Team Green turned baby girl 4!

After waiting weeks for baby to show up without anything, I went to my 41W OB appointment at 40.6. He is not comfortable with women going over 41 weeks and especially me since I had never made it to 40W before. He checked me so we could game plan induction and I was 3cm, 60% effaced, baby was high. He offered a sweep and after talking it through, I accepted. His sweep was absolutely terrible though and I would not do it again. I came home and fell asleep icing my labia and dealing with all the blood from the sweep. He was pretty confident it wouldn't help and scheduled an induction for 8pm the following day and told me to prepare for a c-section at midnight if baby wasn't born yet

Well, I woke up at 11:55 pm and used the toilet. At midnight I had my first contraction. I said cool. I'll try to go back to sleep. I laid down in bed and quickly said nope, back to the toilet. I timed a few. Already lasting a minute and only 3 minutes apart? Ugh, this is the same as what happened when I got a membrane sweep with my first: 22 hours of these close together but unproductive contractions.

A few more minutes on the toilet had me wanting the hot water of a shower on my back and low belly. I tried to wake my husband up between contractions but it took several tries and going over to shake him before he woke. By now the shower was Hot and it felt so painfully good. This was about 12:20.

Matt, my husband, started waking up, gathering towels, and filling the bathtub with hot water while I continued to labor in the shower. I was super nauseated which confirmed to me that things were moving really fast. When the water was at the minimum level for me to get in Matt helped me walk from our bathroom back to the tub (different bathroom on the other side of the house). After 5 minutes he reminded me how much our eldest wanted to be at this birth and how long it takes for her to wake up. I agreed that it was time to get them up, but one at a time and they had to be quiet to be in the room with me.

Evelyn, 5, woke up without much fuss surprisingly, and came and sat by the tub with 10,000 questions. Daddy explained she could be quiet and stay again or wait in the hallway. To her credit, she did not speak again. Katherine, 3, was brought out to the couch and took a few minutes to come to. She wandered in, sat next to her big sister, and stayed quiet. My contractions were double peaking and feeling quite long at this point. I was expecting my water to break any second and get the urge to push but nothing.

I kept trying to stay relaxed and breathe through a couple more contractions but it was not working. I said I feel like I'm being torn in two and then it clicked with me: I needed to try to push. Matt was gone again waking up Ciara, 22M. I rose off my side into a side lunge and pushed with the next contraction and was growly moaning at the end as it hurt so good. I felt inside and could feel the head quite close. The girls were scared and Katherine was starting to cry so I reassured them that Momma was OK and had done this with each of their births too and that God had made a woman's body for this. Another contraction and I felt the ring of fire as the head was so close to coming out. I yelled for Matt to get back now as he was still taking Ciara potty.

I had planned on birthing next to the tub not in it, but I needed the hot water to take the edge off of the contractions with how fast this was going. The head came out with the next contraction and my water finally broke. It took a good bit for my uterus to catch up to baby's body after losing the force of the bag of waters and was agonizing to wait. I could feel the rotation of baby's body very clearly but had to wait for another contraction to push. The big two were anxiously peering over the side of the tub at baby's dark brown head between my legs. Finally another contraction and out came the rest of baby!

Baby was coated with the thickest vernix of any of my children and had the cord wrapped twice around the neck. I quickly unlooped the cord and held baby's head down to clear mucus. Baby was breathing and we could see color picking up in the limbs, but no big hearty cry and no big coughs to clear mucus. I sent Matt for a bulb syringe after sucking what I could with my mouth and continued rubbing baby's back and feet with their head down. He came back and I loosed my grip on baby and let Evelyn and Katherine call out boy or girl. It's a girl! they cried. As they did she started to finally cry at 1:02 am, several minutes after she was born.

Matt grabbed the Angelica root and Shepherd's purse tinctures for me while Evelyn grabbed a big bowl. I passed baby girl to daddy so I could birth the placenta. The placenta only took a couple minutes after taking the Angelica root as opposed to the 90 minutes of Ciara's birth. It came out intact and I did a double check of it as I gave the older 2 a quick lesson on it. #homeschoollife

I drained the tub and Katherine helped me out. The cord was already quite white and limp so we tied and cut it next to the tub.

Evelyn sat with baby girl while daddy walked a very shaky me back to our bed then brought everyone to our room. I laid in bed and nursed my baby while my three little tired but so excited little girls sat around the room nursing their stuffed animals 💕 Daddy quickly cleaned up the tub and washed the towels before joining us with a big cup of ice water for me. Isn't he amazing? 😍 He put the big 3 back to bed and came to bed himself. We figured out a name when we woke up and told the big girls when they woke up. The next day daddy and big sisters buried the placenta under an oak sapling.

So much for the OB saying don't come in unless you've had an hour of contractions. 😆

Saphira Joan Carroll.

7lbs 14.5 oz 41W 12:58am

Joan after St. Joan of Arc as she was born on Veteran's Day.