The Birth of Stone River
Our Autumn baby was due October 25th, and because my first baby was born a week late, I had little confidence that my baby would be born in October at all. I always assumed that baby would probably be born in November. To have a homebirth in California, I needed to have my baby at or before 42 weeks; otherwise my homebirth midwives would legally be obligated to transfer my care to a hospital. That 42 week deadline was November 8th. My birthday is November 7th, and I had joked throughout my pregnancy that I could have the baby on my birthday, although I didn’t think that was likely, and I had hoped not to go over my dates by 2 weeks!
Well, my due date came and went, and soon it was Halloween and I was a week overdue. I didn’t mind, since I was still comfortable and still sleeping well. The only reason I knew the baby needed to come was because of that 42 week rule. If I wasn’t planning a home birth, I wouldn’t have had my mind on that November 8th date. I trust the natural course of pregnancy and birth, and I had confidence that my body and my baby would work together to birth my baby at the perfect time. At my 40 week appointment, I asked my midwives what options I had if I didn’t go into labor in time. The assured me that I still had plenty of time, but if I ended up approaching the 42 week time, we could do a membrane sweep, a foley catheter, or castor oil as a last resort. But they weren’t nervous, they knew I would go into labor soon and I wouldn’t have a hospital birth. It’s a lot easier to be nonchalant about those details when you’re not the woman waiting to go into labor!
My midwives had mentioned that if I wanted to, I could go into the hospital at any time to get a non-stress test (NST). I had never had one before, and I thought it would be kind of interesting to get hooked up to moniters and listen to baby’s heartbeat for awhile. I was overdue and bored, I guess! When I met the doctor at the appt I mentioned that I would like my membranes swept, thinking that might kick labor into gear! My first baby was born less than 48 hours after I got my membranes swept so I thought it might work again! After the sweep I went home that evening and thought I might wake up to some contractions. But I slept great and labor didn’t start.
The next day, Tuesday November 3rd, was my 41 week midwife appointment. It was also the day of the 2020 presidential election, a very tense and controversial time in our country, and we wouldn’t find out the true results for days after the election. It felt like such a strange time to be waiting to go into labor.
My midwives were not worried at all, they said I still had plenty of time. They offered another sweep if I wanted one, which I did. At that point I was about 1-2 cm dilated and 40% effaced. I also picked up an herbal “labor tincture” from them with blue and black cohosh, ginger and trillium. It was supposed to gently nudge my body towards labor. I would take a few droppers full every day.
Another suggestion a few friends made to me was to try nipple stimulation or pumping to get contractions going. I started trying that out on Tuesday night while I watched the news about the election. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes of rubbing my nipple, mild contractions began. It was the strangest thing! I continued to rub one nipple for 15 minutes and then take a brief break before switching to the other side. I had read that you should always take breaks and alternate between breasts to avoid contractions that were too strong. Anyways, I ended up getting contractions about 5 minutes apart for about an hour while I watched tv, then I went to bed and the contractions fizzled out while I dozed off.
Again, I thought I might wake up a few hours later with real contractions, but I slept great and woke up rested and a little frustrated. When would my body take over? Especially since this wasn’t my first baby, I was confused why labor wasn’t starting. I had initially wanted to take a hands-off approach and wait for labor to start on its own, but as November 8th approached, I found myself intervening more and more in hopes to get my body to kick into gear.
By Wednesday I was feeling a bit defeated. My best friend wanted to get together with our kids but I said I wasn’t feeling up to it. I didn’t want to see her, or anyone really, until I had my baby in my arms. I told my husband Jade that I wanted to go on a hike. I wanted to do some stairs or hills or anything to get labor started! So we did a big hike near the ocean, essentially we hiked to the top of this giant rock and back down again. We took Darlene and our puppy Rambo too, just to get everyone’s energy out. It was a muggy, warm November day, and at one point I even was jogging up this steep hill and thinking, if this doesn’t get labor started, I’m DONE with hiking!
We got home from the hike and put Darlene to nap. Jade and I showered and had sex, knowing it was one of the last times we would get to do that for a long time. Sex is also known to trigger labor, with the release of oxytocin. What gets the baby in, gets the baby out! Well, I didn’t go straight into labor, but afterwards I saw part of my mucus plug come out! I was so happy! That was a sure sign of labor beginning soon.
