Third Times the Charm- The Homebirth of Cedar

The pregnancy:

Immediately after having Indy & Kes I knew pretty much exactly how I wanted to write my birth story. After receiving my birth photos, which helped me further process their births, I got on my laptop and my fingers typed away seamlessly.

This birth was different. I still feel like I don’t have a good way to describe it. Cedar is now nearing 5 months old though so I figured I should probably write his story. I’ve had his birth photos for a while, I’ve read through my chart & I remember the birth just as well as the other two, yet I feel like I don’t have much to write about the actual birth.

This pregnancy started off hard & it stayed challenging almost until the third trimester. It was completely unplanned & I had a very difficult time accepting it. I felt resentful, but then I felt bad about being resentful because so many people I know would kill to be able to get pregnant without even trying. So while I recognized that it was a privilege to be fertile, I also knew my feelings were valid and over the next 9 months I would process them. I just didn’t want to be pregnant again so soon, I wanted to wait at least 3 years, but alas life had different plans for us! I had to follow my own advice & just go with the flow. I was probably the most ready I’ve ever been for a baby (most financially stable, great support, house with enough space, etc.), yet I felt the least prepared… I kept saying that this baby would come out and go straight to Johnny, this was his baby. I wasn’t ready to give birth again, I wasn’t ready for Kes not to be the baby, & I wasn’t ready to breastfeed again. I had just weaned!

We had a 2 month cross country roundtrip coming up (literally every time we’ve planned a cross country road trip I would get pregnant & we’d cancel, so I was determined to make this trip happen no matter what), I was attending 6-8 births a month and booked solid & I just overall felt like complete garbage. No energy, no appetite, but constantly needing to eat. I kept thinking, if this is going to be my last pregnancy I want to enjoy it to the fullest, but I was struggling big time to do anything at all. I am so grateful to my midwifery team for getting me through the beginning and end of my pregnancy, I seriously couldn’t have done it without them! They carried me through in so many ways.

During the road trip I ate terribly since there were limited decent options in rural areas, the high altitude made me feel light headed constantly, the dry heat gave me severe headaches, sitting in the car for hours made my body ache & I felt chronically dehydrated. Driving across the country just made me feel so beyond exhausted even if I was doing absolutely nothing besides sitting in the passengers seat all day. With Indy I never felt sick, with Kes the first 12 weeks were exhausting, but after that I loved being pregnant. Not this time, I was 18 weeks in and still feeling like crap, this must be a girl I thought. I was 90% sure it was another girl…

Around 22-24 weeks, towards the end of the road trip I was finally feeling more myself. I was able to eat better, my energy started to come back, no more headaches, I was finally starting to enjoy pregnancy like I normally do! I got to stay with a few of my midwifery sisters and have them love on my belly. Of course now that I was feeling good I didn’t want this pregnancy to end.

Once we got back home I was busy catching babies again, attending 6-8 births a month. I felt great though! It was so wonderful to be attending births while being pregnant. I absolutely loved being pregnant alongside my clients. Physically I was feeling great as long as I was getting chiropractic adjustments & acupuncture regularly. The weeks started flying by in the third trimester. Life was in fast forward and I just wanted it to slow down, I was in no rush for this pregnancy to be over, as usual…

I just had in my head that this would probably be the last time I’d ever be pregnant, and the thought of that was too much to handle. I love this phase in my life too much to be okay with it being over, but I also was overwhelmed at the thought of having 4 kids. I was enjoying every second of my ever growing belly, soaking up all the time I could with Kes since she wouldn’t be my baby any more, going out to eat with my mama friends every week since I knew I’d be tied up in bed with a newborn throughout the winter. When I say I could be 40 weeks pregnant for the rest of my life, I 100% mean it! It is my favorite transition of life where time starts to slow down and you reflect on the last 9 months & wonder what’s ahead of you.

After every birth I would come home & that night I would take a bath with Epsom salts & magnesium flakes, turn the lights out and burn some candles. I would meditate and relax my body and mind and envision a peaceful birth. Around 37 weeks I attended the calmest birth. A mama who was also having her third baby was quietly sitting on the toilet listening to Christian hypnobirthing. My assistant, Jaci, & I started to unpack and get our things ready. I sent her husband downstairs to grab something out of the kitchen and a minute later I hear Jaci say, “You might want to get gloves, the head is out.” This mama didn’t make a peep. She just stood up and breathed her baby out. Her husband was in disbelief as he came upstairs.

