This is Part II in my story of Becoming A Mother and all about my labor and delivery with Will {if you missed Part I of this story – all about my pregnancy – you can read it HERE}.

My water broke at a little after 10am on February 28. I was 42 weeks pregnant and exactly 2 weeks past my due date.

If I had not gone into labor on Feb. 28, I would’ve had to transfer care to a hospital and forego my dreams of a home birth. So needless to say, I was pretty stoked. I believed it was all happening for me, just as I’d “planned”.

“The Universe is on my side.” I thought. “I’ve got this.” 

But I had no idea the long road ahead and the unforeseen difficulties I would face over the next 16.5 hours to bring Will into this world…

My labor had a slow start and I didn’t really feel too much for the first few hours. I labored around the house, switching positions often, feeling restless. My midwife on call that day – Traci, came over to my house around noon to check on me and administer IV antibiotics because I had tested positive for group-b strep (something they test for late in your pregnancy). She said she’d be back in about 8 hours, unless my labor progressed faster.

I found myself most comfortable laboring on the toilet – partly because of the Midwive’s Brew (which, because of the castor oil, can cause diarrhea) and also (I have since learned) because it’s one of the places where we are most used to “opening” and the hole in the toilet seat supports that.

Regardless of labor “progress”, almost immediately, I began to implement the hypnobirthing techniques I’d learned.

Hypnobirthing, at its core, is all about the way you breath to allow a mother’s surrender to the natural process of labor. During labor, you have contractions (surges) in order for the baby to move down the birth canal and for the cervix to open. The muscles of your uterus contract (tense) and then relax. The principles of hypnobirthing believe that if you tighten against the muscle tensing (contraction), you are inadvertently interfering with the contraction and will thus experience pain. So by surrendering to the surges via your breath work & entering a self-hypnotic state, you can let the body do it’s work and remain “relaxed”; thus keeping out of the fear-tension-pain cycle I mentioned in my first post.

Hypnobirthing has two types of breath you utilize – I refer to them as labor breathing & birth breathing. For the labor breathing, on your inhales, you imagine filling a balloon (your belly) with air and expanding. On your exhale, you imagine your breath – or the balloon – floating up and out of your body. So the idea is open and release up versus contract and push out/bear down.

For almost 9 hours – from around 11am to close to 8pm, I sat in complete silence, engaging in this “labor breathing” on the either the toilet or the rocking chair in Will’s nursery; and two times in the bathtub. It took all my energy and focus to be present to each surge and breath my way through it. I couldn’t speak or eat. I was given water often, which I sipped through a straw, by my doula and Regan – and I could barely even muster the extra energy to open my mouth to do this. My doula twice gave me honey on a spoon, but that also took more effort than it was worth to me.

At some point during my labor (I had no concept of time), when the contractions began to intensify, my body would shake uncontrollably between surges. I was sitting perfectly still, but my body – especially my legs – would convulse / quiver as if possessed. Then as soon as a surge washed over me, it would stop completely. It was another wild sensation of labor that I had to practice surrendering to versus fighting or controlling, because doing so would impact my ability to stay “above” the surges and relax deeper between them.

Still to this day, my labor with Will is the most mentally & physically intense thing I have ever done.

Yet, through it all – for 9 hours of active labor,

I truly experienced NO. PAIN. 

I know that sounds crazy. Unbelievable, even. But I swear to you, it’s true. Zero pain. I realize it’s the opposite of what we’ve come to believe birth is. The vast majority of representations of birth in mainstream media or television is ALL pain, suffering. And I fully acknowledge that we all will have our own path within birth and sometimes that must BE pain because of where we’re at and what we must go through or learn to become a mother. But it’s also important to know what’s POSSIBLE and what we have the ability to co-create, to imagine, to practice.

And to be honest, it’s STILL challenging for me to even put to words the difference of feelings between the sheer, indescribable intensity of surrendering and opening my whole labor (which was so incredibly powerful and all-consuming) and yet no pain (as we experience and think about pain as hurting). Staying in my breath took everything I had. There were many times when my mind said, “I want this to be over” or “I can’t do this anymore”. During almost the entire time, those 9 hours, Regan was by my side. Encouraging and steady, often silent or using the partner-support hypnobirthing gestures he’d learned, tracing a light touch up & down my leg in symphony with my breath during the surges.

