Ok let me start this out with kind of an overview of my pregnancy. At 9 weeks we found out we had been carrying twins but had lost one. But thankfully the one that was left was doing great!

Forward to 28 weeks my midwife sent in my labs and found out my hemoglobin count has dropped drastically making me severely anemic. She put me on every herbal remedy she'd ever used and nothing worked. As we got closer to my due date we began to be really worried because unless my levels went up I wouldn't be able to deliver at home. She went and consulted a lot of other midwives and took a anemia class and ended up putting me on 4 new supplements. My levels began to rise just in time to save my home birth! I was so happy.

Forward again to 40 weeks. My first daughter was born at 39 weeks so when I hit my due date of course I was very ready to evict this baby lol. I was rather huge, miserable and looked like a elephant seal!

So needless to say I started trying every natural self induction method I could find. I had been losing my plug for about a week and baby had dropped and engaged so I was very much hoping it would be soon! I tried everything from waddling up and down steps to cayenne cookies. (Don't, just don't)lol but my due date came and went. No sign of baby!

40 +6

All day I had been researching natural induction methods and came across midwife brew. I had seen the recipe before but said no way since it had castor oil. But I began researching and found out not only will it not cause diarrhea in mom or baby, but the other ingredients cancel out castor oils effect so you don't even get nauseated. I talked to my midwife and she told me it was perfectly safe and gave me the go ahead but said don't expect results. Regardless it was worth a try!

So before supper I headed into Walmart and got the supplies. That night about 11:30 once I'd gotten my toddler to sleep without much confidence I mixed up and drank the brew (it isn't hard to get down at all if you hold your nose so you don't taste it). Then I headed to bed. I woke up to my little girl crying at 2:30 so I tended to her, noticing some small contractions and cramping, then went back and laid down. The contractions fizzled out over the next 30 minutes. I was so disappointed! I hadn't really expected it to work but I had been hoping!

I was almost back asleep when suddenly I was jolted awake by a super hard contraction. Not believing that was what it was I got up to use the restroom and had three more before I could get back to bed. By then I knew what it was and woke up my husband and he called the midwife. By then my contractions were only a couple minutes apart and so intense they had me nearly on the floor. I started throwing up and in the back of my mind I knew this was exactly like transition with my first daughter. But I refused to believe it since my first labor was 10 hours and I had only been having contractions for 30 minutes. The midwife immediately knew what was going on when my husband told her I was throwing up and having chills with contractions. She didn't tell him how close she thought the baby was because she didn't want to scare him. Meanwhile I'm trying to cope through contractions while internally panicking that I couldn't deal with this intense of contractions for 10 more hours.

I went and got in the shower to let hot water run on my back. I began to feel a lot of pressure like the baby was descending but I was sure that couldn't be what it was. The midwife got there, came in and took one look at me and hurried to set up the birth equipment. By this time our hot water heater was getting low so my husband was in the kitchen trying to build water for me.

The pressure built and built and suddenly I began to push. I reached down and could feel her head. Within 10 minutes she was born. My water broke as she was crowning and I caught her and pulled her to my chest. My husband made it into the room with 30 seconds to spare. It happened so fast I was completely in shock. I thought I still had hours left! From the first contraction to her birth was 1 hour and 30 minutes. I ended up tearing in 5 places from her presentation but surprisingly it doesn't hurt. I'm hardly even sore. It was super intense but I wouldn't change a thing about it! Brooklyn Kimber 7.5lbs and 21 1/4 inches long. We are so in love!!

(Sorry for the super long and over detailed story! I wanted it for my own records)

Thank you for reading!