I was going to blame her for the 3 month-long blogging hiatus since the end of pregnancy and the newborn days are hard but the truth is it is really hard to get pictures organized and uploaded here to my website. It is sooo much easier to just post pictures straight from my phone to places like Instagram or Facebook so if you want daily/weekly updates from me, go check there! Also, anytime I’m on the computer, I’m usually doing the bookkeeping for Matties Auto Repair, creating invoices for Matties Medicinals, or just paying bills and ordering necessities. It’s a busy life but I love it!
Anywayyyy, yes our family grew to a family of six!!! last month with the birth of our little Victoria Marie on August 22nd. Her birth story is about like the other girls, long and exhausting, but always worth it.
Two nights before her birth and 3 days after my “due date,” I started having contractions when I tried to go to sleep. They weren’t really regular but were enough to keep me from getting much sleep. They always fizzled out by morning. The same thing happened on Tuesday night and in addition, our 18 month old decided she wasn’t going to sleep all night in her own bed for some reason. She’s usually a great sleeper so she must have known something was different and she was about to be booted from the throne of the baby boss.
Wednesday morning started with Mass as is our usual weekly tradition, along with breakfast with my husband’s grandpa and family. I barely ate anything since I was nauseous and not feeling so great due to the lack of sleep. Right after breakfast, we had an appointment with our wonderful midwives and scheduled our 41 week appointment for the next week with the hope that baby would be here by then. I remember saying at some point that hopefully we wouldn’t need that appointment and baby would be here by then. I also remember saying maybe it’s a mental thing and baby is waiting to come until all their Wednesday appointments are done with (my midwives have their weekly appointments every Wednesday for all their moms.) Obviously, I didn’t want them to have to re-schedule all of their appointments since that’s a hassle (lol at myself for worrying so much about this) and I guess baby could sense that since she didn’t come on Wednesday!
I also hadn’t inflated the birth pool yet so my midwife reminded me to do that and maybe it would get things going like it had done before with my second birth. That was one of the first things I did when I got home too, after taking a nap, of course which was also recommended and desperately needed.
Wednesday night, once again, I was having contractions about 10 minutes apart. I went to lay down around 9 to see if I could get some sleep and surprise, my water broke! For reference, my water only broke in early-ish labor with my first baby but she was breech so that’s a whole other story. With my previous two babies, my water never broke until a few minutes before baby was born. So, of course, I was thinking this is already different than my previous births and here I was hoping it would be quick and easy like my second.
I called my midwife and let her know about my water breaking. She reminded me that this meant labor might be more intense than my previous births since I didn’t have the cushion of amniotic fluid around baby. Yay me. Ha. Then I let her get some sleep and would call her again when contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting 1 min long for over an hour.
I spent the next couple of hours bouncing on my yoga ball, or sitting on the ground leaning over the yoga ball to get through contractions. Meanwhile, I had lavender in my diffuser like I always do during birth and also peppermint essential oil next to me to smell as needed since I often get nauseous because of the pain. I think it was around midnight when it was definitely getting intense and my husband starting helping me get through contractions by squeezing my hips (it definitely helps!) in the midst of filling up the birth pool with warm water. At this point, I called my midwife since I was at the point where I needed some relief and I wanted to wait for her to get there to get in the pool.
My midwife and her assistant showed up within 45 minutes and I got in the pool which definitely helps. I spent the next two+ hours getting through contractions leaning over the edge of the pool. Between contractions, my sides still hurt like my muscles were so sore which was a new thing for me during labor and was super exhausting and painful. I didn’t know if I was in the wrong position to cause that or not.
Those last couple hours of labor, I just remember it being very intense and I didn’t feel like things were progressing at all. At one point I was so over it and remember saying I am not doing this 13 more times (lol). My husband was like I didn’t know we were going to have 17 kids and I was like, “I can’t math.” Haha, I guess I just threw out a random large number.
Around 3am (I think), I took some Arnica(a homeopathic) hoping it would help the pain in my sides between contractions. I was so very nauseous as well and around this point I felt like I had to throw up. I remember reading somewhere recently that sometimes puking is the body’s way of opening up so I guess my brain needed that. Withing a contraction or two after puking, our little girl was born so I guess it worked! It got really intense around this time and I remember saying a few prayers to Our Lady for help and reminding myself that God never gives us more than we can handle.
Victoria Marie was born at 3:12 am on August 22, the beautiful feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (hence her middle name). She was 7lbs even and 19inches long. My smallest baby!
She was born with her cord around her neck which I feel is part of the reason it was so intense and it seemed like she took so long to descend. I also attribute that to the fact that my sides were hurting since maybe it was pulling on the placenta but that’s probably not true. Also, I was totally not worried that she was born with her cord around her neck. It was quickly unwrapped and all was well. It’s more common than people think but she was my first with a cord around her neck.
Was I surprised it was a girl? Kinda, but we are always happy with whatever God chooses to give us and I’m kinda happy we got to use another one of our regal girl names. If you can’t tell by now, our girls kinda have more princess/queen-like names and I expect that trend to continue with any future girls. I did think I was going to have a boy but that was probably solely because I wanted to use our cool boy name before anyone else took it…and no I’m not sharing what it is, haha.
Gabbie was the first to meet Victoria. Don’t worry, my husband is not in his underwear. He has shorts on lol. It was 3am. 
After resting and showering, everyone was settled in bed. Gabbie had come to join the party around midnight and fell asleep in our bed and didn’t wake up(somehow!) until after Victoria was born. She was the first of the kids to see her but promptly fell back asleep. I was surprised the other kids stayed asleep but was glad they did! They got to meet Victoria in the morning and everyone loved her and still does!
Baptismal Day! Photos courtesy of Rachel Matties. 
Godparents 
Consecration to Our Lady
Victoria was baptized after Mass a few days later and joined the Catholic Church. We were blessed with 3 weeks! of meals from local church parishioners and friends. Family members also helped me get some sleep by taking the older kids for a day or night so that was super nice and I’m so grateful.
Within a few days, I was back to work putting some invoices together for the business and fixing the ones that my husband did while I took a few days to rest (lol). One of the priests that we saw on the Sunday after she was born was shocked that I was already out and about. I guess homebirths are easier to recover from compared to most hospital births, but I felt great within a couple days and apparently that shocks a lot of people. Just a little exhausted as is every mom, I think. Ha.
I can’t believe it’s already been a month (5 weeks now) since our little girl was born. Princess Victoria has been doing amazing. She can already scoot around on her belly, holds her head up well, and sleeps fairly well at night. She does get a little cranky in the evening when she is over-tired but usually falls asleep around 10 and will sleep 4 hours sometimes before she wakes up to nurse and then goes back to sleep.
With big sister Genevieve. 
With big brother Matthew, who is really outnumbered now. 
With big sister Gabbie. 
Gabbie always trying to hold her. 
Ring sling for the win! And yes, I think the only pictures I have with my kids are the selfies I take with them.
We are truly blessed and grateful for our little girl and thankful for a safe delivery and healthy baby. I can’t believe she is already a month old!
Yes, these are some of the best pictures of the 30+ I took for her 1 month birthday lol. 
Just a couple weeks ago, I booked our first real camping trip and our first trip as a family of 6 for next month! I remember looking at tents and thought an 8 person tent would be too big but then I realized, “Holy cow, we are already a family of 6!” Needless to say, we love our little family and can’t wait to see what God has in store for us next.
P.S. If you need midwife recommendations for the Houston, Texas area, just let me know! We love our midwives and have used them for all 4 of our kids!
