Charlotte’s Birth Story
I think I’ve started every single one of my birth stories with a similar sentiment but I can’t believe that Charlotte is two weeks old already! Time really flies when you have a newborn! Anyyyways, let’s dive right into Charlotte’s birth story.
When I woke up Wednesday morning (2/7) I was having irregular contractions that persisted throughout the morning but never got closer than 30ish minutes apart and never increased in intensity. So after our normal morning routine and dropping the girls off at school Henri, my mom and I set off for a long, hilly 4.5 mile walk.
At noon, our midwife came over for our 40 week appointment and I told her that I was having some contractions and we talked through the things that I could do to help encourage labor along. So after she left I bounced on my exercise ball and used my breast pump for about 20 minutes. That helped things along and throughout the afternoon my contractions were about 15/20 minutes apart and definitely more intense. Everything was manageable though so we went about our normal afternoon, picked the girls up from school, brought Liv to tennis and came home for homework, dinner and bedtime.
During our afternoon errands my mom had gone to the store to get the ingredients for the castor oil drink that my midwife suggested (1 cup ice, 1 cup apricot nectar, 3 TBSP almond butter, 3 TBSP castor oil all blended together) so after the girls were down I made the drink and we gave our midwife a heads up.
Henri and I laid down in our bed to watch as few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and continued to time my contractions which kept getting closer and more intense. Around 10pm I started to find the show very distracting so we turned it off and Henri called our midwife and she headed over!
In my two previous labors the thing that felt the best during contractions was laying on my side and just relaxing through them so I tried that at first but my contractions were really painful and that method wasn’t working. It felt a lot better to be up and moving around. I kept switching between all fours, inversion and bouncing on the exercise ball. When our midwife arrived at 10:30 she, Henri and my mom started setting up and filling the birthing tub.
Our birth photographer arrived at 11:30 and the commotion of everything ended up waking up Marigold. Henri tried to console her but she was calling for me so I headed down the hall and helped her calm down. While I was laying with her I got really nauseous so I had to run out of her room and threw up in the bathroom across from her room. When that happened I knew things were about to get real cause the same thing happened with Liv.
When I got back to our room I was ready to get in the tub. There’s a reason they refer to the birth tub the midwife’s epidural because as soon as I got in the warm water I felt so much better.
I know that I got in the tub a bit after midnight because ever since I found out Charlotte’s due date was in early February I had *not so secretly* wished that she would be born on my grandpa’s birthday (2/8) and around the time I got in the tub my mom announced to the room that it was after midnight and officially the 8th!
As I labored in the tub it wasn’t long before I felt the urge to push. I hadn’t had a cervical exam yet so I asked my midwife to check me to see if it was ok to start pushing. When she checked I was fully dilated and effaced so I had the go ahead to push!!
The pushing stage of labor is always the hardest for me but at the same time it’s a relief to be able to work with the contractions. It took a lot of effort to move her down and I asked the midwife more than once if my pushes were doing anything because I wasn’t sure.
She assured me that they were and told me to reach down and feel Charlotte’s head crowning. That was the encouragement that I needed to get through the next few contractions. It took a couple more pushes but soon her head was out. Henri says the next part was crazy, as we waited for the following contraction to come and push again Charlotte was moving her head around in the water. I couldn’t see that but I could feel her moving and turning, which was a wild sensation. Our midwife later explained that was Charlotte getting herself in a good position. How cool is that?
I pushed a few more times and our midwife helped Henri catch Charlotte.
He passed her to me as she came out of the water screaming…
… and I brought her to my chest. The best feeling in the world!
After the shortest active labor I’ve experienced Charlotte was born at 1:08am.
Henri and my mom slipped out of the room to wake up the big girls so that they could come meet their new sister! This moment was hands down one of my favorite parts of having a home birth.
The girls were both tired so they went back to bed pretty quickly. My midwife got Charlotte and I out of the tub and tucked into bed. Henri and I snuggled our new addition while our midwife delivered the placenta, checked to see if I needed stitches and tested Charlotte’s cord blood to determine if I needed to get a shot of Rhogam (luckily I didn’t need it!).
Marigold snuck out of her bed again and came in and cuddled with Charlotte and I for about 20 minutes. Just look at that proud big sister smile!
Henri cut the umbilical cord and then had his first chance to hold Charlotte while I got cleaned up and changed into clean clothes.
Then it was time for little miss to get her check-up.
The part of the check up was weighing Charlotte. This was the moment when she read out the measurement and we found out that she was 9lbs 2oz!
By 3am everything was cleaned up, we were tucked up in bed and our midwife headed out.
Overall, Charlotte’s birth was everything that I hoped it would be and an amazing experience. I’m so grateful that her entrance into the world was so special.
All the labor photos in this post were taken by Lore Photography.