There came a time – I’m guessing around 7pm or so, that I asked to get in the bath for a second time. My doula advised that I stay out of the bath because she said it could slow my labor this late in the game. But I insisted, something in me knew it was right.

When I was in the tub, my breath suddenly changed. I was no longer able to let my exhale breath float up & out of me. Instead, my breath became choppy. It felt like when you’re driving on icy roads and when you brake, instead of coming to a complete & clean stop at a stop sign, your car kinda jerks forward a few times, then stops. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s so hard to describe, but I could totally show you with my hands / sounds. 🙂 I would inhale up, then my breath would “jerk downwards” 4-5 times throughout the exhale. With this, my body was overtaken with this intense and instinctive desire to push. I told my doula, “I’m ready to push”, but she didn’t think it was possible as she said I hadn’t shown any signs of my labor progressing that far (this was because I had labored in complete silence and showed no “usual” outward signs that typically indicate late stages of labor). Due to the closeness of my contractions, however, my midwife had already been called and was on her way.

I wanted a water birth. Yet somehow, it didn’t then occur to me that this could happen in my small bathtub. But one hangup on remaining there – since I’d tested positive for group-b strep, I had to get another shot before I birthed Will (or at least it was strongly recommended because you’re supposed to get a shot of antibiotic every 12 hours for the health & safety of the baby) and my midwife didn’t want to have to stop me mid-push to administer it, should the labor & pushing take longer than expected.

When Traci arrived – right at this time, she requested I get out of the bathtub to administer the IV antibiotics and check my cervix to see how dilated I was. So I got out of the tub – amidst my desire to push. Looking back, it’s the point in which I feel like I abandoned my knowing in Will’s birth. Where I stopped tuning into my body & trusting. Where I let someone else tell me, “this is what comes next” versus what I FELT viscerally in every corner of my body. For so long, I had such deep regret around this, wishing I would’ve verbalized this knowing to Traci and asked to remain in the tub. But that wasn’t my path, nor Will’s, to arrive Earth-side. We both had more struggles to overcome.

By now it was around 8pm, and my midwife found that I was 9.5 cm (10 cm = fully effaced and ready to birth). So it was confirmed that my labor had progressed to “almost there” using my hypnobirthing techniques and that I likely had gotten the urge to push in the tub. This being my first birth, I thought that’s what the urge // sensation I’d experienced was, but I was unsure & still relying on what other’s told me was happening to me. It wasn’t actually until Felix’s birth that I would have personal confirmation that this WAS for certain the urge to push.

But now, before I could push, Traci and my birth assistant (a midwifery student from Bastyr) got me all ready to administer the IV antibiotic. But we had one problem. Even after putting on a tourniquet, they couldn’t locate a vein close enough to the surface to do it…they said, because I was so relaxed. They couldn’t believe how difficult it was. It took nearly an hour, going back & forth between arms, to successfully give me the antibiotic.

While I was getting poked, Regan and my doula were preparing the birth tub we’d rented. After I’d finally gotten the antibiotic, I climbed into the tub. Again, I felt ready. Determined.

“9.5 cm” I told myself, “He’s here, my baby is finally coming to me. I am relaxed and happy.”
(an affirmation I’d said so many times with the hypnobirthing tracks).

I don’t think anyone could’ve foreseen this flook of an obstruction to my labor – how long it would take to get the IV in – but nonetheless as time wore on, and I continued to labor in the tub, it was clear that my labor had slowed down to a crawl. I was no longer at the same stage where I felt the urge to push like in the bathtub. Even so, I had tried to shift my breathing to the birth breathing of hypnobirthing – also known as “breathing your baby down”. You still focus on expansion and opening on the inhale, but instead of letting the balloon “float up” on your exhale, your direct the breath downward to help “push” the baby out.

After about an hour in the tub with no changes in my surges or urges, Traci thought I should get out so she could assess what was happening while I was laboring // “breathing baby down”. As my next surge came – where I engaged in the birth breathing – she placed her hand inside my vagina and felt.

After a few surges of doing this, Traci then told me that my baby’s head was crooked in the birth canal. That for every exhale breath // pushing or breathing out, his head straightened, but made no forward progress. She said, “I know hynobirthing has worked amazing for you until now. But you’re going to have to really start pushing to get him out.”

