‘When You Have To Pee And All Of The Sudden You're Holding Your Child.’
“When you have to pee and all of the sudden you’re holding your child.
This little guy was a complete surprise baby. We did fertility treatments for our first baby in 2015 because of my PCOS, and never in a million years thought we’d get pregnant without treatments again. We weren’t planning on doing any more as we were very happy with our little family of three, and then… surprise! It was a total shock and total blessing.
Pregnancy was great, easy and smooth just like my first. I enjoy being pregnant and giving birth, and having such a perfect experience before, I was very excited to have found a fabulous midwife, birth center and photographer for this baby.
The second baby is supposed to come earlier and much faster, so I’ve heard. With our first baby, on my due date, we labored at home for a few hours and then went to the hospital at 9 cm and had her literally within minutes and just a few pushes. She did get stuck on my pelvic bone but with certain positioning I was able to get her right out. Our surprise gender baby was a 6-pound, 5-ounce little girl.
So, finding myself passing 40 weeks with baby number two was more than surprising to myself and my husband. We had hired a birth photographer this time around, because we always wished we’d had more photos from our first birth which had been such a whirlwind. Everything was carefully planned out for this baby, down to the calm water birth I pictured.
The morning of, when I was 41+2, contractions started at 2:30 a.m. We went to the birth center bright and early at 5 a.m., with short (30ish seconds) but consistent contractions. They picked up in intensity after a couple hours and when it was time, this baby did not want to come out! His head would emerge a bit but with my short contractions, I couldn’t get him over my pubic bone.
Thanks to a great midwife and team, we were supported in trying many different positions to help encourage him out. This was a much more intense and exhausting labor than with my first. I started to doubt I’d be able to get him out. My midwife was very calm and that was a huge help to me because I was really started to worry I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Pushing with every contraction, it took 2 hours before he joined us earth-side, as the contractions never got longer than 30 seconds.
The final push ended up happening on the toilet after my midwife suggested emptying my bladder, and while sitting there a contraction came, so I gave a push and out came his head!
I was so relieved to have him out at this point because I was getting extremely tired.
Supported, I stood up to have our midwife catch him, and then sat back down there and held our sweet BIG baby boy who’d made his mama work so hard.
He was 2 1/2 lbs bigger than his sister. It was a bit of a scene, as I tend to bleed a lot during birth, and while doing the cord blood and tissue collection (for banking), my placenta delivered in quite a show, with blood absolutely everywhere, walls, floor, our midwife. The amount of blood surprised me, and I think everyone else, but all was well, and we went home a short four hours after having him.
Having our photographer there who captured this time meant everything to me.
The gorgeous photos and a video of all that we did, and worked so hard to do, is priceless.
Looking back on them is a beautiful way to relive one of the most important days of our lives.
While our birth wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured and planned for, it still was absolutely perfect and I’m so proud of us because it was OUR birth.
Baby James is such a sweet and happy little guy. He is the perfect addition to complete our family.
