Weston’s Birth Story

My birth plan was to have a homebirth with as little intervention as possible. We were working with a single midwife through the entire pregnancy and that’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted to know and trust everyone who was going to be at my baby’s birth. The plan was for my midwife + her assistant, my doula, my mom, and of course my husband to be in attendance. I had envisioned laboring mostly in the bedroom and we had the birth pool set up in my office across the hall. My “due date” was May 15th but since I was a first-time mom and my mother had gone past her due date for both of her pregnancies, I was anticipating going beyond my due date as well. I was generally trying to put very little weight into that specific date. However, by May 28th, just a day before I would be 42 weeks, I was admittedly getting pretty anxious.

Tuesday May 28th

I noticed cramps around 8 or 9pm and was genuinely excited. Which for me, is really something. I was not looking forward to labor my entire pregnancy. I don’t really know if it was a fear of birth but honestly, I just loved being pregnant and didn’t want it to end. And I’m sure I was a bit nervous about the birth as well. I didn’t tell anyone I was having cramps in case it was a false alarm and because I wanted my husband to get a good night’s sleep. I had some cramps a couple of evenings before that didn’t turn into anything. I went to bed like normal and woke up around 1:30 or 2am and couldn’t go back to sleep. The next few days were such a whirlwind I couldn’t even tell you what I was feeling when I woke up that early Wednesday morning. Was it pain? Anxiety? Both? I couldn’t tell you even now. I had to go back to my text messages to put the pieces together.

I waited until my husband woke up in the morning and went back to bed to try to get a few more hours of sleep. Before going back to bed, I texted my midwife and mom. I texted my midwife that I couldn’t sleep through the contractions which were 10 minutes apart and getting more intense. I sent my mom something similar since she was going to attend the birth and was about 2 hours away. I told my husband when he woke up that it was baby day but I was going to try going back to bed for a little while. 

Wednesday May 29th

I was able to sleep a bit and woke up a couple of hours later. My mom was on her way and I had the thought to tell her not to come yet because I wasn’t sure it would really happen that day. Looking back now, I wish I had listened to that little voice in my head because the contractions really slowed down during the day Wednesday. She arrived early in the afternoon and made herself busy attending to my garden. She encouraged me to keep moving and we went on a short walk.

I tried to rest and eat but also do some movement to try to make sure the baby was in the right position to get things going again. I lost my mucus plug that afternoon and regular contractions started back again late evening. 

I sent my doula a text around 11pm that contractions were getting intense again with gaps between them ranging from 1-6 minutes long and lasting 30-90 seconds. My husband called her several hours later to come to our home when things started getting pretty intense. She did come but even as soon as she got there, I could tell contractions were starting to slow. I stayed in the bedroom with the room dark, my husband and doula by my side. Once the morning hit, again, things slowed down even more. 

Thursday May 30th

I slept quite a bit during the day because the previous two nights I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. I was still having contractions during the day but I was able to wake up to deal with them, then go back to sleep. I started feeling a lot more pressure that evening. 

I was pretty tired by this point from not sleeping Tuesday or Wednesday night. I would try to lay down and relax during contractions but whenever I did, they became less frequent. I was torn between relaxing and letting contractions become less frequent to save up energy and trying to stay up and active to keep the contractions going. I also hadn’t been able to eat anything since Tuesday evening. I knew how important fluid and food were but I just could not get anything down. I wasn’t sick to my stomach but simply couldn’t force myself to eat for whatever reason. 

Then late Thursday evening, things picked up again. This is the pattern my body had fallen into. It would get intense and more consistent throughout the night then slow down during the day. I was still having intense contractions during the day but they were maybe 10 minutes apart instead of the 4-6 minute gaps that I had during the night. I even had a couple of periods of 30+ minutes without a contraction during the day on Wednesday and Thursday. During those couple of days of labor, the shower was a nice reprieve. It, of course, didn’t take the sensations away entirely but it was helpful to manage without slowing things down even further.

