Birth Story - Very Long Post!

Ok, the moment you've all been waiting for.
Don't deny it, you know you have been.

Just to let you know, there's gonna be TMI all over the place so if you can't handle it, don't read it. You've been warned.

The labor and birth was pretty much exactly what I wanted! I had some very specific answers to prayer when it came to all of the details.

*I absolutely did not want to have him on Halloween - He was born on the 30th.
*I wanted a quick, easy labor (don't we all?) - I labored for 3 hours and 44 minutes and it was actually bearable.
*I wanted to make it past my baby shower and Stephen's presentation - My shower was the previous Tuesday, Stephen's pres. was on Thursday. I woke up in labor early Friday morning.
*I didn't want to tear - My previous tear from Sam tore a tiny bit, but nothing crazy, it healed on its own.

And the birth story:

About a week and a half prior to the birth I was having some pretty hard, tight Braxton Hicks contractions. It was fun this time around because any day could be the day, or night. I loved this pregnancy because there were no needles involved and no cervical checks! The cervical checks are actually unnecessary because you can't gauge when a baby is going to come based on dilation and effacement and it can lead to bacteria getting up there and you definitely don't want that mess.

Needless to say it was very unpredictable when he was going to come, so my kitchen actually stayed clean and my laundry was folded/ironed because I didn't want to have to deal with that once he was here. Or stare at a dirty kitchen while laboring. Yeah, I said kitchen...I'll get to that part.

My due date, October 25th, came and went.

My shower, October 27th, came and went. I joked multiple times with my friend that I was going to go into labor at her house, so she should have her jacuzzi bathtub ready just in case. And every time she told me that she would be driving me directly to the hospital in the case that I did go into labor. She was glad I didn't go into labor at her house and I was glad that I didn't ruin her furniture :)

Stephen's presentation was October 29th. It was in Little Rock and I went to watch him all the while having very hard, tight contractions. They didn't hurt, but they were definitely getting more intense. Apparently his classmates and professor had a running joke about whether I'd make it to his presentation or not. Thankfully I did and was very glad to be able to go and support him.

That evening I watched the clock while doing stuff around the house. I noticed my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and were very consistent. I had a feeling that I just might be having this baby soon, but I also felt like that for the past week and a half.

Stephen had already set up the pool, but we were holding off on filling it up. I didn't want the water getting all stagnant in case I wasn't going into labor. I've had lots of questions about the pool, so here's a visual for you.
It has a liner, heater, and a pump to get all of the water out once we were finished using it. We brain stormed for a while on how we were going to fill it up. Thank you Google, we ran a hose from our washers hot water tap. Worked great!

I also had Stephen take a pregnant picture of me because I hadn't taken one in a few weeks. I'm glad we did because 12 hours later I was no longer pregnant.


We put Sam to bed and cleaned up the house a bit. I finished some laundry then upon Stephen's persistence we went to bed around 11:00. I don't remember getting up at all that night. I was used to getting up 3-4 times throughout the night, so maybe my body was giving me a much needed break, lol.

I got up at 5:00 a.m. to go to the bathroom. I woke up a bit and noticed that I was feeling way different then before. Instead of just tightness I felt like I was having menstrual cramps. I thought about it and realized it was exactly how I felt when I was in labor with Sam.

On a side note: I was induced with Sam, so they gave me Pitocin to start contractions. The contractions I was having with #2 were almost the same as with Sam when I was dilated to a 5 with my water still intact. You with me? Except these contractions were soooo much more bearable. The Pitocin contractions felt like my entire body was being crushed, they were terrible. With both babies my contractions were below my belly button and they radiated down to the tops of my thighs. Really weird, but no back labor, yay!

I didn't know what I was dilated to, so I thought I was in early labor. I got back in bed thinking that I should try to sleep a bit more. Yeah right, I knew this was the real deal, so there was no way I was sleeping. I woke Stephen up and told him that I felt like I had when I was in labor with Sam. I guess I should've said "I'm in labor" because it took him a few minutes to process everything, lol.

He jumps up and starts filling the pool up. We quickly run out of hot water, so in the meantime I go over to my mom's to take a shower. My mom lives in the same "mobile home community" as us so it took me 30 seconds to drive to her house. I've heard people say taking a shower helps alleviate labor pain and that's why I went over there in the first place.
Well, this shower was not helping. If anything the contractions were coming faster and getting more painful. I got out and was sitting at her kitchen table drinking some water before I headed back home. It's about 6:30 by now so my mom was up getting ready for work. I'm sitting there talking to her and start having a contraction. Next thing I knew my mom is holding me up in my chair and saying my name. Yeah, I freakin passed out.
So now I've passed out in front of my mom who was already wary about me home birthing. She called Stephen and he came and got me. I got home and went right to bed with my heating pad. I kinda laugh now because that heating pad wasn't gonna do a whole lot for me, lol.