What ensued next was 4.5 hours of grueling pushing.

Looking back, what made this stage of my labor so hard was that I didn’t understand how to both open and push. To hold space for both the ease of opening and the effort of pushing – within the same breath.

I had learned how to go inward and surrender to the power of the surges, but I hadn’t learned how to LET GO. That it was about the softening versus anything I would be “doing” (a lesson I would learn many times over in my postpartum & motherhood). Because I didn’t know how to let go; specifically how to let go FULLY in my pelvic floor so that my cervix could complete it’s final opening, I had to push through.

As a fitness instructor, regular exerciser and a woman, I’ve been constantly told my whole life – by media, by my peers, by fellow instructors, by fitness models, by the entire fitness & health industry – that I needed to keep my abs (my “core”) tight all the time.

But the first lesson that I was to learn from my birth was that there was equal value in being strong // having a strong center + core AND being able to fully relax and let go of ALL the tension // engagement. That strength we so value, without the ability to release or fully let go, is hindered; weakened. In exercise, if we’re always holding a muscle tight without equal release, we actually lose contractual capacity of said muscle; we lose power and adaptability. Life and birth, it turns out, are no different.

We are only as strong as our ability to ALSO release.

When I was pregnant, one of the most common things I heard was, “You’re so fit! Birth is like a marathon, you’ll have no problem.”

People told me that healthy, fit people have easier births. Well intended shares I’m sure, but in the end, totally not helpful because it shaped my expectations of what my labor & birth would be like. I neglected a huge piece of essential birth preparation – learning to PHYSICALLY let go of the constant contraction I held in my pelvic floor so that Will could pass through the birth canal. I have since learned, however, that this practice – combining the mental aspect of surrender with the physical release of letting core contractions fully soften – is NOT something we talk to mothers about, nor use as an (at least mainstream) technique to help them prepare. This practice would make the biggest difference in my birth with Felix, and something I work on with all my expecting momma clients now.

In truth, I think we’re doing women a disservice by focusing solely on birth as a physical event or even comparing it to a physical feat. Because it’s NOT like anything we’ve physically ever done before – it’s not about our ability to do & push through, it’s about releasing. About finding the delicate balance to being engaged, yet not controlling. It’s a spiritual event where mind & body surrender to the natural knowing of the body. Never in my fitness practice did I practice “letting go”, “releasing” or surrendering to find strength.

And here’s the other piece of the puzzle – our modern world operates from a primarily masculine paradigm, one that only values logic and the “doing energy”; not rest, intuition or release. Sadly, we women, have bought into this paradigm & subscribed ourselves to mostly existing and operating from this energy on the daily in all aspects of our lives. We’ve accordingly neglected the tending of our feminine qualities and practices – myself very much included. And as such, when we enter into birth – a distinctly feminine space of being, receiving and releasing – we are unpracticed and in unfamiliar territory. What should be natural for us is foreign. I could talk about this for ages – for it has now become my passion & work, but reconnecting to and learning to find the sacred dance between both the masculine and feminine energies would come to be the other vast difference in my birth with Felix.

Speaking of my birth… for last 4.5 hours of my labor, I tried various positions to try to push Will out.

And when I say PUSH, I am not exaggerating. The opposite of my hypnobirthing techniques, it an all out effort of using the full force of my breath, belly & physical body to try to figure out how to move Will through me.

Countless times, Traci would reinsert her fingers, pressing on my perineum and say “push here”. But somehow I could not direct my effort there and release at the same time. 

I tried pushing from a side lying position while Traci held my top leg up. I tried pushing from All Four’s. I sat in a Squat and labored there. I rotated these positions and sank into my determination. With Will, I always had enough rest between surges to gather my energy anew – and for this, I am grateful. Each surge though, it felt like my face and head was going to explode from the effort of pushing. I would grunt and turn red and “push” as hard as I could; just hoping THIS contraction would be the one that made the progress I needed.  I wanted to weep & wallow, but was also unwilling to even take a second to stop if it meant I could get Will out faster. 

Finally there came a time when Traci suggested that I move back to the toilet and labor there until I could feel the top of Will’s head starting to emerge. I interpreted this as good news; thinking I had to be close.

