Elowyn’s Birth Story

I am so excited to share my birth story with you all! Our original plan was to give birth in a birthing center near us. However those plans changed about a month before Elowyn came as the birth center had to closes its doors due to financial issues. Trying to find a new provider and coming to terms with the fact we would likely need to be in a hospital due to the short notice was not what I wanted to be focusing on in those final weeks of pregnancy. However, it truly turned out for the best as we were able to find a Midwife who was partnered with a local hospital allowing us to plan for a low intervention birth.

I can honestly say that I am beyond thrilled that we ended up in a hospital for our delivery. Our midwife, doula, and the hospital staff provided us with the utmost of care and I truly would have been lost without it in the first few hours, days, and even weeks without them.

So if you are struggling with where to have your birth (hospital, home, birth center), I want to encourage you to focus less on the WHERE and more on the WHO. If you build a team of people around you who you trust have your best interest in mind, you will have the best experience possible because you will be in good hands.

Elowyn’s Birth

The Disbelief of Early Labor 

Around 8 PM on a Sunday evening in September, I began to feel some mild cramps. Since I was just a day shy of 39 weeks, nothing seemed out of the ordinary with these and were very similar to the Braxton Hicks that I had been feeling for several weeks. I decided to take a bath to help ease the discomfort and go to bed early in hopes of sleeping things off. I never was able to fall fully asleep because the cramps were getting more uncomfortable so I decided to get up around midnight and move out to the couch.  

Everyone kept telling me that I would know when contractions started and these didn’t seem to feel worse than Braxton Hicks at that time. Even so I decided to start timing them because they had not subsided after resting for several hours and were seeming to be somewhat consistent. 

Over the next few hours, these cramps (which were in fact contractions) were all over the place. Some were 60 seconds apart, some were 6 minutes apart, then 4 minutes apart. At this time, I still could not tell if this was labor or just me not feeling well. Everyone said to plan on going at least a week past my due date since this was our first so I thought surely this could not be the start of labor, 7 days early! 

Around 3 AM on Monday, I noticed a little bit of blood and immediately contacted our midwife. She confirmed that this is likely the early stages of labor and to try and get some rest. Luckily we already had an appointment scheduled with her later that morning. At this point I am in complete denial that this is all happening! 

Around 4 AM I finally let my husband know that I was likely in labor. All first time labors last a long time (so I heard) and so I play it off as no big deal- we should have loads of time to get things ready. 

I still had not fully packed for the hospital - I had procrastinated packing our hospital bag till the very last minute because that was such a “real” step towards meeting our baby. I think after having two losses I still could not wrap my mind around the fact that this time was different - this time, we did have a healthy baby who we would get to meet and hold tight in our arms. 

Nonetheless, Lucas got up and started to get everything ready to go. I thought that this was totally overkill at the time but I decided to finish packing what I needed for the hospital as well.

Meanwhile, the contractions had gotten a bit stronger so I found myself crawling around on my hands and knees, trying to pack what I needed between contractions. Retrospectively this should have been a dead giveaway that labor was progressing quite a bit as I was still convinced that we would have so much time to come home after our appointment with the midewife to “relax” and prepare before needing to go to the hospital. 

It’s Go Time - or So We Thought 

We make it to our appointment with our midwife around 9 AM and she confirms that we are having contractions and much to everyone's surprise, I was already 7 cm dilated.  It was decided that I should head straight to the hospital to prepare for our delivery. I am completely shocked by this news and truly can’t believe it! I look over at my husband in a moment of slight panic as reality sets in - we get to meet our baby girl today! I am now incredibly thankful that my husband insisted on packing up the car before we left for our appointment.

Once at the hospital, the contractions were getting stronger but were still manageable. I thought to myself that this was going to be no big deal (Ha Ha)! Because I was at 7 CM, I was thinking that everything would go really fast and thought we would be meeting our baby girl very soon.

Over the next not so short 6 hours, our doula and midwife helped move me to different positions that helped labor progress. I will be forever grateful for this team of professionals around me! I thought that I would feel more intuitive during labor and know what my body needed but in reality, having this team directing me on what would be helpful was incredible and truly the only reason I made it through this day. 

I Don’t Think I Can Do This 

Around 4 PM is when things really started to pick up. I am a relatively quiet person and didn’t think I would make much noise during labor but I felt I had no control over the moans and groans and sometimes screams that came from my body as the contraction continued to get more intense. 

During this time, I began to wonder if I could really do this unmedicated. This was far more intense than I could even imagine and keeping a positive mindset was starting to get more and more difficult as each wave of contractions seemed even more intense and all encompassing than the last one. 

I was not sure how much more my body could take and we hadn’t even gotten to the pushing phase yet. I wanted so badly to tell my doula and husband that I couldn’t do it but I knew as soon as I let those words come out of my mouth that I would give up. At this point in time I began to get a bit irrational in my thoughts thinking things like - “I never want to do this again! Elowyn will be an only child! Even an epidural and all the pain meds in the world couldn’t make this any better…” 

While I had prepared all these positive affirmations before labor that I planned to tell myself during this time, the only thoughts I kept dwelling on was the fact that women have done this since the beginning of time and that this would all be over with tomorrow. I basically told myself to put on my big girl pants and get over it - really encouraging right?! 

The Final Push 

We finally made it to the pushing phase and I was in my own world at this point, pushing with each contraction and resting in between. Each time I felt a new contraction coming, I felt that I had nothing left in me to push and wanted so badly for things to stop.

Over time, I felt my body begin to take over with the pushing which was the most bazaar feeling. While not using pain medications was very difficult, I was thankful that I could feel in control of the pushing phase and trust that my body would tell me when I needed to push and when I needed to back off (this was huge for minimizing the chance of tearing).

With each push I could feel her getting closer and closer and finally after two very very long hours, I felt the final relief of her head coming out followed by her body. No one ever talks about how crazy this sensation is! One minute I could feel her body in my abdomen moving down and out and then all of the sudden, there was our baby!

I looked down and could not believe how beautiful our baby girl was! As I looked into her big beautiful eyes, I was in complete shock that she was really here and we were actually getting to hold her in our arms! After two long years with two losses, I was still in a place of denial - I couldn’t imagine that we would actually be leaving that hospital with a baby girl and yet, here she was, in my arms, looking up at me with her big eyes with her tiny hand resting on my chest.