Eoghan’s Birth Story
In March 2020, we decided to switch from planning a hospital birth to a home birth after COVID-19 began to prompt hospitals to restrict visitors and support persons allowed on labor and delivery. While we had hoped by June the restrictions would be lifted, I didn’t want to spend the next few months anxious that the people I wanted at my birth would potentially not be able to be there; and we would probably have a hard time finding a last-minute home birth midwife if we waited till closer to my due date. We decided it would be best to plan for a home birth now rather than wait and see. My anxiety levels dropped immediately after we made the decision to switch to home birth.
I called a local midwife that I had supported a home birth with as a doula, and hoped she had availability for June. Fortunately for me, she had canceled her June vacation plans due to travel restrictions with COVID-19, and was available! We booked her, and I felt I could finally breathe easy again knowing we would have the birth we had hoped for with the support team we wanted there.
My pregnancy was fairly uneventful outside of COVID-19, which shut down my gym. It ended up being a blessing in disguise, because I was able to focus my entire third trimester on my pregnancy and upcoming birth. Had some SI joint pain here and there, but overall, felt pretty amazing through my pregnancy. I felt physically strong from following my own prenatal fitness programming, and mentally prepared thanks to the Gentle Birth app and meditations. I had my husband watch my childbirth education course, and we practiced our labor comfort techniques. I completely trusted that my support team would be able to help me through labor.
From week 37 on, I sat wondering when we would finally go into labor. Every day, I felt that I was monitoring every cramp, itch, ache, wondering if it would lead to labor. And then I would wake up still pregnant. A few times, I had even texted my midwife telling her that I was feeling extra crampy, knowing it wasn’t labor but secretly hoping it may progress. I remember with Adeline’s labor, I woke up and distinctly knew it was the beginning of labor, and for the last three weeks of this pregnancy, every time I wondered if it was the beginning, I knew deep down that it was not. I tried to stay patient, but kept feeling anxious with anticipation of when we would meet our baby boy. And soon that anxiousness began to turn to frustration as I neared my due date with no sign of labor.
June 14, 2020
The day before my due date, I lost my mucus plug and was so excited it was the start of something! No bloody show and no cramping accompanied it, so I had a feeling my excitement was setting me up for disappointment. I had my mom and sister come spend the night in case something picked up overnight, and then woke up still pregnant on my due date.
June 15, 2020
I spent the entire day trying to find some peace with the fact that I was not going to have a baby before my due date. I tried to think if there was something, I was mentally holding onto that was keeping me from going into labor; was there anything that I was afraid of? I wasn’t scared of labor; I felt confident in my body’s ability to birth my baby, and if there was a need for intervention, I trusted my support team to guide me through the decision-making process. I wasn’t scared of being induced; I would not risk out of home birth until 42 weeks, and felt confident I would go into labor before then at least. So, what was I afraid of, if anything?
I admitted that I felt frustrated that I was still pregnant, and tired of feeling like I was waiting and waiting. I felt like everything was on pause until Eoghan was born, and felt frustrated by this. As the evening came, and it became clear that I would not be going into labor that day, I retreated to my room and turned on a meditation to try and surrender to the process. My daughter wandered in and wanted to sit on my lap, and I cried as I realized we didn’t have much time left as just the two of us, and soon there would be another baby who shared my attention and love with her. Maybe that was what I was holding onto, and I needed to let it go and accept that there would be enough of me for both of them.
June 16, 2020
The next morning, I woke up around 6am to distinct cramping that came about every 15 minutes. I remember from my daughter’s labor that when I woke up, I knew it was the beginning of labor, and these felt the same. I was relieved it was finally starting, and that I was able to have a full night of rest before labor began! This was exactly how I had hoped my labor would start, after a full night of sleep!
After the second one came, I began to time them to see how far apart they were, and verify that they were coming at a frequency. After about an hour of them coming every 12-15 minutes, I messaged my support team to let them know that this may be the beginning of labor and I would update them on any progress.
At 8:30am, my midwife told me to get up and start being more active if I felt rested to see if that would begin to pick things up. I jumped out of bed while my husband and daughter kept sleeping, and began to walk up and down my stairs, letting my mom know that I was having contractions, and that labor was still early but starting! Afterwards, I went into our garage gym and did a short squat workout as my final prenatal workout for this pregnancy. The contractions got to be about 10 minutes apart as I started moving more with the day.
