I didn’t want distraction; I wanted focus.

We closed the curtains and turned off the lights, and I labored in bed for a while, trying to use the breathing and relaxation methods from the Bradley book that we’d both studied and practiced so many times. (Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon. If you’re pregnant, read that book. I’m serious. Even if it’s your sixth baby. I’ve referred to it with every birth since.)

By about six or seven o’clock we decided we should probably head to the birth center. I’d been planning to deliver the baby down in Albany at the Midvalley Birthing Center and had prepared accordingly. We were literally in the car ready to go, and Eric was either on the phone with my midwife Liz Baer (no relation, although she does call us her fake relatives, and I'm terribly pleased and flattered to be claimed) or he had been just a bit earlier, and she had reminded us that they did do home births if we didn’t want to drive the forty minutes to the birth clinic and just wanted her to come to us instead.

What changed my mind at the ninth hour wasn’t the intensity of the contractions or the thought of an uncomfortable car ride or the comfort of my own home or even the novelty of a home birth . . . it was the proximity of the bathroom. I remembered that at the birth center the bathroom was at the opposite side of the building from the birthing room, quite a bit of a walk when you’re having contractions the whole way. And with how much I’d been using the bathroom already, I wasn’t about to leave my cozy bedroom with the bathroom a few short steps from the bed.

So home we stayed. Eric unpacked the car, and I got back in bed. At one point Eric was on the phone with Liz again, and she was on her way but told Eric that if he saw the head, he should call her. Alas, it wasn’t to happen that quickly, but I think hearing that gave me hope that things really were happening and that I could do this, that I would do it, that I would have to do it.

The midwives started to arrive sometime after that. Crystal, a student who lived closest to me, came first, eventually followed by Julia, Liz, and a student I’d never met before. I learned later that my midwives don’t make a practice of having people at your birth that you’ve never met but that Bailey had been with Liz already when we called her to come. I distinctly remember not caring and just being glad I had bought an extra midwife gift. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but good thing I bought extra chocolate. 🙂

Liz told me later that when they walked in the door, Eric kind of updated them on me and told them that I was in the best position for relaxing, and they were so impressed that he'd read the Bradley book. Of course he had. I was the one carrying the baby, but he was right there beside me the whole time. He was my memory for all things relaxation and breathing and coping. It's hard to remember such things when you're in the thick of it, and he was definitely the man of the hour. Very calm, very present, very informed, and definitely very supportive. No need for a doula with a husband like mine!

Our midwives largely left us unbothered, both because we'd said that's how we'd like it and also because they could see that we were a really good team. "So cute," I think were the words one of them used later, which is not at all a term I would use to describe a woman in labor, but hey, they're midwives, so I guess they're used to it. 🙂

Even if I was in a good relaxing position though, I just couldn't relax. I’d never experienced such terrible pain. At one point Crystal cleaned out our big tub and filled it with water, and I tried that, but it didn’t seem to help, so eventually I went back to bed.

The longer it went on, the more I couldn't do just one thing. One second I was boiling hot. The next I was freezing cold. Put that blanket on me. Get that blanket off me. Rub my back. Don't touch me. I need to pee. I have to lie down. I have to walk. I have to stand. I have to pee. I'm freezing cold. I'm boiling hot. Rub my back. Don't touch me!

Birth is amazing, and birth is incredible, and there is nothing like it, but right then, when I couldn't quit hurting and it seemed like I would never not hurt again . . . it was awful. I just knew I would forevermore be caught in a loop of running to the toilet to the bed to the toilet again, moving, moving, moving.

And nothing helped.

With that first baby there's no way of knowing quite what to expect or quite how intense it will be. Let's just say I made plenty of noise. My midwives are great though—they don’t care how much noise you make, and I’m pretty sure they even told me to swear if I thought it would help. 🙂 I didn’t.

At one point Liz wanted to check to see how far along I was, and I was in so much pain at the moment that I cried, “No,” without expecting her to actually listen to me. It still sticks with me to this day that she didn’t push me to let her check, that she didn’t try to persuade me or, worse, just go ahead and do it anyway. Back then, I was still of the mindset that the “doctor” just did whatever they wanted or thought needed to be done, and it was such a surprise when she didn’t. I have the very best midwives, I'm fully convinced of that.

I did let her check eventually, and I was fully dilated and ready to push. And that’s when things got really bad.

Even more really bad, because they'd already been really bad.

A history of extremely painful period cramps had somewhat prepared me for contractions. Nothing had prepared me for pushing.

