Little Miss Maddie’s birth story
… June 19th I was just over 39 weeks pregnant and have gone through what felt like an emotional roller coaster the past months of my pregnancy between my whole family being put on COVID quarantine for ridiculous reasons, having to create multiple back up plans for delivering my baby incase my test somehow came back positive or if I went into labor during quarantine…then the threat and possibility of my husband not being able to be at her birth due to his high risk exposure job… there was just a lot of intense possibilities at the end and it felt like every couple days we got hit with something new. Most mama’s are OVER pregnancy at the end… and I was very much in that group.I was dilated to 2 at that point and had been having contractions here and there for a while..So, Monday morning with the encouragement of a midwife friend, I took some castor oil…but I got nervous and only did HALF the dose 
. 3 hours later….NOTHING. 4 hours later…NOTHING… so I took another half dose with low expectations. Another 6 hours later around 7:30pm I had given up any excitement that it might work at all because literally NOTHING happened. For those of you familiar with how castor oil works… usually you are atleast guaranteed to 
first within a few hours and then contractions come later. There I was 10 or so hours later with nothing . I made peace with the fact that it wasn’t her time…Then 8pm came around… and it started . Well the first part atleast. Then everything went away and I fell asleep around 11pm.Just before 2am I woke up with a pretty good contraction. I started timing them and they were every 2-5 minutes right off the bat. By 2:15 I called my mom to come over, talked to my midwife and we headed to the birth center around 2:45. Around 3:15 I was 5-6cm. The entire time I listened to a @youtube Christian music playlist and invited the Holy Spirit to carry me through. 
This was everything. For the next hour I closed my eyes, completely relaxed and laid back on the bed, visualizing my body doing exactly what it was created to do. I knew we were getting closer. Around 5:30 or so, I decided to get in the water to further relax my body. Psychologically, I knew this was where the miracles happen because this was the exact tub my first two babies were born. The water also really helps the body fully relax which really helps ease pain of contractions and helps the body progress faster. 
The contractions started getting stronger with small urges to push but they were farther apart. Turns out this is really common at the end of labor when it comes time to push. So thankful God designed things that way! 
I asked if I could get checked again because if I did try to start pushing I wanted to make sure I was complete. Pushing before you get to 10 can cause more inflammation and actually slow things down. I remember my midwife telling me, “well, you’re kinda hard to read because you’re so calm right now. Usually moms are much more intense so…I’m not sure you’re there yet.” 
They checked me anyways and I was complete. I was told I could push with the next contractions if I wanted to. With my very first push I felt her slide down and the intense pressure started. Mind you, my waters still hadn’t broken yet at this point, so I felt the pressure of the baby and the water bag. The next push, the burning started as her head was getting very close to crowning. Thanks to my amazing midwives and past doulas I knew not to push hard when I felt the babies head crowning and the infamous ring of fire. Breathing instead of hard pushing helps prevent tears. This time I really felt the intensity and felt more like I was going to tear then before so I was extra cautious. The contraction passed and I felt her slide back a little which was ok with me…I knew the next push was it. With the next contraction I used all those core muscles I’ve been strengthening for years along with my breathing techniques and with the next push I felt her head come out and my water broke with the same push. With the final push the rest of her body slid out and I smiled so big as I felt my daughter placed on my chest and heard her first cries. 
All the emotions.I soaked in this moment right here.. With my last birth with Liam, after he was born, the placenta took a while and after the placenta I had a postpartum hemorrhage where I lost 1500ml’s of blood. So, this time after baby girl was born, I shortly moved to the bed where we hooked up my IV for precautionary measures. He cord was super short and I am a firm advocate of delayed cord clamping so I had to hold her low to my body as my hubby and midwife helped me to the bed. We got baby dried off and kept her close to my chest as she tried to nurse. 5 or so minutes later my placenta came out. The RN in me loves examining and seeing both the cord and placenta. I mean you guys… our tiny humans are created jn our bodies with this magical cord of life that connects them to a disposable bag of nutrition that sustains life the entire time they’re in the womb! As soon as they’re born, this bag makes it’s exit as well as if nothing ever happened! So amazing!So; they examined for any missing pieces or abnormalities. Both my cord and placenta were very thick. I wasn’t sure to say “thank you” and feel proud as If that was a compliment.. but that’s how I chose to take it lol… 15 minutes in and baby’s cord finally stopped pulsing. ***Delayed cord clamping is so helpful for baby because when they’re born, 1/3 of the baby’s blood is outside their body still in the cord and placenta. When you wait to cut the cord until the cord stops pulsating, baby gets all of their blood and nutrition from the placenta before being removed from their previous life source.***And there we were…now a healthy family of 5. Baby girl was born at 6:13am that morning. After each of us were looked over and ate some breakfast, we were able to head home just 4 hours after her birth. The temporary intense pain of natural labor, the exhaustion and discomfort of pregnancy, all the supergreens and time and money invested into my own health as I was growing this baby girl… all 10000000% worth it!Welcome to the world Maddie girl. You’re going to move mountains I just know it!
