Just before midnight I noticed what looked like my waters leaking. I changed to see if it was and sure enough another gush of water, then another. I let my husband know this may be the beginning of labor and I texted my doula to keep her updated. Not even a couple of minutes later the surges started. They weren’t painful or intense but strong enough to say this was definitely the start of my labor!
With how fast my previous homebirth had progressed we had already planned to make setting and filling up the tub our first priority when labor began, so that’s exactly what my husband did. I continued to breathe through the surges as he setup the birth pool and continued to feel gushes of my water with each surge.
About an hour now had passed and I could feel the intensity building so I decided to call my mom to come over. Then maybe 20 minutes after that I let my doula know that she should also start to head over. My mom got to my house at this time and began to finish setting up my birth space.
About 20 minutes later my doula arrived and also began to finish setting up the space exactly how I had envisioned. We had discussed how I wanted my birth to look so she made sure every detail was how I had wanted.
As they finished up I continued to walk and sway through the surges, making sure to control my breathing, and reminded myself that I was made to birth.
Once my birth space setup was complete we turned off the lights and I got into the birth pool. It was now 2am as I labored in the water, listening to peaceful hypnobirthing hymns, essential oils filling the room, surrounded by my loved ones.
This continued on for about an hour and a half. Everyone made sure I had everything I needed during this time, making sure I was comfortable, hydrated, but also just held space when it was needed. This part of my labor was the most peaceful and I really enjoyed laboring this way. With each surge I could feel my body opening and doing exactly what it was supposed to.
Suddenly I felt a shift in my surges and in my body. I told my doula that I was about to hit transition and I called for my husband’s support. Everything got way more intense at this point and my surges started coming back to back. I could feel baby descending lower and lower. My doula reminded me to breathe down and so I did. Very quickly FER began to take over my body but it wasn’t as effortless as it had been with my previous birth. I felt myself having to work together with my body intentionally breathing down alongside FER. I felt my baby’s head being born and not too long after her body came out and she was born fast and furiously. I felt stuck in this moment and couldn’t physically move so my mom picked her up and placed her on my chest.
The relief and the joy I had in this exact moment is unexplainable. Then only to make the moment even better, I lifted up my baby to see if my intuition during my whole pregnancy was right or wrong. It was right, she was a girl, my Elena.
I decided to stay in the pool to birth my placenta so everyone made sure to keep me and baby covered, and also replenished the water to be sure it was warm enough. I attempted to get her to latch but it didn’t come easy at first. It took a bit but eventually she slowly started to latch.
Again with the placenta I felt myself having to intentionally work with my body and breathe down. Finally I was able to birth the placenta, I had very minimal bleeding compared to my other two births which was exactly what I had hoped for.
We got out of the birth pool and onto my bed where we spent the rest of the golden hour, skin to skin, cord still connected, soaking in the newborn bliss and the ultimate birth high.