Friday May 31st

Friday early morning at 2am I texted my doula that contractions were lasting between 90-100 seconds and were between 4-10 minutes apart with some being very intense. She came again after going home for the day on Thursday. 

While planning for birth, I knew I didn’t want to time contraction or even have my husband do it because it would get in my head too much. During labor, I didn’t want to be in my head, I wanted to be in my body. However, given the circumstances, I did time them in the night off and on. 

My midwife came for the first time Friday morning and checked me. We hadn’t done any checks prior to this and I wasn’t planning on getting any checks at all but after 3 days of labor, I needed to know where I was. I was 5 cm, at 0 station, and thinned out.

Friday during the day was the same story. My doula and midwife left, and contractions slowed to about 10 min apart. It was groundhog day. I was able to get down some popsicles and ice cream. I wish we had started the popsicles days prior because those were the only thing that actually went down well. They were actually enjoyable and as soon as my midwife had suggested them, I knew I could eat a few. I also did much better with hydrating Friday because I was getting desperate and needed this baby to come so I really pushed myself to make sure I was getting fluids. Unfortunately, plain water was the only thing I could tolerate drinking and it still wasn’t anywhere near the amount I really needed. I wish I was able to add some electrolytes or even some juice to get energy from the sugar. If I have another child, I will make sure to have salt tablets on hand in case electrolyte drinks don’t sound appealing again. 

Friday late evening was the first time my midwife suggested coming up with a different plan if nothing happened that night. I was both very disappointed and relieved when she said that. Disappointed because it seemed like the birth I wanted was slipping away from reality and relieved because I knew I couldn’t go on doing that same pattern much longer. I wasn’t getting into and staying in active labor. My midwife didn’t have any answers as to why that was the case and neither did I. The baby was doing great and tolerating labor well the entire time though so his health wasn’t a concern at the time thankfully. 

Throughout pregnancy, I didn’t have any specific ideas of what exactly I wanted labor to look like. I kept a very open mind and wanted to stay flexible. I did, however, know I simply wanted a homebirth. It was the way I wanted my child to come into this world. I saw it as more peaceful, loving, and family centered. The best thing for both me and my child. 

Saturday June 1st

Labor hadn’t progressed any more than where it had been the previous night so Saturday morning, I called the midwife to come back and check where I was and help us come up with a plan. Saturday morning I was 6 cm and +1 station. Some progress but not enough after being in labor for 4 days. I was at the end of my rope. If I had assurance that the baby was coming that day, I could’ve stayed home and seen it through but because things were progressing so slowly, I wasn’t confident it was going to happen anytime soon. Especially because I was getting more and more tired by the day and still not eating much of anything. I knew I would only get more tired. My doula also came Saturday morning and, as a team, we decided to transfer to the hospital for an epidural and possibly pitocin. We were hoping the epidural alone would relax my body enough to let me rest and allow contractions to kick into high gear. If that didn’t happen, pitocin would be there as an option to help. 

I hadn’t packed a hospital bag and didn’t know the first thing about what it should have in it. It never even crossed my mind during pregnancy to have one “just in case”.  Thankfully my mom, husband, midwife, and doula helped get stuff together and clean up the house a bit. We didn’t even have the car seat in the car because we weren’t planning on taking the baby anywhere for weeks after the would-be home delivery!

We arrived at Mount Carmel St. Ann’s at 11:30am. This isn’t the hospital closest to us but it’s where we planned to go in a non-emergency transfer because from my work in the prenatal field in Columbus and from the recommendation of others, it seemed to be mostly friendly to homebirth transfers and okay with many of the alternative choices we wanted compared to other hospitals around us. My doula was familiar with this hospital as well which was a huge help. 

