I started losing the mucus plug on Wednesday morning, the day before his due date. I had a feeling for the previous 12 hours that things were about to happen, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what.

That day I ran errands, did some gardening and filled up the car. Then I spent some alone time with my 2 year old daughter. I was at the grocery store after she went to bed, around 8 pm, and had some mild contractions while shopping, almost wondering if they were the real thing. By 9:30pm it was obvious I was in labor and I called the midwife and doula. They both wanted another call when things seemed “more active”.

I wasn’t timing contractions as I was trying to relax and lay down in between them. They started getting really intense over the next hour or so. I called the midwife at midnight to let her know I was in active labor. We decided to meet at the hospital.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for my niece to come over to stay with my sleeping daughter. Then we had a 30 minute drive to the hospital. I sat up front and pulled hard on that overhead handle and pushed my lower back into the seat for every contraction which seemed to help. I also remember cursing a woman from my centering class who told us she “loves giving birth”. Eye roll.

I contracted as I was checking in and again on the way to triage and a few times in triage and again on the short walk to my delivery room. So, probably every minute or two. Some of the contractions were overlapping.

I was contracting on my hands and knees in the delivery bed when my water broke- I remember it as a huge pop and gush- super dramatic. I thought it was kind of cool. My sister cheered, “good one!”

I did not have a cervical check before my water broke as I was too busy having contractions. Finally the midwife checked me and told me I could push! I couldn’t believe it. I started on my side in the bed but quickly moved to on my back with my team (doula, sister, husband, some nurses?) holding my knees back as I pushed against them. I heard some grumbling about how strong I was and that it was hard to resist me. Ha.

I kept my eyes closed and listened to the cues from the team. I had a moment where I started to panic because of the pain and because of the way the baby’s head felt in the birth canal and the way my hips were positioned felt wrong. My doula recognized my doubt and reassured me right away that I was OK. I needed this cue and was able to get my focus back and keep pushing.

The pain was unbelievable and my goal was to get through it as fast as possible. I thought of the line from the book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” which goes, “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it!” I had to go through it.

I remember pushing his head out and expecting his body to just come out right after, which is what happened with my daughter during my first delivery 2 years earlier. But no! I had to keep pushing to get his shoulders out. My midwife told me later that she wanted to reposition me off of my back to either standing/ squatting or hands and knees. She thinks I would have been able to get him all out when the head came through in a different position. But we were moving so fast that she didn’t want to interrupt the intensity.

I heard from the team that he was facing my right leg so they could see that his eyes and mouth were open as he looked around before I pushed his shoulders and the rest of his body out.

I don’t know the number of pushes it took but Ferris was born on his due date, about 45 minutes after arriving at the hospital. I think I pushed for about 15-20 minutes. I was in labor for about 5 hours total. I still can’t believe how fast it went!

July 12; 1:46am; 8lbs

1oz