Our Birth Story

PSA: If you do not want to read what the title implies, you may want to exit this post now.

March 31st started out as any other day for my 39 week pregnant self: exhausted, uncomfortable, and borderline miserable. I had a doctor's appointment that morning so I couldn't "sleep" to my brain's content, though sleep was not what I would call what I was doing. I was merely rolling around pretending to close my eyes and rest.

At 9am I went in for my routine appointment, knowing we had planned for an induction on Sunday/Monday at midnight. When I came in, I was making progress on my own, 2 centimetres dilated and 70% effaced, so our amazing midwife gave me options:

1. We could put in a foley bulb THIS (Thursday) afternoon and jump start this process

2. We could wait until our planned induction

3. There was a third, but I can't remember LOL

We had to choose what was best for our family and the foley bulb option was the only option that really gave us a chance without having to introduce medication first, and I had barely slept in a week so for my health, it was time.

I called my team: Ryan, Mom, and Natural Baby Doulas, Lora, and we had our plan in place. The goal was to labor at home as much as possible and only go into the hospital when we know time was getting near. At 1:30pm Ryan and I arrived at the doctor's office to have the foley bulb put in and to start the process of bringing our baby boy into the world. We watched and listened as they monitored him before the process began and were both in awe of just listening to our little guy's heart thump away in my belly, knowing that soon, e would get to meet him.

Amanda come in to do the procedure and we are excited but nervous, there is no turning back now... After listening to him a little while longer and watching my contractions get stronger on the monitor, we head for home and instantly, I know IT IS ON! With instructions that the foley bulb "should fall out" and if we have to we could give it a slight tug and it would come out, we have our instructions to birth at home.

Ryan and Mom are in place to help me get through the next however many hours it takes to get our tiny dude into the world. It takes no time to realize we are in labor and it is probably going to be a long night. After being home maybe 2 hours, my contractions were 3.5 minutes apart and 90 seconds long. I asked many times, are we going to have this baby at home?! Of course, the power goes out, for no absolute reason. We can't be distracted with a movie, shower or bath isn't an option, so I pull out the Uno. I cannot just sit in silence and contract, I need some serious distraction!

Picking your last dinner without a child and before the hardest feat of your life, I would assume is a lot like choosing your last dinner on death row, you want something fabulous that you can savor, knowing the rest of your meals, for the next 18 years, will be cramming it in whenever you have time. With my choice, I chose Japanese hibachi and it did not disappoint! After dinner, my very funny family says, you should lay down and rest.... Um okay, I can barely sit, I'm not even sure how to get in the laying position. Lora (doula) recommends I do the Miles circuit to get things "going" and maybe so I could rest. I think to myself, uh things are freaking going and if they go anymore, again, I will have this baby at home! But I do as told, and complete the Miles circuit. Ryan comes to lay down with me, and I somehow manage to get as much sleep as possible while in labor.

April 1st: Amanda told us to have our phone on by 5am because the hospital would call us in for our induction when our room was ready. I was up by 6am or maybe earlier, with no way I was going to lay and thrash around anymore, and impatient for the phone call is beyond an understatement. I think between the three of us we looked at my phone 900 times wondering if we missed the call because we expected it early in the morning.

I bounced on my birth ball and stretched, and bounced and stretched, and went outside and bounced and bounced and bounced. By 10am, Amanda called and said that there were A LOT of babies being born on April 1st or at least being induced, so if we hadn't heard from her by 12pm, we were going to meet her at the office. She also asked me had my foley bulb fallen out, I said no, but I wish it would, this thing is uncomfortable! Needing to be distracted, Mom and I walked a very SLOW mile, with contraction breaks, because I was determined this baby was coming out today! When we got back, I was exhausted and needing a nap, I put the team on phone duty and I curled up for the best nap I think I have ever taken in my entire life, which is probably the reason I survived the rest of the day.

With 12pm passing with no call, we ordered lunch, mahi mahi tacos, and knew we were going to the doctors office at 2:30pm so we wanted to be full and hydrated because things were only going to ramp up after the appointment. As we went to leave the house, it was a surreal moment of, we are leaving our house and when we come back, we will be bringing our baby home! After 9+ long months, we get to meet our little one TODAY!

When we got to the doctor, I had been in labor since the day before, so sitting was uncomfortable, walking was uncomfortable, and I had already prepared myself to be disappointed with the progress we had made and that I was probably going to have to take medication to get this show on the road. We walk back into our room to get monitored and make sure little man is still strong in his heart beat and kicks. When Amanda comes in she pulls out the foley bulb, which she said was just "sitting" in my girly parts. I immediately think to myself, with the amount of tug you just gave that thing, there is no way in hell I would have known to pull it out! It wasn't just a polite little tug, anyways.... With the foley bulb just sitting, I immediately knew I was at least 5 centimetres dilated, which was reassuring, but when Amanda checked I was more like 7 centimetres dilated and she wondered how in the hell I was still functioning, smiling, walking, and going on with my every day life. Needless to say, we did not need medication to push this process along and my thoughts about having this baby at home were getting rather close to being true if we would have waited any longer! With the promise of getting my water broken in 30 short minutes, we headed to the hospital to get settled in and to use our doulas bag of tricks that came in handy SO VERY MUCH!