Thursday morning, November 5th, I woke up just the same as any other day. STILL not in labor. I went to see my midwives, who were still calm and relaxed, assuring me that labor would begin soon! They offered another sweep if I wanted one. I did! I was still only 2 cm and 40% effaced, but as she was doing the sweep, my midwife noted that more mucus plug was coming out, along with a little bloody show. She said that when she sees that, she thinks that labor will start within 48 hours. I was encouraged. I went home with instructions to rest, and take more of the herbal tincture I had been given.
I went home and laid in bed, and even though I should have been resting, I wanted to go into labor so I started rubbing my nipples to get contractions. I got some that was a little more intense, and then I heard a “pop pop” noise and I thought that was weird. I stood up to go to the bathroom, and a little bit of liquid was running down my inner thigh. I thought that was really weird, did my water break? But there wasn’t that typical gush of fluid like you hear women talk about. Maybe I just lost control of my bladder since the baby was sitting right on it? I texted my midwives to let them know my water might have broken. They called me and asked how much fluid was leaking out, and I said not much, maybe a tablespoon. They said if it was just that tiny bit it probably wasn’t my water breaking, but to keep monitoring the leakage.
For the rest of the night I continued to have liquid dribbling down my leg and dampening my underwear, so much so that I ended up wearing a pad to stay dry. After a few hours I was pretty sure it was my amniotic fluid, either that or I had completely lost control of my bladder. Not a comforting couple of options!
The next day, Friday, I started to feel pretty anxious. I needed to know if my water had broken, and if it had, why wasn’t I in labor yet? Jade and I decided to take Darlene to my parents house for a sleepover, then go check in with my midwives to get them to test the fluid and find out if it was urine or amniotic fluid. At the midwives office I was given a swab to catch a drip on, but I couldn’t even see between my thighs due to my giant belly. I had Jade come in the bathroom with me and I propped my foot up on the sink so he could get into position to catch a drip. Nothing was coming out, I could see my vagina in the mirror. Then all of the sudden a little trickle clearly came out of my vagina, not my urethra, and Jade caught a drip on the swab. It immediately turned black, a positive result for amniotic fluid. My waters were leaking.
By the time we found this out, it had already been 24 hours since they broke. Typically, doctors like to have babies born within 24 hours of membranes rupturing. So that notion was already out the window. I wasn’t even having regular contractions yet. I felt like my body was failing me. My midwife listened to the baby with the doppler and baby sounded great. She wasn’t worried about me getting an infection since I was GBS negative. Ever since I had contacted my midwives the day before, they told me just to stay safe, don’t have sex or take a bath or put anything inside my vagina, to avoid infection. So I was good there. Now we just needed labor to really begin.
Jade and I went and grabbed a bunch of food for our “ultra-feast” (we’re big fans of The Office) and we went home and watched Pineapple Express and The Office, and we were cracking up and having a great time. Later on I sat on the birth ball and did nipple stimulation along with my hand pump, and contractions started coming every 4-5 minutes and getting stronger! I was walking up and down the hallway and swaying and squatting through my contractions. These lasted about 2 solid hours before I became exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep. I thought if my body was ready, I would wake up with stronger contractions in the middle of the night.
The contractions lasted throughout the night, but got weaker and more distanced. I knew my body wasn’t going into real labor. I woke up around 3 am and felt a burst of motivation to get back on the birth ball, more stimulation and bouncing…I ended up crying and feeling defeated once again. It was my birthday and I didn’t have my baby in my arms. I was ready to have my baby, whatever it took. Even if it meant forgoing the home birth we had invested in and heading into the hospital for some pitocin. I went back to bed around 4 am and slept until 8. When I got out of bed I facetimed Darlene, who wanted to tell me happy birthday. I couldn’t hold back my tears; I felt so utterly exhausted and defeated from trying to make myself go into labor and my body just wasn’t having it.
I spent most of the morning crying, despite Jade’s encouragement. He told me he wasn’t worried at all, we would have our baby soon and my body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. I told him about my fear of transferring to the hospital and losing all of the money we invested in our home birth. He told me not to worry about that, everything was going to be ok. Thank God for sweet husbands.
I called my midwife and she told me that if I wanted to, it would be a good day to drink the castor oil. I really didn’t want to, since it induces diarrhea, and who wants to have diarrhea before even going into labor? Labor is hard enough! But, I had heard it was very effective and I was willing to do anything. My water had been broken for 36 hours and I knew today was the last day I had before heading into the hospital. Jade went to the store to get the castor oil, orange juice, and vanilla ice cream to make a castor oil milkshake. I drank 2 oz oil in the shake and waited. In the meantime, my mom, sister in law, my sister and Darlene came over to bring me flowers, balloons, and birthday presents. I was an emotional wreck, trying to hold back tears while they showered me with love. Darlene sang me happy birthday and I felt like such a puddle. I missed her so much and wanted her to stay home with me, but I knew I needed to focus on getting the baby out and I would want her to come back when the baby was closer to being born.
