Our little man turned two years old this past weekend and I had every intention of writing this and posting it on his birthday but running a business and this thing called life tends to get in the way. It wasn’t really a very eventful day but that’s probably because we had a semi-birthday party a few weeks ago. Lil M (I call him Lil M when writing about him in order to differentiate between my husband since they share the same name) didn’t care and had a grand time anyway. In honor of Lil M’s birthday, I decided I wanted to write out his birth story while I still somewhat remember it! It will probably be boring to most, but who knows?…maybe it will inspire someone? Haha, yes, I know that’s a good one(insert winking and laughing emojis here).
First off, I will start by saying that I am one of those “crunchy” moms who prefers avoiding hospitals and doctors as much as possible, and instead I prefer using what God gave us in terms of natural medicine and more holistic healthcare practices. Honestly, I am terrified of hospitals, especially when it comes to birth. Everything I have seen and heard about hospitals and hospital births convinces more every day that I want to do my best to avoid them. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is a time and a place for modern medicine, but I personally believe that natural medicine is so much more beneficial for your health. 
For my family, hospitals just aren’t the safest place for low-risk births especially with the infant and mother mortality rate in the US being one of the highest in the world. I believe this is due partly to the fact that US hospitals and doctors are so focused on money and time and not on evidence-based birth and the health of the mother and baby. I have heard too many stories of mom’s being induced before baby is ready, or given drugs because they weren’t progressing after being in labor for a few hours. This, in turn, can cause side effects for mom and baby and could lead to baby’s heart rate declining, which usually means emergency c-section. Sadly, so many moms these days mourn the natural birth they wish they could have had, and many of them suffer from postpartum depression because of it. I know there is a time and a place for intervention in birth and c-sections, but I just wish more moms were able to experience natural childbirth so they could avoid the heartache that comes with that. This is obviously something that means a lot to me and I could probably write on this for hours, but will have to save that for another time.
I grew up with my mom using midwives for her homebirths for myself and my siblings. This decision on her part was probably mostly influences by my very holistic medicine oriented dad but it seemed to work out great for our family. I could not imagine having a baby in the hospital. Childbirth was a natural process in a woman’s life and I didn’t want to be treated like I was a sick person in a hospital (which is so common these days when it comes to hospital birth!). Fortunately, my husband was not fond of hospitals either so it didn’t take much convincing for him to be on board with having a homebirth with a midwife for our first baby. That birth was a story in and of itself, but we loved the experience so much, of course we wanted to use a midwife again!
With Lil M’s pregnancy, especially toward the end, I think I was getting a little anxious. For those who don’t know, in short, the birth of my first daughter was very interesting or as interesting as you can expect a surprise breech homebirth to be. I will definitely write that story soon but obviously, I was anxious because I really preferred and wanted to experience a normal head-down vertex birth.
The day before Lil’s M due date, I had an appointment with my midwife around 5pm. Nothing was really going on, no contractions besides the regular Braxton Hicks contractions. She asked me if I felt any different and I responded no I didn’t although I did think I noticed that the baby(we have never found out the gender of our babies before birth) had dropped. She agreed, we scheduled our next appointment tentatively for a week later and then went home. At this point, it didn’t look like anything was going to happen anytime soon, but Lil M had different plans.
We got home, and I did the usual, made dinner, ate dinner while sitting on my birth ball. I think for dinner that night we had Baked Ziti. Don’t ask me how I remember that. After dinner, my husband continued working on putting new flooring in the downstairs guest bedroom. He told me that I should go inflate the birth pool (provided by our midwife) and maybe that will make labor start. Of course, I didn’t believe him. But sure enough, around 8pm or a little after 8, I started putting the birth pool up and then started having contractions.
Honestly, I was in disbelief. I was like, what? Is this really happening? I continued setting up everything with the birth pool and he finished the flooring with our daughter “helping” him. I started tracking contractions with my contraction app and sent a screenshot to my midwife. I think my caption was, “Is this for real?” I think around that time, maybe 10pm or so, my contractions were 5 ish minutes apart. We got Genevieve to bed and I continued just bouncing on my birth ball.
At some point, maybe around midnight or a little earlier, I talked to my midwife on the phone and contractions were probably 3ish minutes apart and we decided it was best for her to head our way. She always has an assistant midwife with her for births so her assistant midwife headed our way as well.
When they arrived, they did the usual midwife things. Of course, I was like, “I definitely wasn’t expecting to see y’all again today.” They checked my blood pressure, checked baby’s heart rate. Everything was going great and the birth pool was getting filled with warm water. I think I was kinda excited for them to get there because at that point I wanted to get in the birth pool, but I had to wait until they arrived because sometimes that can make things go A LOT faster. So, shortly after my wonderful midwives got there, I got in the birth pool, which was such a relief! Water is amazing pain relief!
At this point, I was kind of half kneeling/squatting in the pool, leaning against the side and holding my husband’s hand. I believe I had the peppermint essential oil out at this point since it helped with nausea during transition. I do think I kept making jokes in between contractions about never expecting to be in labor haha. I was trying to keep the midwives entertained and I think it helped keep my mind off of the pain. By this time, I was in the pool for about an hour. Around that time, my midwife was like, “I think this baby will be here in the next few minutes.” Of course, I was like, “what, no way, really!?”
Sure enough, our little boy, Matthew Alexander, was born at 1:32am on his due date. That was especially weird because my husband was also born on his due date, but it was fine by me! I had thought the whole pregnancy that it would be a boy and I was right!
It was definitely such a healing and easy birth compared to the long and hard labor of my first baby. I don’t think I realized until Lil M’s labor and delivery how hard my first baby was. He was not breech either, so that was definitely a plus! Recovery was so much easier, and still to this day, I would be totally okay with having another easy birth like that. I was truly blessed! Labor from start to finish was about 5 hours, and it was amazing. You never think you will be able to say a birth was amazing until you have a homebirth!
He was so chunky too! I don’t remember if we guessed how much he weighed before we actually weighed him but I don’t think we were expecting him to be 8lbs,12oz and 21.5 inches long. So if anyone tells you that you can’t birth an 8 pound baby, don’t believe them. He was almost 9 pounds and such an easy birth. We definitely weren’t expecting him to be so big especially since my husband and I aren’t big people. He’s lost all that baby weight now and is a silly, skinny two year old!
Well there it is. A super short birth story about a super short labor and easy birth. I wish every mom was able to have such a simple and easy birth as his was. And I also wish all my future births were the same way haha.