How do I give birth like that!? Third baby, about 300 births I’ve attended, you’d think I know…My mind just kept coming back to that sensation of my ass being ripped open during Kes’ birth & the closer I got to my due date the more I dreaded the fact that I had to give birth.

I’m so grateful that one of my incredible clients, who is a hypnobirthing teacher, reached out the following week and offered to do a fear release session with me to work through my “fears” so that I would hopefully have a more gentle birth experience. I didn’t think I had any fears, and I had been practicing releasing any tension during my baths & at bedtime. I took her up on the offer because I wanted more tools in my tool kit, but honestly didn’t think I would get much out of it.

Oh my gosh, I was wrong! Estee’s breathing techniques, positive affirmations, and fear releasing helped me SO much. Not only for birth, but just for life in general. Working with her was beyond helpful & I am so glad I took her up on her offer. We did two sessions, talked about my previous births and those ass ripping sensations I was dreading and how I could cope with them for my upcoming birth.

Around 40 weeks I had a lovely blessingway ceremony facilitated by my two good friends. Everyone who attended made me feel really positive about my upcoming birth & bringing another baby into this crazy world. I was surrounded by so much love & support. No matter how this birth went, I knew I had a huge community to help if needed. I was going to the chiropractor & to acupuncture weekly and I also went to see my fabulous pelvic floor therapist, Dr. Amanda Heritage, at Breathe Life PT. She did internal work and really helped me prepare physically for labor. We worked on getting through that premature urge to push sensation I get, stretching to reduce tearing, breathing in the right direction for opening (imagine breathing like a tear drop in my bottom, somehow this made sense to me), and more.

My due date, December 10th had passed, and then 41 weeks had come. Still in no rush to get this baby out, waddling around & blissfully enjoying my last few days of pregnancy, hoping they’d arrive for the winter solstice, December 21.

Okay sorry for ranting about any and everything besides the actual birth…

Now for the actual birth story!

The Friday night before labor (41 weeks and 1 day) we went to pizza movie night at our friends house, like we do every week. She had made a delicious chili & we stayed until about midnight hanging out & letting the kids run around. No signs of labor. Thinking I have some time. We get home and get to bed around 1am.

5:30am Saturday December 18, 2021, I wake up and text Jaci (who is scheduled to work). “Just peed and wiped and had some bloody show.” I went back down and laid in bed and immediately got back up to sit on the toilet. That chili was ripping through me. The absolutely most foul smelling bowel movements I had ever smelt. (Sorry TMI). I text Jaci again at 5:43 am “andddd I am having contractions.” I text Krystina as well that I’m having mild contractions. I’m trying to rest, they’re not super close, but feel intense. I’m breathing through them. I try my TENS unit, as I’ve heard it’s great for early labor. I’m laying down and no, absolutely not. This TENS unit is intensifying everything. I rip it off and go back to the bathroom.

I call Jaci and ask if she got my texts and if she’s coming to my birth, it’s 6:30am. She said she’s been texting me back for the last 3 days, to which I’ve received zero texts from her, come to think of it I haven’t really received many texts over the last few days in general. She already pulled up to work at the hospital, it’s too late for her to call out. I get in the bath and start timing them, the Freya app is guiding me to breathe through them. I text Krystina things are starting to pick up. 7:30am I let her know they’re about 4 minutes apart and definitely feeling more intense, I’d love for her to head over. Johnny and the kids are still sleeping. I’m trying to just keep breathing through them in the bathtub. My ass hurts already and it’s just from that damn chili.

8am Krystina arrives, baby sounds good, I’m totally in the labor zone. Not sure of the timing, but Beth, my doula/ massage therapist (who I had been receiving body work from my entire pregnancy) & Hayden my birth photographer arrive sometime within that hour. Johnny’s asking me if he should blow up the birth tub, I don’t freaking know, why is he asking me questions?! I’ve transferred to a different planet… “Sure blow it up” I tell him, just to give him something to do. Then he’s asking me about someone picking up our meat from the farmer, I’m literally feeling like he’s speaking another language to me.