Right after my family left, I ran to the bathroom and felt the affects of the castor oil. Luckily, I didn’t have any stomach cramps associated with laxatives, but I did completely empty my bowls, and it wasn’t fun or comfortable. Jade was in the yard doing some work and it was a beautiful sunny day. A little while later my dad stopped by and brought me a birthday cake and some presents that Darlene had picked out for me at the dollar store. Just silly presents a 3 year old gets their mom…again, cue all the tears. I didn’t care that it was my birthday or what day it was, I wanted the baby out!
After my dad left I went back to the bathroom and emptied myself more. I went out in the yard to enjoy the sunshine, and I started to feel real contractions! They weren’t super strong but they were coming without any additional prompting from me! I called my midwife to share the good news. She said she would come over and check on baby. Baby sounded great, and she suggested I drink another smaller dose of the oil to keep things rolling. She said she was confident she would be back at our house in a couple hours to attend the birth! I wasn’t as confident knowing how many times things had started and stalled prior to this. But I drank the smoothie, and went about the rest of my morning, cleaning up the kitchen and hanging out with Jade in the yard.
Contractions started coming regularly, about every 5 minutes and lasting for a minute! They were strong enough that I needed to stop what I was doing and work through them, leaning on the kitchen counter. It was about 2 or 3 pm and I finally felt like labor was actually starting! By 4 pm I wanted my midwife to come back and check my cervix to see if I had progressed, because I thought I had! She came back to our house around 4:30.
It was already getting dark outside when she arrived. Even though I liked my midwife and felt comfortable with her, when she came in I immediately felt a shift take place, where my body wanted to retreat a little bit and contractions slowed down. I felt self-conscious about vocalizing through my contractions and she sensed the shift too. She didn’t want to check me since my waters had been broken for 48 hours and the risk of infection increased. But she said I was doing a great job, just to keep moving through my contractions.
Soon after, she mentioned that she would like to give me some herbs to help keep the momentum. I was open to anything. She had forgotten them though, and wanted to go get more at the store. Jade had needed to go to the store anyways, and he offered to pick up the cottonroot bark there. While he was gone, my midwife helped me do some rebozo to shake the baby down. Turns out, Jade couldn’t find that particular herbal tincture at the store, so once he got back, Laura left to go get her bottle from the office. When she got back, she started preparing the herbs for me.
The plan was to take a shot of herbs every half hour, followed by 5 minutes of pumping one breast and then 5 on the other. The tincture wasn’t hard to drink, mixed with some warm water and honey. Sitting on the birth ball and pumping, I started to have much stronger contractions. At this time, Laura also suggested we try to break what remained of my bag of waters. I was on board with this and open to anything that would help labor progress. But when Laura checked my cervix, she couldn’t feel any bulging bag of waters, it had presumably all leaked out. But since she was in there, she took the time to massae my cervix. I was only about 3 cm at this time, but she said I was stretchy and she opened me up to a 5 or 6.
I remember during my first birth I also had my cervix massaged like this, only I was writhing on the bed and retreating in fear. This time, I relaxed my body and trusted that she was gently helping my body along. There was no fear, which made an incredible difference. After the massage, I only took about 3-4 shots of the herbs, so over a 1.5-2 hour period, before we stopped taking the herbs and stopped pumping since I was clearly in hard labor.
This was about 9:30 pm. The second midwife had arrived a little earlier, which I took as an excellent sign, since I knew that the backup midwife only showed up closer to pushing time. Both midwives were regularly checking baby’s heart tones with the doppler, and baby was doing great. My body was working hard to get the baby out, and I was moaning and squatting deeply through each contraction. I knew I wanted my mom and Darlene to come over, because I felt like it was almost time to push. Darlene was sleeping at my parents’ house, but I wanted her to be woken up to come over. We had talked a lot about the birth throughout my entire pregnancy, and I knew she wanted to see her sibling being born.