The ride to the hospital was a rough 35 minutes but thankfully I got checked in and got a room very quickly. My midwife had called ahead and they were expecting us and not very busy. I was 5-6 cm, thinned, and 0 station according to the nurse shortly after I arrived. I got an epidural within 90 minutes of arriving at the hospital. I decided to start with that and see if that would relax my body enough to progress without using pitocin. I was scared of getting the epidural because I’d watched the process previously. Thankfully it was very easy. The epidural was started at 1:30pm and by 5pm, I was 9cm. Hallelujah! I had to reject pitocin several times during that 3.5 hours but my nurse was respectful every time I said I didn’t want it yet. Silly me thought that since I got to 9 cm so quickly, the baby would arrive that night! However, I was still 9 cm at 9pm and contractions had started to become a little less frequent once again so I did start a very small dose of pitocin shortly after that. Once the pitocin was started, contractions got more intense and I could feel them way too much given that I had an epidural. I was back to moaning and humming to endure them and the nurse was able to eventually get the epidural set and me positioned in a way that I was more comfortable again but that took a while. In the midst of that, she asked if I wanted to turn up the pitocin. No way! That’s why I was in pain- no way was I adding more to that. To anyone who had pitocin without an epidural, hats off to you! I could tell right away it really intensified everything. 

I was able to sleep a little as did my mom and husband who were still both with me as they had been the entire time. My poor mom had been with us that entire time since Wednesday midday. My one regret is not listening to my instinct and telling her to wait before making the trip! And my husband of course was so sleep-deprived as well. 

Sunday June 2nd

Early Sunday morning around 2am we called the doula to come to the hospital because I was 10 cm. I started pushing shortly before 3am and after 40 minutes, the baby was born! A baby boy just like I had been sure of the entire pregnancy. Pushing was the easiest part. For some reason, I kind of “knew” it was going to be easy because baby boy had been in such a low position the entire labor I just had this thought that it was going to go quickly. And thank goodness it did. If you were to ask me looking back, I would have guessed I only pushed for no more than 10 minutes.

I wasn’t thrilled about how pushing happened but it ended up fine. I asked the nurse several times to reposition me so I wasn’t on my back but she wasn’t complying. Looking back, I should’ve asked my doula to step in to help advocate. However, during our prenatal appointments, we never talked about how it would go if I were to transfer to the hospital and her role in that scenario. The nurse was great about repositioning me periodically during labor to make sure I was progressing but once pushing started, I felt like I “had” to be on my back. I initially was using the pushing technique I went over with my pelvic physical therapists but the nurse insisted I hold my breath and push for 10 seconds instead. I was in no position to push back (no pun intended) so that’s what I did. I didn’t want to “purple push” or push on my back but I was desperate to get my baby out and felt like I didn’t have much say. Even someone as well-informed and headstrong as myself couldn’t fight in that position. Again, I wish I had talked about my desires for such a scenario with my doula beforehand so she could have helped advocate. 

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, the nurse did talk through our desires and was open to all of them except she did give me quite a bit of pushback on our request for delayed cord clamping. My doula suggested specifically requesting waiting 8-10 minutes before cutting the cord as opposed to asking until it stops pulsing because they would often tell women that it was done pulsing before it was. The nurse tried to convince me of just that; that the cord would be done pulsing well before 10 minutes and she wouldn’t suggest waiting that long. I pushed back that 10 minutes was our desire and when the delivery actually happened, the OB was very respectful and didn’t even bring it up. She just set a timer for 10 minutes and waited like I wanted.

The hospital staff was great about allowing immediate skin-to-skin contact and delaying all baby assessments for quite some time. The doula warned us that we would need to reiterate our desires to the baby nurse once the baby was delivered but we ended up not needing to do that. They were aware of our requests and followed them respectfully without being reminded.

I did have a second-degree internal tear that needed stitches. The nurse knew I didn’t want pitocin postpartum unless absolutely necessary and even though I had to remind her of that several times, she listened and I didn’t end up needing it. Looking back, had I remembered at the time that I already had pitocin during labor so it was probably a good idea to have a little postpartum as well I would have been fine with that but I’m glad I didn’t end up needing more of it. 

Weston John was here finally! 7 pounds 15 ounces at 42 weeks and 4 days. He must’ve needed that extra time and I’m so glad we didn’t do any kind of induction; “natural” or otherwise prior to labor starting on its own Tuesday. I don’t know this to be true but I can only imagine it could’ve drawn things out even longer. Thank goodness I knew the date of conception because had we instead used the date of my last period to calculate his due date, he would have been almost 44 weeks at delivery! I had an abnormally long cycle that month. No way could I have mentally gone to almost 44 weeks without doing “something” and feeling very anxious. 