8:30am I ask Krystina to check me. Am I 4cm or 6cm?! I know it really doesn’t matter, but I want to have some sort of idea where I’m at because I’m already feeling this damn rectal pressure. I go to the bathroom for the millionth time, Krystina checks me in my bed, and gives me that eyebrows raised look. “What am I?” She shows me with her fingers and says, “ You’re like 8cm dilated. Just a little bit of cervix in the front.” Holy shit! ! I couldn’t believe it. amazing! I excitedly got up and said something along the lines of, “Whelp, that was easy!” Thinking that my baby would simply slide right out in the next hour or so. Only 2 hours of contractions that I’ve totally been able to manage and I’m already so close.

The next hour is kind of a blur. At some point Karen showed up and was in my backyard for some reason. I’m laying in my bed and I just hear Johnny say, “Is that Karen outside?” Still not sure why she was in my backyard, but I’m so happy she was able to make it! I’m shitting my brains out still on chux pads & we’re all laughing about it in my bedroom. It smells terrible & I’m just like sorry guys as I continue to wipe my ass… I’m in and out of the bathroom, the bathtub, back onto my bed. It feels so good to be in this bathtub. The one I’ve been envisioning my birth in over the last few months. I hear sirens because Santa is coming on a fire truck, its the Saturday before Christmas. Johnny’s getting the kids dressed to go see him.

This birth roller-coaster is so wild, it’s like I’m there with everyone, but I’m not. This is the last time I’m thinking, I look in the mirror, I’m making peace with it being the last time I ever give birth. Beth is so in tune with me, I have no idea what she’s even doing, but we’re in this beautiful & intuitive flow together. Massaging my back, pressing into pressure points in my legs, pouring water on me, I’m telling myself to breathe & be loose. It’s becoming harder and harder. That insane pressure in my ass is just building and building. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.”

9:30am, alas, that insane rectal pressure/ ass ripping open sensation I unavoidably get during every labor is here! So hard to breathe through. I check myself. That baby’s head is right there. So low. & so is just a bit of anterior lip, just like last time. I just want to push it out of the way and be done. I’m trying to just breathe through & surrender. Imagining the tear drop in my butt like Amanda prepped me for, reminding myself of the positive affirmations I went over with Estee. Karen gives me the look, the “get out of your midwife head” look. She says, “You know the toilet’s a great place.” And I’m thinking to myself, ughhhh Karen, I know damnit! I know she’s right, reluctantly to the toilet I go… I feel baby’s head coming down. But, that bit cervix remains there. Why do my babies not just fall right out!? Getting to 8cm was simple, why do I have to endure hours of rectal pressure EVERY TIME!?

I’m still hearing this damn Santa siren. It gets closer and then further, and then closer. Louder, quieter, louder again. It’s going up & down every block in the neighborhood besides ours. This has been going on almost the entire time I’m in labor. Who’s coming first, my baby or Santa?! The kids have gotten their jackets on and off multiple times to see Santa on this fire truck!

Kes is so curious what’s going on with me. She quietly watches me from the doorway with her curious eyes. Indy is keeping to himself, trying to keep Kessie occupied, watching the Grinch together. I feel my contractions slowing down in frequency, but that urge to push is intensifying each time they come. I’m able to rest in between. I feel myself getting closer. It feels similar to approaching 40 weeks, where time slows down and you know something huge is about to happen.

Santa sounds close, is he finally coming down my street? These sirens are still going, getting louder, but this baby may be closer…

11am, I am officially pushing, although it feels like I’ve been pushing for the last 2 hours. All of my cervix has melted out of the way. My body is uncontrollably bearing down. I tell Johnny to come into the bathroom. I have them fill my bathtub back up. I get in hands and knees, My head is in Johnny’s lap. “You can do this.” His hands are gently placed on my back. I feel my body opening. Wider and deeper.

I’m roaring this baby out with everything I have in me. The head feels big. I’m trying to keep my knees together for pushing like Blossoming Bellies recommends to open my pelvis, but my perineum feels like no way in hell is this head going to fit through. Kes’ head didn’t feel like this, her head slipped out relatively easily, this head doesn’t feel like it’s going to slip right out, it feels ginormous. I feel like it’s splitting me in half.

11:18am, my water breaks. The head is starting to crown. I’m literally manually opening my vulva, spreading my labia to help make room for this gigantic feeling head to come through. Guarding my perineum to protect myself from tearing. I’m not in my midwife head at this point, my body is intuitively guiding me.