Around 930am, the contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart, so my midwife decided to do my prenatal appointment at my home instead of me driving up to see her. I was very thankful for this! The thought of driving even with these mild contractions did not sound very appealing to me.
Shortly after my sister arrived with breakfast, and we all ate a big meal as things slowly began to pick up. My sister began baking a birthday cake for Eoghan, and my daughter was so excited to be able to eat it when her baby brother was born! The contractions starting getting closer to about 5-6 minutes shortly after breakfast, so we went for a mile-long walk to keep the momentum going, as my husband ran to the store to grab fresh fruit and snacks for labor and our support team.
Around 11 am, after our walk, I began to see bloody show! I knew it was labor before this, but this just confirmed that things were progressing and I began to feel more confident that we would be meeting our baby at some point today or early tomorrow morning.
My midwife arrived for our prenatal appointment and labor check around 12pm, and everything was looking great! I was 3cm, 90-100% effaced, and baby was -1 station in LOT. So he was in a perfect position, and just needed to begin to rotate to descend through my midpelvis. I was feeling good about having made this much progress already, as with my daughter I was only 2cm after almost an entire day of laboring!
After my midwife left, my photographer arrived to start documenting the process. I had some anxiety that I wouldn’t get enough photos if I waited til active labor to have her come over, but also didn’t want her to stop up too early either! We ended up having her come at a perfect time! I messaged all my girlfriends who came to my mother’s blessing, and we all cut our string bracelets to signal that labor was underway. At my blessing, we each put a string bracelet on to symbolize that they all were supporting me in this process to meet my son; when labor begins, they would each cut their bracelets to symbolize that they were sending me positive energy in my birth.
Shortly after around 1:30pm, Katie, my massage therapist friend stopped by for a home visit, and gave me my final prenatal massage as early labor started to process towards early active labor. It gave me an hour to focus on connecting with my baby and letting him know that we were ready to meet him. The contractions slowly started to pick up after she finished, and I am so grateful for the support I’ve had so far in my labor.
At 3pm, I took a final bath with my daughter with the herbal flower bath salt blend from my mother’s blessing. We snuggled and played in the water, as I drank some raspberry tea leaf. Things felt they were starting to pick up, so I got out of the bath and labored on the bed as my daughter ran to go play with her cousin and my mom.
After the bath, contractions were beginning to pick up. I was still fairly coherent in between them, but was starting to need to breathe through each one. My husband let our midwife know that I was starting to transition towards early active labor, but was still laughing in between contractions. She said she would head back over!
Around 4pm, my sister, husband, and I decided to take a final walk around the neighborhood. I needed support during each contraction but was still laughing in between. I joked that it would be nice if I could laugh between them until he was born, but very shortly I would realize that would not be the case!
We made it back from our walk, and saw that the midwife had arrived. Contractions were starting to pick up even more. The midwife and her birth assistant were getting set up, and started to work on getting the pool set up for me as I started to transition into active labor. I remember thinking I was acting more “sleepy drunk”, and thought it was really cool to be able to recognize changes that were happening in my labor.
Around 630pm, the pool was ready and my midwife checked me to see where I was at before I got in the pool. She told me that I was completely effaced and baby was still LOT, so focus on lunging, but I had made a lot of progress! She didn’t mention dilation at first, so I asked if I was still 3cm in worry. She told me I was 5cm, and I tried to not be disappointed that I had not made a lot of progress in dilation. I remembered from my daughter’s labor that I progressed quickly after 4cm, so I tried to calculate the hours in my head it may take me to progress. I went from 4 to 10 in about 3 hours with my daughter, so I crossed my fingers it would be at least that fast this time around! But honestly, I had no concept of time as labor progressed!!
I labored in the pool for about a half hour, but really felt isolated in the water. I was having a hard time with my contractions, and didn’t find much relief in the water. Then I started to get really hot, and at the end my husband tried a few counter pressure techniques that finally started to give me more relief but I was done with the pool and wanted to get out. It probably also didn’t help that I threw up a few times at this point.
We labored in the bedroom, and my husband was by my side the entire time. He gave me hip squeezes, helped me turn my TENS on, and told me how proud he was of me during every contraction. My sister cued me through my relaxation sequence to help me relax each part of my body and release tension during contractions.