Amanda came in around 3:30pm to break my water and made sure to tell me, shit was going to get real pretty fast once she completed this mission and just like that, we were here and it was officially time to get through the eye of the storm and have this baby.

Doula tricks that helped IMMENSELY:

Tens Device on low back

Egg Shaped Birth Ball - that I rode like a horse and then like a rocking chair and used as a prop to lay on.

Counter Pressure on low back was heavenly!

Shoulder Massages

Christmas lights in the bathroom (ended up being the only lights in the room which was fabulous and serene)

That is all I can remember at the moment but I am sure there was more

After my water broke I lost all concept of time, which is exactly what I wanted to do. I did not want to know the amount of time I was in full on get this baby out level and it was a blessing. The contractions got stronger but for a while I was still able to be my happy self and listen to music and sing and lean on my support team to get me through the contractions... and then transition hit.... I was almost at begging for relief, at least in my head.

Ryan doesn't do throw up. Ryan doesn't do poop. Ryan has a weak stomach, or at least that is, when his love is not in labor. Once we hit transition it was ON! Our plan was to have a water birth, but when we got to the hospital they were having some MAJOR issues none of us knew about in advance so that hope was dashed and we had to improvise and be happy with what we could get. I wanted water, warm, soothing, so to the shower we went. Just a thought, they should have removable shower heads in labor rooms because that would have been super helpful to sit in the floor and have someone spray intense water on my back. As soon as we got in the shower I knew instantly I was going to be sick. Not the shower's fault, but the delicious tacos for lunch didn't stay down for the entirety of the day. I knew the puking was coming so I told Ryan, "I am going to be sick and get out of here." He quickly handed me a trash can as I continued to tell him between vomiting, "Babe, get out! I am getting sick!" to which he responded sternly, "I am fine, I am not leaving you," and to which my mom said, "Stop telling him to leave he wants to stay," and that was the end of that discussion and the only stern advice I got from those two all day.

After the shower and getting sick, I just felt weak and like I needed to rest. They also wanted to check me and monitor the baby so it seemed like a good time to lay down for a bit. At this point we had gone to complete silence in the room. Not because I asked them to, but I had obviously gone there and they followed my lead. This was about the time they came in and told us SURPRISE, you are going to get a birth tub! To come back and tell us 10 minutes later, oh just kidding, no you are not. So anyways back to birthing this baby on land because people suck.... I love Amanda, midwife, she has been with me through this entire journey, but there was a moment at 8-9 centimetres dilated that I thought we can no longer be friends.... She checked to see where he was and pulled him down a bit into place to push and I never thought I could pass out from pain, but I was there and it was more intense than anything has ever been in my life and I could literally feel myself fainting and telling myself you have to pull yourself together! I sternly said "I can't do that anymore," and thank God that part was over. (She later apologized to me profusely for hurting me and was quickly forgiven but in the moment, she earned having to look at my girl parts for quite a while.)

Knowing we were getting close to pushing time, I stayed in the bed, I just wanted to rest. I found a side lying position and I just went silent. I think everyone thought I was asleep. I literally could not open my eyes, I couldn't make a sound. They thought my contractions had stopped, but quite on the contrary, they had intensified and got closer together so all I would do is put my arm over my head and ask for cold towels. At one point Lora, doula, asked me have the contractions stopped, I said no everytime I put my arm over my head I have a contraction and now I am having to stop myself from pushing....

It was time....

Some people say the pushing is like a relief, I did not find that to be true... I found pushing to be more like the extremely intense way of reminding you that Adam and Eve SUCKED and this bitch eating a fruit is the reason women have to painfully pop people out of their vaginas. Bad things about being strong, I used every muscle in my body to push the baby out and sometimes it was the wrong and inefficient ones and because of that my biceps got the best workout of their life and moving the next day was tricky. I had the best labor team, really I had a home birth in a hospital room. They kept any extra staff out of the room, Lora, Amanda, and Georgia did an excellent job of coaching me through and Ryan and Mom got to experience watching our son being born (not sure if that was a blessing or a curse).

At 9:21pm, Waylon Timothy Hodges made his way into the world, completely chill, no crying, and ready to snuggle his mama and daddy. He weighed 7lbs and 14oz and came in at 21 inches long and what a beautiful baby he was and is! The feeling of pulling a little one from my girly parts to my chest and getting to see him take his few breaths of life is beyond anything I could ever describe. The feeling of love and accomplishment, and SHIT that was hard but I somehow made this human and popped it out, is overwhelming. I just wanted to thank everyone profusely and never let our baby go.

So thank you to Daddy (Ryan) and Tutu (my mom) for being with me through it all!

Thank you Amanda for giving me the best 9 months of care I could ever ask for and manifesting a beautiful birth and chill baby! Natural Baby Doulas thank you for all the amazing advice, care, and love throughout my pregnancy, and to Lora for being an amazing doula for helping to give us a fantastic birth experience.

We are officially a family of three<3