One year later, it’s only appropriate that we share our daughter’s crazy birth story.

Strap in, it’s a long one, but a good one.

I never thought it would happen to me. In fact, my doula even casually mentioned at our first meet and greet, “You won’t have your baby in the car. Mentally, it’s practically impossible”. Our chosen obgyn and hospital was 50 minutes away. I chose my doctor because he is extremely pro evidence based birth and the facility is as natural birth friendly as you could find in a hospital, without being a birthing center. This was my second (and most likely final baby) and I really knew what I hoped to get out of this birth. Realistically, I had also tried to prepare myself to accept that birth plans don’t always go as planned. So my ultimate plan was to have as natural a birth as possible, avoiding induction and getting support from my husband and doula.

I kept a very active lifestyle while pregnant, exercising four to five days a week. I ran until I was 32 weeks but stopped due to pelvic floor pain. Exercise came easily because I love it and it’s a large part of my career. I hoped that this would help contribute to a quick and easy labor. Consequently, I worked out hard up until the day I went into labor.

I assumed my daughter would arrive late as I was induced with my son at 40+6. I had tons (and I mean TONS) of painful - not just “uncomfortable” - Braxton hicks that began to increase in intensity and consistency as I got closer to my due date. The day of my due date, I allowed my OB to check my cervix and I was only dilated to one. Most of us know that means nothing but regardless, we all hope for a higher number. 😉 My hope was to arrive at the hospital in active labor, doing most of my labor at home. My OB asked if I was interested in having my cervical membrane swept and I agreed, knowing that it only sparks labor in 25% of pregnancies, if their body is ready for it. My mother and I went for a very long walk after that appointment, as suggested by my OB. So at 40 weeks, later that evening, I thought my water had broken. It was in fact my mucus plug like I’d never seen before. It was slippery and clear with some blood in it, which I asssumed was my bloody show. My doula advised me that’s what this was. It continued to seep out over the next few hours- slowly. Kinda creeped me out because I’d never experienced it like this. My doula assured me that it is not unexpected after a cervical sweep. So I tried not to read too much into it. My Braxton Hicks were really consistent and hurting and I noticed I began to get a bit of back pain / achiness. This freaked me out because I had horrendous back pain with my labor induced son. He was posterior (sunny side up or face up on his exit) and the labor pain was excruriating. I knew that I couldn’t tolerate that again without an epidural and had prayed that my daughter would be in a good position to exit and her face would be down. The back pain eased at some point and I felt relieved. I did start to get lower abdomen pain that began like BH but seemed to transition into real lower pelvic pains. I timed them and they were 40ish seconds long and ten minutes apart. My doula was looking for a pattern of one minute long contractions at seven minutes apart. She led me to believe that it could be false labor due to the sweep. My husband jumped into the shower around midnight, yelling, “We are having a baby!”, insisting that we needed to go to the hospital. I convinced him that we had plenty of time. My doula suggested he get some sleep, if I was comfortable with it, because we would need him energized later. I told my husband to go to sleep because we had time and he didn’t seem to put up too much of a fight. I prefer to be alone when I’m in pain anyway, so it was fine with me. I called my Mom around midnight to let her know that labor had likely started and to keep her phone close. My doula suggested I get into the tub to help relax and get the contractions to ramp up. I got into the water for a shower. Apparently afterwards the contractions still weren’t where she wanted to see them yet. I labored throughout the night, trying to sleep (at my doula’s suggestion) and I stopped timing them. At one point, I started timing them again because I couldn’t really sleep through them. I remember at one time, sitting up ramrod straight due to the pain of a contraction I knew sleep was futile at that point. I finally headed downstairs to eat some cereal and lay on the couch. My doula has suggested I eat if possible for additional strength. The contractions were painful but I was breathing and moving through them. I still wasn’t concerned because my doula didn’t seem to be. We were conversing through text.

