Lavinia’s Birth Story

Wow! I know everyone says that time flies when you have kids but I didn’t realize how true that is until the past week and a half. Time has seriously flown since our little girl joined us last week! 

How is she already almost 2 weeks old!?

When I was pregnant I LOVED reading birth stories. It was comforting in a way to hear other moms’ experiences and to get an idea of what was headed my way. Since I loved reading them I wanted to make sure to write down Lavinia’s birth story while it was fresh in my mind, both for myself but also to share with other expectant moms. So here goes!

I woke up last Sunday morning with some light contractions that were really spaced out – like 20-30 minutes. I was excited about what it might mean and told Henri what was going on. Our midwives’ instructions for early labor was to just ignore, ignore, ignore so we went about our usual Sunday… church, coffee date, PokemonGO and dinner with his parents. My contractions continued throughout the day but never really got more intense or closer together.

We went to bed that night hoping that our little girl was on her way and when I woke up around 2am with stronger contractions that were closer together (10-15 minutes) I thought it must be it. I couldn’t sleep so I got up, made a bath for myself and tried to relax a little bit. While I was in the tub I was on my phone googling “what do contractions feel like” and “early labor vs. false labor”. I think I read a few too many forum where women said they were having menstrual-like contractions for days without anything happening so I talked myself into believing that I too was just in false labor.

Eventually around 6am I was able to go back to sleep, Henri got up to get ready for work and we texted our doula to get her opinion on whether or not Henri should go to work that day. She said that things sounded like they were moving along but Henri would have time to make it home if things were progressing so off he went.

I spent most of Monday on the couch relaxing, watching TV and googling more stuff about labor. My contractions had slowed down again and I started getting a bit discouraged and thought that maybe I wasn’t really in labor. By the time Henri got home from work the contractions had pretty much stopped so I made us burgers for dinner and we ate them while discussing what kind of trick our little girl was playing on us. When we went to bed that night I prayed that things would pick up over night and I would KNOW that I was in labor. 

Around 3:45am I woke up with a strong contraction! I also felt super nauseated and after fighting it for awhile everything we had eaten for dinner came back up. I was weirdly psyched about this because in our birthing classes we had learned that throwing up is a good indicator of labor! After that we continued to cuddle in bed and Henri helped guide me to breathe and relax through each contraction. We texted our doula to get her opinion on what was happening and she said that it sounded like today was the day and Henri definitely shouldn’t go to work. We called my parents to fill them in on what was happening and while I showered Henri brought the pups over to his parents’ house to drop them off for a few days (<– best decision ever!). 

When he got back I tried to eat breakfast but only managed to get down one piece of toast with butter. We turned on some How I Met Your Mother and I continued to labor on the couch at home. My contractions got steadily stronger and closer together but kind of leveled off at 5-6 minutes apart. We were instructed to head to the birth center at 3 minutes apart but I already had an appointment scheduled at noon and our doula suggested that we attend that appointment so that we could see how things were progressing. So around 11am Henri loaded all of our bags into the car and we were off!

We had been warned ahead of time that contractions tend to slow down while you are in the car and while what was true of the first half of our drive, it felt like they were getting closer together the second half of the drive. When we got to our appointment our doula was waiting there for us, the nurse went through the typical appointment procedures (pee check, blood pressure, weight, etc), and then the midwife came in to check my progress. At my appointment the week before I had only been 1cm dilated and 50% effaced so I was hoping to be about 4-5cm dilated – although I was still scared that I was experiencing false labor and wouldn’t have made any progress.

When the midwife finished her check she asked “would you like to know what you’re at?” and I nodded. What came out of her mouth next shocked me… “You’re 9cm dilated and 100% effaced!” I burst out into tears and smiled over at Henri – This was real! We were about to have our baby!

After that things moved so sooo quickly. They moved us from the exam room to the birth suite, I changed into my bathing suit top (Henri changed into his trunks) and I got into the tub. 

My contractions started coming very frequently and I tried my best to relax through them and let my body do all the work. Henri was the best coach in the world, reminding me to just let go and encouraging me the whole time. Our doula helped alleviate my back labor by pouring warm water on my back during each contraction and by performing this wonderful hip squeezing technique that literally made all the back labor pain stop! 

After about an hour and a half in the tub when I was starting to feel the urge to push my midwife suggested that I get up and sit on the toilet for a little while. Their reasoning behind this is two-fold… 1. they wanted me to pee every hour during labor to ensure that I was intaking enough fluids and 2. sitting on the toilet helps your body prepare to “let go” since that’s what we’ve done our whole lives while on the toilet. 

I really started to feel like pushing after a few minutes on the toilet so the midwives helped me move to the bed for the pushing stage. I started on all fours for a little while but found it too hard to push while also holding myself up so the midwife suggested a kind of side-lying position that was much more comfortable.

Now, I’m not going to lie, pushing was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but after hours (and DAYS!) of contractions I felt a major sense of relief to have reached this point. My contractions no longer hurt because I was finally able to work with them!

After an hour of pushing the midwife told me that Lavinia’s head was right there! They let me reach down and feel the top of her head and our doula held up the mirror so I could see her as well. That glance was all the motivation that I needed for those last few pushes and before I knew it Lavinia was in my arms! 

I couldn’t believe that our little girl was finally in the world! 

All ours for snuggling, kissing and loving!

After Henri cut the umbilical cord they transferred Lavinia to him so that they could deliver the placenta and get me cleaned up.

Then came my favorite part of the day, they turned down the lights and Henri, Lavinia and I got an hour to ourselves to cuddle and admire our little girl. I breastfed her for the first time while he sent some texts and made calls to our family to tell them the big news!

When our hour was up the midwife and nurses came back in and examined Lavinia. They measured her length…

… and Henri got to weigh her in the stork sling!

Birth centers are a lot different than hospitals in that your stay after birth is only a few hours. The nurses helped me take a shower and get dressed, Henri and I got Liv into a onesie and hat, we breastfed one more time and then we were off and headed home with our little bundle of joy!

I feel so blessed to have carried our daughter for the last 9 months and to have had such an amazing birth experience. It was everything I could have asked for and more! A big shout out to everyone at our birth center for all their help along the way. 🙂