In my head, I told myself this was one less and focused on reminding myself that it was only about 10-15 seconds of intensity before it would begin to come down. I focused on trying to relax with each one, and on the relief from the counter pressure; I listened to everyone talking to me, and cueing me to relax. I would shake my jaw out to release tension, and rub my belly to let baby boy to know he could come soon.
Throughout my labor, I primarily stood, leaning forward, and swayed with contractions, adding some side bending for relief in the front of my belly. I eventually progressed to all fours, leaning on my birth ball, and swaying with contractions. My forward leaning positions would help baby boy rotate into that LOA position so he could descend through my midpelvis, and I very unwillingly added a few lunges in between contractions after some prompting from my midwife.
Most of my labor pain was in the front, so a heating pad brought a lot of relief and so did holding my belly. I think I had more front pain due to tighter round ligaments and hip flexors towards the end of my pregnancy, so the extra tension from my contractions made it a lot more than usual. Didn’t really feel any back pain during my labor, so the TENS didn’t seem to bring as much relief as I had hoped it would, but it was a good distraction for me to focus on.
Around 8pm, I started to feel more hip pain with contractions. I wondered if this meant he had descended more, since the contractions felt different. If he was lower, than it would make sense that I would feel pressure and tension in a different area than before. It turns out this was probably an accurate assessment at the time, which in retrospect was really cool to be able to have noticed this! I briefly glanced up at the clock to see that it was close to 830pm, and wondered how much longer before we met our baby.
All the comfort techniques we had been using were no longer bringing me comfort, and when asked what I would like to do, I replied, “I don’t know.” Later my sister would say she knew this meant I was starting transition, and she suggested I try the shower out.
I headed to the shower, and the shower felt amazing. I started to feel myself quarter squat with a few of the contractions, as I began to feel more perineal pressure during contractions. I didn’t feel any pressure in between, and convinced myself I must have a lot more to go still. I found standing in the shower to start to become overwhelming, and wanted to head back towards the bed so I could lean against something.
As I made it to the bed, I found myself become overwhelmed with emotions and whimpered that I was tired and commented that I was feeling so much pressure as the next contraction began. I could feel the room’s energy pick up as I began to spontaneously bear down. I felt relief that I was near the end, and with each contraction knew I was so much closer to meeting my baby.
The spontaneous bearing down was so primal and I felt so out of control with each contraction. I tried my best to just surrender to this process, focusing on relaxing as much as I could as my body pushed my baby out for me. There was no peaceful, calm breathing in my pushing! It was primal and overwhelming, as each contraction started with this incredibly strong fetal ejection reflex. I eventually crawled onto the bed in between contractions, needing more physical support for my body to be able to surrender to this sensation.
I began to actively push with each contraction in a side-lying position, my sister sat next to me on the bed, cueing me to go with the pushes as opposed to pull away. My husband supported my top leg, and prepared to catch our baby as each push brought him so much closer.
My water had yet to break at this point, and began to bulge. I kept commenting on how I just wanted it to break because I knew it would make our baby come so much faster. I even tried to claw at my bags of water hoping it would break. After a few more pushes, my midwife broke my water and then it wasn’t much longer after that!
Almost immediately everyone commented on how much hair he had! I reached down to feel his head, and was so ready to meet him. I asked my sister to go get my daughter so she could be here for the birth of her brother. She ran upstairs to grab my mother and daughter, and they all came rushing into the room. My daughter sat next to me, holding my hand, commenting on how her baby brother was coming to play with her soon!
Not even a push or two later, I could feel his head crowning, and then suddenly he was out! My husband caught him, and brought him directly to my chest. I pulled the amniotic fluid sac off of him, and brought him in close in instant relief!
I did it! He was finally here! I felt so empowered and proud of what I was able to do, and so in love with our baby boy. I was surrounded by people who truly believed in the power of women to birth their babies and felt so completely supported by my birth team.
I gave birth to our baby boy in our bed on June 16th at 9:47pm, one day after his due date. I was in latent labor for about 12 hours, and active labor for just under 3 and a half hours. I actively pushed for about ten minutes. I still have a birth high, and absolutely loved my home birth experience: from my prenatal care, to feeling empowered to make decisions about my care and birth experience, to the actual birth. It was such a difference from our first birth experience in the hospital, which was still powerful and important for my own growth, but I felt powerful and free to labor in my own way with the support I had chosen.
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