11:19am (the same time Kes was born), I’m in hands and knees and the head is finally out. What a relief! I wait for the next contraction. I stand up, I’m pushing, the body isn’t out. I don’t remember if I said anything out loud, but I’m like seriously, another stuck shoulder? I’m not fearful. I trust Krystina & Karen and know they know what to do.

11:21am, Karen & Krystina ultimately go in & help work this little baby out into the world. Not a true shoulder dystocia, more so a “sticky shoulder”.

11:22am baby bird #3 is born into my bathtub. I plop down in the water and cry. I’ve done it again. Johnny’s crying too. The kids come in and stand around me, staring at their new sibling. & just like that, we’ve become a family of 5!

I look down, it’s a boy! I cannot believe it.

He’s crying, Kes starts crying and says, “I don’t want it.” He calms down and then just stares into my soul with these huge bug eyes unlike any of my other kids. I feel his perfectly round head that hurt like hell coming through, no molding, no caput.

Krystina gives me some placenta ease tincture to help my body release the placenta, ew, absolutely disgusting tasting. “We give this shit to people?!” I ask her.

I lay in the warm water, skin to skin with this new little baby. My belly already feels deflated. I’m back on earth after that wild journey.

Beth takes the kids to go decorate a birthday cake for their new brother. My placenta comes out about 10 minutes later in an interesting way. As soon as my placenta is born I give the baby to Johnny, just as I had planned from the very beginning. “Here’s your baby.” I tell him. He takes him to the bedroom & I just continue to lay in the tub with the lights off. Krystina is helping me clean myself, I’m soaking it all in, processing everything that just happened in the longest & shortest 5 hours of my life.

Kes takes a break from cake decorating to go see her new baby brother. She snuggles up in bed next to Johnny and says, “I get baby a blanket.” She excitedly goes and gets a blanket in the closet and brings it over to cover him. As soon as I come in the bedroom and see her with the baby I know she’s so in love with him, Indy too. Maybe I wasn’t ready for her not to be the baby anymore, but she IS ready!

I stay in the bathtub as long as I can, I feel good. I finally get out 30 minutes later. I waddle back to my bedroom and just lay in my bed. I have no energy to do anything except snuggle & stare at this new baby of mine. I check my phone, my birth team says everyone from my blessingway has lit their candles and are so happy to hear the baby has been born. I have no texts from anyone… I turn my phone off then back on. Alas, my phone is flooded with texts that never came through. It was so nice not receiving those “have you had the baby yet?” texts in the last few days and I didn’t even realize it.

We all snuggle up in bed. Indy and Kes take turns feeling the umbilical cord. Indy wants to cut it again. Johnny weighs the baby in one arm, with Kes on the other. 8lbs 6oz, Krystina includes the kids during the rest of the exam. The kids are already obsessed with him. Indy says he knew it would be a boy. They’re in awe of every movement & sound he makes.

They hand him back to me. I hesitantly latch him on. Those freaking after birth contractions are no joke. These are worse than labor itself, but there’s no prize at the end.

Santa finally makes it down our street, like 6 hours later! Kes is underwhelmed… All that for a wave?!

The kids brought in the cake they decorated & we sang happy birthday to this baby bird. Our birth team tucks us in and hugs us goodbye.

Indy’s birth felt so hugely transformative, Kes’ birth made me feel like I could move mountains, Cedar’s birth just felt normal. I think I surrendered & coped the best during his labor. I used the tools in my tool box and they helped make for a more peaceful birth where I wasn’t screaming fuckkkk after every contraction or yelling about my asshole ripping open. It was most certainly hard, but there wasn’t anything crazy about it. Which I guess is a good thing right?

For the next few weeks after I gave birth I felt at peace with him being my last. But, that feeling didn’t last long. As time just continues on in super speed mode & he’s already 5 months old. I cannot imagine this being my last baby. I love the beautiful chaos we’ve created. This house filled with fun & love. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, we have our days… But, creating this family has been deeply healing in ways I could have never imagined. Johnny was holding Cedar last night after dinner, looked down and said, “You’re too cute, you can’t be our last baby.” We look at each other, we both know we don’t feel done… We’re not ready for this chapter in our lives to end. I was anticipating for three to be overwhelming, almost hoping it would be hard, we’re outnumbered now so it should be right? But, with these “easy” babies of ours we’re both of the mindset- what’s one more?