I called Brenda, my midwife, and tell her not to go to work today. She was already on her way, but turned around and came straight to our house. I'm still in bed, pretty much refusing to get up because it hurt to stand or stretch my legs out. Stephen was soooo good during the whole thing, very patient and encouraging.
He kept trying to get me to go to the pool, but I did not want to stand up. I guess I rationalized that I was hurting anyways, so standing up and walking to the pool wasn't going to kill me and I figured it would make Stephen feel better too.

Brenda arrived about 7:15, I'm still in bed at this point. She walks in my room, sees the way I am and asks how close the contractions are. Stephen tells her that they pretty much aren't stopping. She was so cute, she told Stephen "we've gotta get going, she is going to have this baby anytime!". Man, she went to work setting up her stuff and doing her thing. When she said that I was really close I was so relieved. I realized I was in some super hard labor and it gave me the boost I needed to get out of bed.

Backing up to the passing out thing. Once I thought about it, I realized I had been in hard labor at my mom's. I was sitting in a horribly uncomfortable position and I had passed out at the peak of an incredibly painful contraction. Brenda reassured my mom that I was doing great and that I had probably passed out from a surge of hormones. I think that is true plus it was so painful I just passed out. I don't think that made my mom feel any better, I would be freaking out too though, so I don't blame her. That was the only time during labor that that had happened.

Ok, so, back to the whole laboring in the pool thing. I thought that the pool would help the contractions. No. Definitely did not help the contractions. But, what was awesome about having the pool was the bouyancy.
The entire time I was in there I was kneeling and had my arms hanging over the side with my head on a pillow on a chair. Did you get that visual?
I would have never been able to labor like that without the water. For some reason unknown to me our landlady does not deem it necessary to put padding under our carpet, so we have extremely hard floors. My knees would have been killing me on top of the fact that I have absolutely no muscle strength so I would not have been able to hold myself up.

Me and Stephen had prepared ourselves for all of the different positions and pain-management techniques. It was pretty funny that I didn't use any of it. I basically labored on my own. Brenda was great! I know she was watching what was going on while getting everything ready, but she also noticed that I didn't want to be touched or talked to. Stephen would try and rub my back and I would say "stop touching me". It made me want to throw up, lol!

All I needed was for him to hold my hand while I was contracting. He also gently reminded me to breath because, unbeknowest to me, I was holding my breath and tensing up with every contractiong, so that really helped.
There was one point when Stephen had to go get more towels or something and I started having a contraction. I didn't have my "support hand" so I think maybe I had a weird look on my face or something! Without saying anything to her Brenda came over to me, grabbed my hand, and then left me alone when it was done. Again, she knew exactly what I needed!! It was great!

There was one time that I snapped at Stephen. He was trying to fold a towel to lay over the pillow. I felt another contraction coming on and I said, "put the towel down, put the towel down, PUT THE FREAKIN TOWEL DOWN". Lol, that was my only freak-out. I think I laughed afterwards and said sorry.

Around 8:15 Sam woke up. Although Sam didn't get to witness the birth it was still so fun to have him there for a bit while I labored. He was in such a happy mood. Stephen sat him in his high chair (which happened to be right in front of the pool) with a muffin. Sam was laughing and babbling. I'm sure he was super excited because he thought he was going to swim; had to dash that dream of his, lol.

My favorite part of the whole labor: I was having another contraction and breathing through it. All of a sudden I hear Sam sniffing loudly in his high chair. I look up at him, in the middle of this contraction, and he was breathing with me! He starts cracking up thinking he's just freakin hilarious and I start laughing too. I didn't know you could laugh while contracting, so let me just tell you, you can! And I actually forgot I was contracting, so I kinda slipped past that one.

Stephen took Sam out of his high chair and he started getting antsy to get in the pool. We called my sister, Shelby, and had her come pick up Sam. At this point I am 20 minutes away from pushing this kid out and I'm actually pushing with the contractions now because I had the "urge to push". I remember this clearly because it was so funny to me. Shelby opens the door and Sam is running around all excited. She looks at me, I'm sure I was quite a sight, I'm in the middle of a pushing contraction and I manage to get out "just take him". She grabs Sam, he squawks (lol), and then she turns around and walks out. It cracks me up because he was so not expecting that and he was ticked about it. From what I hear he got over it quickly though.