Although I later had the “bathtub regret”, I am so grateful for Traci’s guidance during this whole process. She was so steadfast. She never – in her mannerisms, suggestions or encouragement made me feel like I was either close to delivering Will or really far away from the possibility. It might seem odd, but this “unknowing” kept me going. If she had given me timelines, like “not much longer now” or “you’re getting close, just a few more”, I think it would’ve been harder and I would’ve focused on “getting there” versus being in the moment of every surge individually and putting ALL effort I had into each one. 

And when I was on the toilet, it didn’t take long for me to be able to reach down and feel the top of Will’s head, just a bit. I told Regan and he told Traci and she came in to get me (she was readying the living room space for my birth).

I assumed THE POSITION – for me, that being a squat. Fitting, I know. 🙂 

Regan was sitting on our red couch and my spine was upright against it. I was between his legs, my arms on his thighs and my hands interlaced with his hands, over his knees. Every time I pushed, I would press into his legs to lift myself up. He would later say that he thought I was going to squeeze his hands off and that he could feel the intensity of each push coursing through me as I grounded into his body to hold myself up.

Between those surges, I rested my hips on the ground (still in a wide squat position). I have no idea how many pushes it took, but finally I felt the “ring of fire”. This is when the baby’s head is crowning and the labia + perineum are at their point of maximum stretching (this is right before the final push(es) get their head, shoulders & body out).

To me, it felt like the most intense stinging sensation as the skin stretched. It also felt like a hallelujah and I knew I was finally almost done.

I gathered my energy one last time and pushed Will out into Traci’s hands at 2:33am on March 1…after 4.5 hours of pushing.

I wish I could say that once Will was out, I was elated and reveled in his presence; that time stopped and I felt immediately connected to my baby. But I didn’t. After almost 15.5 hours of laboring and pushing with my eyes closed, I came back to reality feeling hazy. We hardly had any lights on, yet I could barely open my eyes. My face felt swollen and my body drained. When I finally found my voice, I felt out of body when speaking. I held Will and felt like I was living in a dream, everything seemed so unreal. I showed him to Regan (still sitting behind me) and we commented on the crazy cone shape of his head (totally normal I guess, but very shocking). Not exactly the Kodak moment I had envisioned.

I still had yet to birth my placenta, but Traci thought I’d done enough pushing so gave me a shot to help along the process (I have since learned that this is called “active management” to help speed up the delivery of the placenta. Traci pushed on my uterus and pulled the placenta out by the umbilical cord). At this point, I passed Will to Regan to complete my birthing process. Once that was done, I was moved to my bed and holding Will, really saw him for the first time.

He latched well and began to suckle while the midwives tended to me and Regan leaned in. I remember feeling both connected to Regan and disconnected from the moment at the same time. My body shakes returned, this time because I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours. While Traci did all the newborn checks, I ate and honestly was still in such disbelief that Will was actually here, I had prepared so much for the doing – the labor, the birth, having our house prepared and all the baby things ready, that I hadn’t really stopped to think about the feeling. What it would feel like to be a mother, to hold my baby. Or for what I would feel afterwards – on all levels – physically, emotionally, mentally, relationally and in every aspect of my being. 

The birth was done, my baby was here and we decided to name him Will Andrew (Patrick was the other hot contender). I had gone through so much to get Will here. Even so, I hadn’t yet begun to LIVE the complete transformation I had just undergone. I had no idea how my life, my body and my entire world would change. I didn’t know that with Will, I also had been born anew. That was one thing I had not prepared for – and it was about to rock my world.

 

{Stay tuned for Part III: Postpartum – Being a Mother & Healing}.

 

(NOTE: This post is about my personal journey into becoming a mother. I know many of my clients, friends and readers have had a totally different experience and struggled to conceive. We each have our own stories. They are all valid and it’s important we share and support each other in our differences.If your journey is one of struggle or loss, I see you. I love you and hold you close to my heart. You are enough and your story matters. So much of conception and motherhood is hidden // unspoken // shame-filled in order to keep us SILENT and disconnected. It’s my goal to share my journey openly, in hopes it gives you courage to also share yours).

This, my love, is where it ALL BEGAN. And the story of the journey of getting to where I am now {Part I of II on “Becoming A Mother”}.