My son woke up and came downstairs. I had him go upstairs to get my husband. I was hurting now and having to breath through each contraction. The only position that felt comfortable was, surprisingly, laying down, at that point. Leaning over onto arms or hands onto a couch from a standing position was also tolerable. Sitting was NOT. Every time I would go to the bathroom (don’t get dehydrated- she said- keep drinking water!), I was miserable and contractions would get irregular. I even tried to sit or lay on the yoga ball and that was an epic fail. I was surprised at what felt comfortable during the contractions...I didn’t know what to expect.

At this point, I couldn’t help our son get breakfast. In hindsight, this is when we should have left for the hospital (mistake number ONE). Around this time, my doula was texting me things to help “speed up” my labor. I later understood that she didn’t realize the extent of what I was experiencing. She mentioned that a nice long stroll around the block may help speed up contractions. I remember thinking, ‘there is NO WAY I could manage walking around outside right now. Too much pain!’ She also suggested a make out session with my husband. Besides the fact that it was impossible with our son up and about, that did NOT sound appealing in any way. I remember thinking, “Is she KIDDING right now?!” My husband came downstairs and made breakfast; I’m not sure he was completely aware of how far apart my contractions were. He was distracted by getting our son ready (talking craziness about taking him to school instead of dropping him off with my parents on the way to the hospital and sticking to the plan) and trying to get us out the door. I suddenly had a contraction that hurt worse than the others. I had stopped timing because the timing app was messing up my phone and prohibiting me from making phone calls to prepare our exit. I asked my husband to call the doula and ask her what to do. He called her and she said she would come over. I am such a people pleaser and afraid to burden anyone, which was MISTAKE NUMBER TWO. Despite the pain, I found myself yelling into the phone, over my husband, “no rush!” Again, hindsight - what the HECK (?!) was I thinking??That WAS the time to start rushing. Before the doula arrived, the contractions had intensified and I really had to stop and focus to get through each one. I headed to the stairs, stoping and leaning over onto the third step and repeated to myself aloud, “I can DO this. I can DO this!”. It was painful and I was reminding myself that it was too late now- and that I could manage this natural birth! I hobbled upstairs between contractions (with difficulty) and threw on a sports bra, deodorant and my Fitbit (to try to time the contractions because they seemed awfully close). I had completely forgotten to get myself dressed and realized that at the last minute. I had a hard time walking between contractions and had to really focus to get back down the stairs. I made it almost all the way down the stairs when I realized that I had stopped timing the contractions and I needed to check my watch. The contractions were really close. Like two to three minutes apart. And they were intense. This is when I freaked out a little in my mind. I weakly tried calling to my husband to tell him how close they were but he was busy getting the car loaded and taking care of our son. He came and met me on the stairs and I tried to explain how close they were. We walked toward our garage and I had to stop at our washing machine, close to the door. I leaned onto it as another contraction hit. The doula arrived and I was in pain. She was reminding me to breathe, warming up a bean bag heating pad in the microwave. I was telling her, “This really hurts”, in the middle of a contraction, explaining how close they were and shaking my head that we waited too long. I had an intense need to have a bowel movement and insisted that I needed to go to the bathroom. I struggled to walk back to the half bath with the doula’s help. Even though she walked me back to the bathroom, I couldn’t go in to sit down on the toilet. She encouraged me to just go back toward the car. She told me we could stop at a gas station and I looked at her in horror. There was no way I would be able to ambulate to a nasty gas station bathroom in this shape. She must have seen my freaked out look because she followed up with, “No, that’s not a good idea”. She once again encouraged me to the car and said, “or else you’re going to have this baby at home and I don’t think you want that”. I told her I couldn’t make it to the car. I believe that my contractions were about two minutes apart at this point. She told me to walk really fast when the pain stopped. I also heard her tell my husband to grab towels. I staggered to the car with the help of my husband who was saying, “ready to transport!”. Our poor son was worried about me and I had been assuring him earlier that this was all normal and the same with him (except it wasn’t quite, due to being induced, him sunny side up, intolerable back labor which called for an epidural...).

Continued in comments.