While they were on their way, I jumped in the shower. I wanted to get into the birth pool, but Laura advised against it to avoid slowing labor down. In the shower, I had 3 contractions back to back to back, and it was extremely difficult. I was shaking all over from adrenaline and exhaustion. I thought, “this must be transition!” When I got out of the shower, I wanted to get checked to see if I was at 10 cm to start pushing.
My mom and Darlene arrived around 10 pm. I was having Laura check my cervix, fairly certain that I was getting close. But I was only at 7 cm! I was devastated and angry. “Damn it!” I said, right as my mom and Darlene were coming into the room. I was upset because I thought it would be another 5 hours before baby would be born. I wasn’t allowed to get in the pool yet and I just had to work through contractions on the birth ball. I put on my hypnobirthing track, which was about 30 minutes, and tried to just focus on one contraction at a time. My mom put Darlene back to bed in her room until it was time for me to push.
I was still shaking head to toe and I was getting really tired. I was sitting on the birth ball, and I tried to rest my head on the bed in between contractions. Time lost meaning and I just wanted to sleep. I laid on the bed next to Jade, even though laying down in the worst way to take a contraction, I was just trying to rest. Trembling and tired, I felt a strong contraction come on and I felt my body start to push. I felt the baby descend and I felt the uncontrollable urge to push, my body’s fetal ejection reflex. I yelled out, “the baby is coming!” and my midwife helped me get into the pool. It was 11:50 pm. I instinctively got on my knees and buried my face in the pool’s soft inflatable side. I put 2 fingers inside my vagina and felt the baby’s head! Darlene was woken up and brought inside, Jade was holding her while my mom started taking a video. Everyone said, “You can do this Bethany! Just push!” and I knew that out of everyone in the room, I was the only person who could do what needed to be done. I knew I was going to push the baby out of my vagina, and it would hurt for a little bit, but then our baby would be here! I was so close to the finish line.
On my next contraction I worked with my body and gave a strong push. I was moaning loudly but my mom suggested I keep my voice inside and use all that energy to bear down. I felt the baby’s head descend more to the opening of my vagina, then slip back inside a bit. I had my hand on my labia to support myself. I was worried I was going to be pushing for a long time, but I only gave a few more pushes and baby’s head was out! I was clenching the side of the pool in my fists, and working really hard to push the baby’s body out. My midwife put her hand on me and felt the baby’s head; she said there was tight cord. Baby’s heart tones were still great. I pushed for only a couple more minutes and baby’s shoulders came out! I was so happy, and one more push and he shot out! My midwife caught him and brought him to the surface.
I immediately said, “What is it?!” My mom said “I think it’s a boy…” since she thought she saw something when he first came out, before his umbilical cord covered him up. My midwife was working on getting him to breathe, rubbing his body. His eyes were closed and he looked so peaceful. I thought he was a boy but I couldn’t see. I immediately could tell he was smaller than Darlene when she was born. He had long fingernails and vernix. After about a minute he let out a cry, his eyes were open and he was looking at me. I just kept saying, “Hi! Hi baby, I’m your mama!”
I was so happy, Jade was holding Darlene and tearfully saying, “good job babe!” Darlene was excitedly saying, “That’s the baby!” After another minute I was holding the baby and moved the umbilical cord aside. “It’s a boy!” I said. We all knew he was a boy. It was an incredibly special moment. My mom said, “Well Bethany, the baby was born on your birthday!” He was born on November 7th at 11:59 with 10 seconds to spare. I couldn’t believe it, I birthed my baby boy on my birthday!
Soon my midwife took his temperature and he was a bit cold since the water in the birth pool had cooled off a bit. So we got out of the pool and onto the bed. The next few hours were spent on the bed, snuggling our son and studying his every detail. Darlene got to hold her new brother and help Jade cut the cord. I took a shower while Jade held our son, because I remembered when I had Darlene I didn’t get to shower for 2 days and I wanted to so badly. I lost very little blood. After the first hour, my midwives performed the newborn exam and weighed and measured him. He weighed 7 lbs 15 oz, 10 oz less than his big sister and born almost a week later! He measured 21.25 inches long, an inch and a quarter longer than Darlene. He was perfect in every way.
Darlene went home with my mom to get some rest around 1 am. Jade made me some cream of wheat and spoon fed me while I held our son. My midwives started a load of laundry, sheets and towels from the birth, and after listening to his heart and lungs one final time and giving us some instructions to monitor his temperature, they left us around 4 am. We were supposed to get some sleep, and we might have gotten an hour or two, but mostly we just stared at our perfect little boy, in awe of how quickly he came and changed our lives forever.