It was June 9, 2014. Regan and I operated our business – Macks Mo – out of our garage studio. In those days, we often worked out together and it was a time where I felt so aligned with my body for many reasons (I’ll name a few):

• I had a morning & evening routine that created clarity, calm and headspace.
• I had learned the value of varied workout paces; meaning: I learned that “going hard” all the time was not the most effective way to train – especially as a woman – so I switched things up based on how I felt that DAY (wondering what I’m talking about? Be sure to read this post, this post, this post and this one too. And a bonus one for mommas, here).
• I was eating intuitively and slowly, setting my fork down between bites and filling my body only with food that made me feel good (which had a lot to do with quality, savoring and eating when I was hungry).

At the time, hopping on the treadmill for a warmup run was routine. “Back then”, my normal running speed was a 9, easy breezy. This day though (6.9.14), I stepped on the treadmill at that pace and immediately became winded. I could hardly run 1 minute before I had to step off. It felt like I had lead in my feet. And I burst into tears.

Not because I couldn’t run “per usual”, but because I knew I was pregnant. And they weren’t tears of joy. They were tears of overwhelm, fear and disbelief. I was totally not ready and unprepared. My business was exploding, I was right where I wanted to be – physically, professionally and in all areas of my life. If you asked us at the time, Regan and I were telling friends that kids were part of the plan in “maybe 2 years”. I was 29 and I was pregnant with Will – now my greatest surprise, gift and teacher. Then, my biggest shock. Regan was quite surprised by my tears and when asked what was wrong, I gave an exacerbated, “I’m pregnant.” He didn’t believe me, but a pregnancy test the next morning confirmed that we were now parents-to-be. Just like that, my life changed in an instant…

Back track to the previous November (2013), I had my Mirena IUD taken out because it was the last thing in my life that felt “unnatural” or out of alignment with my current lifestyle. I began seeing an acupuncturist and tracking my cycle via basal body temperature (for the first time in my life). I didn’t want to get pregnant, but I did want to learn more about my body and get more in touch with that which made me uniquely feminine. My sessions with Elisa – my acupuncturist – also called me to dig deeper into my soul, my relationship to my body // my work // my stress, my purpose and she was the first person who “connected all the dots” – my first holistic “therapist” – where I could bring my whole self, talk about everything and be energetically opened, realigned & energized. Her work was life-changing for me, truly.

Side note: It’s at this time, that I also learned, from Elisa, that periods are innately designed to be pain-free and that any “symptoms” (read PMS) we have throughout our cycle, but especially from ovulation to menstruation are signals that something isn’t working for our body in our lifestyle, food or exercise. Read more about that here. I didn’t believe her at first either, if you’re rolling your eyes, he he. This set me on a path that, along with becoming a mother, would change the path of my business over the next 5 years. 

So here I was (back to 2014), pregnant. A new mother, responsible for growing & birthing a new life. None of our close friends were having kids. I knew *nothing* about pregnancy or birth at the time, but (not) coincidentally, I had been recently having discussions around birth with my then client & friend Jen, who had just began midwifery school at Bastyr. I myself had just completed my health coaching certification at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, so we’d spend hours talking about the similarities between the birth & wellness industry and how far society has moved away from the original and simple states of these two worlds (birth & healthy living // nutrition).

It was from these conversations that I was inspired to pursue a home birth, using a midwife. My Dad being a doctor and my mom a nurse, this was quite the unconventional approach. But driven by the strong trust I’d cultivated with my body, and the belief that birth was natural & needed no intervention (barring a pregnancy with no complications), I knew in my bones that a home birth was right for me (if you’re interested in one, the documentary The Business of Being Born is a great place to start). And to be honest, the idea of laboring naked in my own home and going to bed in my own bed, next to my husband sounded pretty rad. 🙂 So we interviewed a few midwives here in Seattle and landed with Seattle Home Maternity Service in Columbia City. (Note: I believe ALL mothers should be celebrated + empowered for whatever choice feels best to them – unmedicated, medicated, vaginal or c-section – while also being given truths about what each type of birth entails postpartum, for mom & baby).