I'm still kneeling and pushing with the contractions to work the baby down. Btw, my water had not broken yet. I came very close to birthing him in the bags of water. Brenda suggested that I reach down and feel his head, so I did. I said, "it's all squishy". She said, "ah, that's your water, you are so close!". That of course gave me another boost of motivation, like the contractions weren't enough right?

Me and Stephen had decided that we wanted to deliver the baby together. We hadn't planned on him getting in the pool with me, I thought that was a little weird, but when it came time to do the dang thang I could care less who was in there with me.
Brenda tells Stephen if he wants to delivery the baby he better get in there with me, lol. Stephen looks at me to see the look on my face; it was an obvious "don't give a crap" face. So he hops in there with me, ah, true love, lol.

This was my other favorite part: I'm pushing more and hear a very loud pop, so did Stephen and Brenda, lol. I look at Brenda and say "What was that?! Was that the baby?" Without missing a beat she says "That was your water breaking, the baby's head does not explode when it comes out." I was contracting and cracking up yet again.
It is amazing to me that I laughed so much even though I was having some pretty intense contractions. I know the water not breaking until the end helped a lot with the pain too because I didn't have the pressure from the baby's head pushing down on me.

I'm still kneeling and absolutely did not want to move. Brenda told me I needed to lean back into a squat (I know, it sounds so cute) position. I was feeling a bit stubborn and not moving. Stephen finally (thankfully!) pulled on my arms so I fell back into him, so my back was to his chest. As soon as that happened the baby's head was crowning. I remember thinking, "heck yeah! I am so close to being done with these contractions".

Another contraction comes, I do not want to tear so instead of pushing as hard as I could I pushed, paused, pushed, paused, pushed, paused, pushed, paused, then it was over. Another contraction, same thing. Except this time his head popped out and me and Stephen both caught it in our hands. Ah, it was such a relief! I knew I had one more to go and then I'd be finished! I remember feeling his head in my hands, it was so cool! I said, "I'm holding his head! Wow, he has a bunch of hair!"
The next contraction came and I was pumped! I pushed hard and the rest of him came out at 8:44 a.m., a mere 3 hours and 44 minutes after waking up in labor. What was cool about this birth was since I could feel everything I knew what was coming out while it happened. That might sound gross, but it was pretty awesome to me.

He came out, I pulled him up out of the water and laid him right on my chest. He gave a little cry right when he hit the air. He was so squishy and pink! He had a perfectly round head from being cushioned by the water bag the whole time. He was completely different from Sam who was purple and his head was all funky shaped, lol.

I was so excited and I kept saying "That was freakin awesome", lol. I think I said that quite a bit actually. Right afterwards Stephen asked me what I thought about it and I replied that I am totally doing that again! It ended up being really fun. Yeah, call me crazy.

I sat in the pool for 10 minutes just sitting there holding the baby. It was great, no nurses took him away from me, nobody stuck him with needles, no drops were put in his eyes. Stephen was still sitting behind me. It was so quiet and so exciting; there was no rush or urgency to have anything done.

We waited until the cord stopped pulsing so that baby could get all of the blood from it, then Stephen cut it. Brenda suggested that I get up and go sit on the toilet so I can deliver the afterbirth. Yeah, yeah, I do feel the need to add that in.
I was amazed that I could stand right up and walk myself to the bathroom. Again, I could hardle believe that it was possible for me to walk!! I was numb for 7 hours after birthing Sam, so the fact that I could do anything was surprising to me. I'm sitting there chillin and talking with her waiting for this thing to make its exit. There was no pulling on the cord which can tear your uterus and/or leave pieces of the placenta in there and both of those can be dangerous. It's a common practice for doctors to do that and you usually don't know that they've done it. Apparently they did that when I had Sam. After that's over with I go take a shower, get dressed, sit down, and hold my new baby boy who we still hadn't named yet.

Stephen is busy cleaning up the pool and the kitchen. He starts talking about something and then says "Liam". And I said, "Oh, so is that what we're naming him?". He said, yep. Lol, so there it was. And now that I see him and talk to him he is totally a "Liam". No middle name still, lol.

Brenda cleaned up and headed to work. Checking back in with us that evening.
Me and Stephen sat down in our living room together and enjoyed some quite alone time with Liam. Sam came home around 2 and met his little brother. He said "baby, baby", then he pet his head and ran off to play in his ball pit. Yeah, he was super excited, lol.

So there you have it. Amy's home birth au naturale.
I highly recommend it! I'm a huge wuss, so if I can do it anyone can!

9 days old

11 days old