I panicked.

By this point it was midnight, and I was on my third consecutive night of little-to-no sleep. I was so tired, and feeling so weak, and suddenly they wanted me to push this baby out. They tried to help me try out a few different positions, but nothing felt quite as safe and as invulnerable (as if there is such a thing when giving birth) to me as half-lying, half-reclining in bed. I knew it wasn’t the ideal position, but it was the only one where I felt like I could really give it everything I had.

The baby’s heart rate started to go really low whenever I would push, so my midwives put me on oxygen, and honestly, by that time I was so worn-out/out-of-it that it felt like I hardly knew what was going on. Eric said later that it really scared him when they put the oxygen mask on me, but I wasn’t with it enough to be afraid. I just felt like it would never end.

But of course it did.

I pushed for almost an hour and a half before Alec finally made his appearance. A wiggling, squalling mess that they placed on my chest before I even realized he was finally out. I don't even know who caught him. Eric was crying, and I was shaking and trying to come back to myself, and there he was, wet and grey and perfect, our firstborn son.

Alec.I can’t describe those first moments after giving birth. There is just something incredibly sacred and untouchable and irreplicable about them. I remember when I was pregnant with Sebastian and thinking about giving birth again how it suddenly hit me that I would get to live that almost holy experience all over again.

That after all the pain and desperation, silence. And awe. And maybe some tears. And maybe some laughter.

A child has been born.

There’s nothing like it.So there we were, in the middle of the night, 1:22am, exhausted and thrilled and a little bit scared. No one in our families knew. Eric’s family had some inkling I might be in labor because he’d gone home from work early, but my family didn’t even know that much. And we didn’t tell anyone right away. For that one night, we had the most precious secret, and he was all ours.

I’m pretty sure people count “being in labor” hours in all sorts of different ways, but the way I count is from the moment I know without doubt that “this baby is coming today,” and with Alec that was around 4pm when Eric was heading home and we were going to rush to Walmart. Nine and a half hours later, Alec was in my arms.Our midwives quietly and efficiently did their thing. Midvalley Birthing Services, the best midwives ever. I can't even count how many times I've thought about how thankful I am for them. They are incredibly knowledgeable, personable, kind, and supportive. I think another part of the reason I wasn't scared when they put the oxygen on me was because they were so calm. And when they gave me a shot of pitocin shortly after the birth, I didn't know until later that it was because I was bleeding too much. They didn't overreact to anything or give me any reason to worry, but they knew what needed to be done, and they were prepared.

They checked our little boy, weighed him (7lbs 5oz), and measured him (19 ½ in), and all with as little disruption to me and my baby as possible. Someone brought me cheese and crackers and maybe some grapes, and I don't think I've had a better middle-of-the-night snack since. I got my stitches, which would become just par for the course for me, although I didn’t know it then of course. They cleaned up our room and helped me get situated back in bed, and then suddenly it was 5am and they were gone, and it felt unreal that they’d just left the baby with us.

They didn’t even give us a checklist to make sure we took care of him properly. 🙂 It really felt unreal.Eric and I moved our pillows to either side of the bed, and we put that little swaddled baby right up in between our pillows, and we slept.

Finally.

We didn’t get up till at least 9am, and we eventually let our families know. It was a bit thrilling to tell everyone we’d had him at home, without even meaning to. Most of them got to meet him when he was just twelve hours old. 🙂 Alec was just the beginning of a line of little Baer boys who were all born at home on the day before their due date.

Stay tuned for an April 2019 throwback . . . when my second little Baer arrived on the scene.

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When I was thinking about doing this series and trying to decide if I actually wanted to, one of my friends, Liz Lapp, was asking for topic ideas for her blog, and I suddenly thought maybe she would want to join me in sharing birth stories. So I asked her, and she was game! Sometime in the near future she'll be posting her first birth story over on truthhunter4God.wordpress.com. I can't wait to read it.

Fun fact: long, long ago, when she was a Boss and I was a Roth, Liz and I went to school together from third(?) grade all the way through high school graduation, and we were the only ones in our grade that whole time. Now we live thousands of miles apart and haven't seen each other since who knows when, but we also each have three kids and a blog and are sharing birth stories together. 🙂

So if you enjoyed this birth story and want to read another one, keep an eye on her blog!

http://truthhunter4god.wordpress.com

And if you have a birth story you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. The long version, the abbreviated version, even just how long your labor was or how big your baby was. 🙂