Although I don’t have the alternative experience of working with an OB in a hospital setting, one of my favorite things about using midwives was although I had no idea “what to expect”, they put my unease for the unknown to rest by how casual and “normal” they made being pregnant and having a baby feel. They were encouraging, loving and EMPOWERING. They pushed me towards trusting my intuition deeper BECAUSE of how natural they made it all seem (which, by the way it IS normal and natural to be pregnant and have uncomplicated pregnancies & deliveries – and that’s what we should *expect*, while also helping mothers prepare for emergencies and the unexpected).

And yet, I had never seen a real birth in my life. In fact, I hadn’t really dealt with newborns or been around lots of babies either. I didn’t have close mom friends who’d gone before me and I had no idea what to expect. So I started “preparing” where I start most things – in my body. Somehow I knew birth was going to require a type of physical and mental surrender that I wasn’t good at (hello headstrong, controlling Aries over here!), so as soon as I got pregnant, I wrote some affirmations that I began reciting daily in my morning and evening routines.

Desperate for a sense of control in a time where I felt like I had none, these affirmations helped ground me into my body and made me feel that if I could believe it, I could also “do it”: 
– I could be a mom, even a good one – regardless of not wanting to be one, initially, at the time.
– I could feel connected to my baby and have a meaningful relationship in utero.
– I could learn to want to be a mom, and look forward to the changes it would bring.
– Even though I hadn’t done it before, I could birth a baby naturally, with ease.
– I could still have my big business dreams (and accomplish them) while being a mom.

Along with my own affirmations, I stumbled across hypnobirthing – a self-hypnosis and relaxation practice used to help women experience labor & birth with EASE and SURRENDER versus fear & anxiety. One main concept behind the method is that it keeps the mother out of the “fear-tension-pain cycle” that can make a woman’s labor &/or birth experience more difficult, painful and even possibly longer – no thank you! Hypnobirthing calls contractions “surges” and operates from the premise that if you drop into a self-hypnotic state, you work with your body to RELEASE & OPEN – a requirement of getting the baby out! – thus decreasing or eliminating pain.

I heard real life users of the practice describe “pain-free labors” and the experience of “breathing the baby down” versus pushing and struggling. Sounds pretty great, right? I thought so too, so enrolled in a 6-week course with Regan at Seattle Hypnobirthing with Tracy Adams. Along with the course, you are given 2 tracks to listen to: Rainbow Relaxation (which takes you through relaxing the entire body) and Affirmations For An Easy & Comfortable Birth. Since my baby was due Feb. 14, we had to sign up for a course in November as post-new year options finished after my due date. I am so grateful that it turned out this way because I listened to those tracks EVERY DAY for 3 months before Will came. And by the end of listening to them, I had gotten proficient at dropping into relaxation quickly and I firmly believed that I could have my baby with ease, at home. Using this technique helped me develop a confident connection to my baby, strengthened my trust with my body, and allowed me to lean into my intuition around becoming a mother.

There is, of course, so (SO!) much I wish I would’ve known, (that’s for another post soon re: birth & postpartum transparency), but overall, by the time Will’s due date came around, I felt “READY” (insert hand to forehead emoji here) to embark on this new journey. I had, after all, done “all the things” (what I thought were the *right* things) to prepare myself… 

• I had done acupuncture weekly throughout my pregnancy to aid in relaxation and preparing my mind & body for labor and birth. And per the advice of my acupuncturist, I used the 9 months to slowly let go of things in my life so that there was “room” for my baby.
• I had shifted my workouts from mostly HIIT with heavier lifting to moderate strength training and lighter endurance-based training (zero impact) that focused on slowing down, breathing and moving intentionally. My training goal was to support my changing body, not push or over-exert, taking energy away from my body’s hard work of making a baby. I also took some prenatal yoga classes (at this time, I was definitely NOT a “yogi”) which I LOVED. And I highly recommend taking these, if available, because (and especially for me – a new mom without mom friends), surrounding yourself with women going through the same things as you feels SO GOOD.
• In addition to hypnobirthing, I hired a doula and took a one-on-one birthing course to get a better handle on birth itself. My birth educator happened to also be a women’s health physical therapist, which gave me some insight into healing properly postpartum as well.

