My husband inspired me to finally put the birth story of baby #7 into writing. He asked me last week if I had written it yet and when I asked why, he said he always enjoyed reading them. Who knew?! I learn something new every day, haha.
Today marks one month since our surprise baby BOY was born. I think I’m still in disbelief that we actually have another boy after 4 girls in a row!
We chose to do things a little bit differently this pregnancy. I guess some will say we are a little crazy but I prefer to refer to it as a complete submission and surrendering to God’s will and having the utmost Faith in Him. I think the term some people use is wild pregnancy but in reality, for us, it was the most empowering and least stressful pregnancy.
I am very fortunate to have fairly straightforward and uncomplicated pregnancies. This one was no different. I was lucky enough to even visit Switzerland very early on in my pregnancy. And while I do have nausea and some of the typical first trimester symptoms, I’m not one to complain about them too much because I know so many women who have a much much harder time.
P.S. The only people that knew that I was pregnant were the people that I told or who actually saw me on a regular basis. Not announcing pregnancies on social media allowed us to protect our peace and made for a much less stressful pregnancy. We have found that while pregnancy announcements in larger families have positive responses, esepcially among our Catholic friends. They also usually come with negative comments from a handful of people, even including some family members. 🙄 We chose to avoid that completely for the most part. 😊
As is our usual MO, life doesn’t stop just because of pregnancy. We continued traveling as much as we could. After our Switzerland trip in May, we visited Inks Lake State Park and Longhorn Cavern State Park with friends and family in June. In October, we unexpectedly made a week long trip to Florida for a family friends funeral where our transmission went out in the Excursion. So that was fun. 🙃🫠 In December (at 37 weeks pregnant), we visited Palo Duro Canyon State Park and did a lot of hiking in the canyon. I did have my birth supplies packed just in case.
My due date was officially January 4 so I was definitely expecting a mid Jan baby considering almost all of my babies have been “late.” Christmas came and many of the kids had a horrible cough so I was hoping I had at least a couple weeks for them to recover before adding a newborn to the mix.
Christmas night I went to sleep hoping to get some restful sleep but I was awakened a few times by what I thought was Braxton Hicks. The next day, I was having contractions occasionally but continued my day like usual by ignoring them (not thinking they were anything real) and tried to get a nap in. In the afternoon, they started picking up a bit more but I still didn’t really track them.
Fun fact: our downstairs bathroom has been in construction mode for over a year and we don’t have a downstairs tub or shower working. The plan was to have my new tub installed by the time baby was supposed to be here but of course that didn’t happen. In fact, I don’t think any of our house projects are ever completed in a timely manner. My tub wasn’t even ordered until Christmas Eve and the delivery date was set for January 7. Needless to say, I did not get to have my baby in my new whirlpool tub like I was hoping to. The tub is installed in the bathroom now but still not operational. 🤣🫠
Back to Thursday afternoon/evening: contractions started to pick up, I made a quick ham/bean soup since my Dad and brother come over for dinner on Thursday evenings, and I continued to try to ignore contractions that were starting to be more frequent. At this point I was 38 weeks, 5 days so it was totally unexpected that I would be in labor since none of my babies had ever been early. My earliest was my first boy who was born on his due date. All the girls had been between 40 weeks and 41weeks and 3 days.
In the late afternoon, I told my husband I was having contractions while he was working on a truck in the shop and he was like whattttt, how can this be since the tub isn’t ready. To be fair, he only had like 9 months to get the bathroom done. 🤣🤣🤣
Around 8pm, we started praying the rosary like we do every night. At the same time, I sent Matthew to get the birth pool a friend offered to let me borrow since my whirlpool tub was not ready. Contractions were picking up at this time and becoming more regular.
After we finished the rosary, I sent the other kids home with my Dad and brother and surprised them when I said I had been having contractions the whole time. 😆
Matthew came back around the same time and started setting up the birth pool and birth supplies. Contractions started picking up more since everyone had left. Around 10:30, I got in the birth pool. Around 11, my water broke. Usually baby is born right after my water breaks, but this time baby wanted to hang out longer.
When your water breaks, you no longer have that cushion for contractions so they become more intense. And they did. This is when I hit transition. This part of labor was more intense for me than in my past two labors but I think that’s because my water broke and I was expecting baby to be born within a few minutes. Instead, he hung out for another hour or so.
After a lot of praying, asking the saints and God for help, and thinking and saying that I couldn’t do it (transition does that to you 🤪), baby was born at 12:18am on the 27th by the light of the Christmas tree. With just my husband and I there to greet him!
And surprise, it was a boy! We have never found out the gender in advance with any of our babies and this one was no different. Many people had been telling us they thought it was going to be a boy but I don’t think I ever really believed them. But at the same time, we had no girl name picked out and I think I would have actually been surprised had it been a girl. I mean with our track record, we were due with a boy at some point soon, right?!
The placenta took a little longer to deliver than I’m used to so I took some of the Angelica tincture I had on hand for that, as well as some homeopathics. But within an hour or so, we were both tucked in bed although I think the adrenaline of a successful planned freebirth were keeping us from sleeping. We didn’t have a scale sling yet so Matthew kinda rigged something with a cloth shopping bag and the fish scale we had. We now have a sling for our scale though, haha.
Malachi Raphael was 7lb, 5oz and 20in long. Malachi is a name we have had saved for many many years. We didn’t tell people what our boy name was because we didn’t want anyone to steal it. Raphael was chosen because it is my husband’s confirmation name, and he is the patron of traveling and he has saved us many times in our travels.
We were lucky to get the whole next day to ourselves since we had family who watched the rest of the kids until Saturday.
The whole next week I was lucky enough to spend the entire time in my room with baby since we still had coughing kids. I really didn’t want to risk him getting sick so my MIL came and helped out with the kids for the whole week so we could stay quarantined as much as possible. What a blessing that we have people are are so willing to help out when needed. I don’t think I’ve ever had a postpartum where I actually got to stay in bed for a whole week so this was a first for me but I would definitely recommend it! Although it does get old staying in your room after a few days. 😆
Malachi was baptized on New Years Day at just 5 days old. We are so thankful for a non complicated pregnancy and a safe delivery and birth. I have no doubt that the many prayers, rosaries, and novenas prayed by ourselves and others helped us achieve that. After all, God is always in control. We chose to rely completely on Him for this pregnancy and birth and He delivered. A pregnancy without worrying about appointments or calling anyone when I went into labor, a labor without monitoring or being bothered. It was such a peaceful, stress free, sovereign birth, and we are so grateful. We are truly blessed!
Kai Kai (as Isabella calls him) is one month old now and chunky as can be. He loves eating and sleeping and has already experienced snow! Plus, he has already traveled to San Antonio with us to see Jeff Dunham.
We have been very fortunate to have friends and family taking care of us for the last month and bringing us dinner every other day. That has been so helpful in adjusting to being a family of 9!
More pics to come once I can get this site to upload them!
For those wondering what remedies I took during pregnancy and what I had on hand for birth, here you go:
During pregnancy: Nourish Her Naturally (prenatal), Vitamin C, Beef Liver Capsules Mitigate Stress Magnesium, Magnesium Lotion
Last 5 weeks of pregnancy: Gentle Birth Formula, NORA tea, Alfalfa capsules (for Vitamin K and to help prevent bleeding after birth).
Remedies I had on hand for birth: Angelica tincture (for retained placenta), Wombstringe (for excessive bleeding), HemHalt (for hemmoraging), Homebirth Homeopathic kit.
Remedies for after birth: Pain Potion, After Ease Tincture, and Arnica for afterpains