The rest of Sunday was pretty good. We wanted to keep the baby with us the entire time we were in the hospital and the nurses and doctors respected that. The pediatrician came to our room to check Weston out. 

Sunday night, however, was really rough. I was going on night number 6 of no sleep and my husband was on number 5. Weston was very fussy and we did everything we could think of but none of us were getting sleep. I think I could have gotten him to settle had I not been so worried about falling asleep with him on my chest in bed and getting yelled at by the nurse for sleeping with him. Looking back, it seems so silly to be worried about that. What were they going to do? Throw us out? But well-rested hindsight is 20/20. As a first-time mom, all of the warnings about safe sleep in the hospital room got to me even though I was well-informed about our sleeping options and what I thought might be best for us.

We decided to discharge ourselves at 3am against medical advice because if we were home, at least one of us could sleep while the other was taking care of Weston in a different room. No one was sleeping in a small hospital room with a crying baby. The hospital didn’t give us too much grief about leaving AMA and our nurse was actually very helpful and kind. We waited patiently to sign all the proper discharge paperwork and when we were told we were “good to go” by the on-call OB, we started walking out. Thankfully, we ran into our nurse on our way out before leaving the floor because she stopped us and informed us Weston still had his tracking ankle band on and it would have set off alarms had we actually left! So happy we happened to run into her before walking out.

I wasn’t sure we were making the right decision but I trusted my husband when he pushed for us to leave and he was right. Weston fell asleep in his car seat right away and when we got home, we all got a solid, uninterrupted 5 hours of sleep. Let me tell you, after little sleep for 6 days, 5 hours feels like 12! It was amazing. We all just needed to be home. Little did we know that that was the one and only night Weston would actually sleep in his bassinet at least up until the writing of this at 8 weeks postpartum. He must have been very tired that first night because he hates the bassinet now! 

Monday June 3rd

The first day home we just started to figure out what home life was going to look like and tried to sleep as much as possible. Our midwife came that evening to do Weston’s 24-hour check and he was looking great. 

While I am very disappointed my son didn’t get a homebirth, I don’t regret our decision to transfer. There is still no clear answer as to why I was progressing so slowly and inconsistently. His position seemed fine the entire labor. The only thought I have is that I had a LEEP years ago and I know that can alter the way the cervix dilates if there is scar tissue as a result of that procedure but my midwife didn’t think that was the issue. I considered taking evening primrose oil in the last few weeks of pregnancy to help avoid any issues with potential scar tissue getting in the way of dilation but I decided I wanted to limit the “interventions” around labor as much as possible so I didn’t use it. If I have another child, I might try taking evening primrose next time but I don’t necessarily think that would have been a magic bullet. We will likely never know and that’s okay. 

I still get waves of sadness, defeat, disappointment, and even jealousy. The disappointment didn’t really hit me until several days postpartum. I was just so glad he was here for those first few days. Plus we were still in survival mode. I do feel sad thinking about how he could have entered the world, peacefully at home, compared to how he did but I am so thankful we had the option of the epidural. I don’t know how I would have survived if we had to continue that process at home for several more days. And for a hospital birth, we could not have asked for much more. And Weston was perfect. 

Our entire postpartum plan was upended because labor had lasted so long. That made the first couple of days and weeks at home more challenging but we fell into a manageable pattern. 

If we have another child, I will absolutely plan another homebirth. If nothing else, the prenatal care I received from my midwife was so beyond what I could’ve expected from an OB that even if my next birth ended up in another hospital transfer, it would have been worth it. I feel so thankful for my midwife and doula. Both of them hung with me during such a long process and provided so much valuable support and education to me. I am very lucky that I was able to fully trust my care team and rely on them. 

We’re so thrilled to have our baby boy here and just can’t believe the entire experience of pregnancy and birth has already come and gone!