And along with all this, my pregnancy had been SMOOTH and EASY. No pain, no trouble sleeping, no negative symptoms to speak of (like heartburn, acid reflux, morning sickness, etc.). So I figured – “I’ve got this and everything is going according to plan.” Not to mention that so many people had told me, “You’re so fit, you’re going to have an easy birth, no problem!” Not knowing any better, I thought to myself, “Well sure, that makes sense – it IS a physical endurance event, right?” (insert *another* head to forehead emoji here).

So on February 14 – Will’s due date, I was ready. But February 14 came and went. And so did the 15th, the 16th, the 17th and so on. A few days past my due date, I did a non-stress test at my midwives to make sure that Will’s heartbeat was still good and that he was moving around enough (all good there!). And despite the reassurance of my midwives that “it was normal to be late with your first baby”, I began to wonder if Will would ever come.

I had another non-stress test somewhere around a week past my due date and by 10 days overdue, I started to explore the possibility that I might not be able to have Will at home – which was a devastating prospect for me. I had an ultrasound around the same time to check my amniotic fluid (it was also good) and Will was happy as a clam in there.

By Friday, Feb. 27 – the day before I was 2 weeks overdue (aka 42 weeks), I had another midwife appointment where they attempted (a second) membrane sweep in hopes to gently induce labor. My cervix was nowhere to be felt and my midwife told me that as such, it was highly probable that I was also 0% effaced (when your cervix softens, shortens & thins as an early stage of labor). My heart sank and I fought back tears. If Will didn’t come the next day (Sat the 28th), I would have to transfer care to a hospital. Traci – one of my midwives, recommended that Regan & I try the Rebozo Method (a gentle shifting of the pelvis using a sheet that can help baby shift into position for labor, flip a baby or provide pain relief during labor) or see try seeing a chiropractor because it was possible my baby wasn’t in a position in my pelvis that was initiating labor. She also gave me a vile of medical grade verbena oil for use in making myself a Midwive’s Brew on Saturday morning, in the event that my labor didn’t start overnight. 

To be honest, I so firmly believed in my home birth, I didn’t even entertain the idea that I’d have to have my baby in a hospital. But upon the recommendation of my midwife, I started working on a backup plan at 13 days overdue. Through a friend, I found a high risk OB (you’re considered high risk once you go past 42 weeks) in Everret, WA – a good hour drive from my West Seattle home (one way) without any traffic – that was willing to let me avoid being induced up to 43 weeks, but I would also have to get a non-stress test every day at said hospital. This raised my spirits a bit, for I was at least still hopeful for a natural birth. I also reached out to my acupuncturist for a chiropractor recommendation and it just so happened that he lived in West Seattle! I called Dr. Stefan Black immediately and he was able to schedule me in for that Friday afternoon.

I had never been to a chiropractor before, and despite the apprehension of trusting my body to an unknown manual therapy, I was desperate to exhaust all means necessary to try to get this baby out before Sunday. After some big cracks, I left Dr. Black’s office with an appointment for the next morning as a follow up, should it be needed. Once home, Regan and I did the Rebozo method a few times – and all other wive’s tails to induce labor – then I went to bed early in hopes I’d soon be wakened with labor pangs. 

With no such luck, I woke to my alarm at 7am on Saturday morning. I had planned to take half the Midwive’s Brew  – a mix of the verbena oil, apricot juice, peanut butter and castor oil blended into a “shake” before my 8am appointment with Stefan (my midwife recommended doing half, then the other half 2 hours later). Another series of cracks later & still no sign of labor, I rushed home to drink the other half of the shake at 9am on the dot. You guys – I literally LICKED the blender clean. I was determined to waste not a single drop of this precious potion. Then, I waited. I listened to my hypnobirthing tracks a few times and was feeling ansy. It’s so wild to have no control over the single most significant moment of your life – when it will happen, how it will happen or even where it will happen to a degree – and just be WAITING. I remember getting up to go to the bathroom & feeling a “click” in the front of my pelvis as I sat down (but I thought nothing of it at the time). Then I moved my “waiting station” to a big exercise ball and started down hip circles.

As I was doing the hip circles, on our carpeted living room floor, a little after 10am on Saturday, February 28, two weeks exactly past my due date, my water broke. A huge gush of liquid went everywhere. I recall shouting to Regan with excitement, then going to change while he came & cleaned up.

My labor began and my baby was coming. 

{stay tuned for Part II dropping later this week}.