Our Birth Story

A little under two weeks ago we gave birth to a smiling, amazingly hairy baby boy and fell completely in love. We went with the intention of birthing in a birth centre with little to no pain intervention and a possible tub birth, but our little King had other plans for us!Before you read ahead, don’t forget to subscribe to the family blog via email for the most up to date happenings at casa Mitchell!

My Water Broke

Early Wednesday morning my husband made his way to work and I, being the super preggo one in the equation, splayed out in our bed taking advantage of all the space. As I was repositioning myself, I had a sudden urge to use the bathroom so I made my way to the bathroom with the intent of emptying my bladder and crawling back into bed.

Now, I have been peeing for 31 damn years, so when I sat on the toilet and attempted to urinate I knew something was off. At 7:08 AM a gush of what I now know was amniotic fluid went into the toilet and I literally said “aw man.” My lazy self was literally bummed because I knew in my heart that I could not climb back into bed. Because I’m a bum–sue me.

I started to process what needed to happen next. Ok, my husband was at work so I needed to call him and let him know what was happening and that he needed to make the 40 minute commute back to the hospital.

I then realized that the cinematic portrayal of a woman’s water breaking is a LOAD OF BS. It doesn’t happen like how they show in movies where it’s this one solitary moment and rush of water. Maaan, my water continued to “break” up until I held my son in my arms.

My super OCD blogger research beforehand prepared me well enough to pre-purchase some adult diapers (YUP) from Amazon. After reaching my husband, I sent a group text to my family and slapped on a pair of diapers. I was NOT about to ruin the leather in our new car.

By this point it was morning rush traffic in Cambridge so I threw a towel in the drivers seat (in case the diaper wasn’t enough), placed my pre-packed Hospital Bag (this will be a separate post–soon to come!) in the trunk of the car and drove myself to the hospital. What should have been a 19 minute trip turned into a 42 minute traffic-logged ride. The contractions were sporadic and not as intense as I thought they would be. I parked my car and made my way to my midwife for assessment.

Laboring

After I explained the situation to my midwives, I was hooked up to a doppler to monitor my contractions and baby. A few minutes into the assessment, my husband arrived. Just seeing him there did wonders for my nerves and keeping me calm.

After 30 minutes attached to the doppler, our midwives determined that I wasn’t in active labor and were releasing us to go home until contractions were closer together and more frequent.

By the time we got home it was noon and as much as I should have sat my hind parts down and relaxed, I just went into over-drive preparing last minute things that I thought I had time to handle. My water broke only six days from my due date so I spent the majority of the day bearing through slow contractions and cleaning bottles, throwing away packaging from baby registry gifts, doing laundry, you name it. I was like a cat in heat. I could not be still! It wasn’t until late afternoon that I calmed down and watched a movie with my husband, ate lunch, then went for a walk relishing our time together before we became a trio.

Around 10:20 PM we were watching The Office and the contractions were beyond bearable and coming at four contractions in a 10 minute space. As my husband laughed at Steve Carrell’s buffoonery, I told him it was time to go while trying not to rip his head off. How dare he laugh at a funny joke?! 😂🤣

At 10:45 PM, we checked into our birthing suite which was AMAZING by the way. It was super tranquil given the hellacious feeling tearing through my abdomen. It came equipped with a private bathroom, small garden, a queen sized bed and a birthing tub.

From 10:20 PM to 6:45 AM we labored (using oxygen for the more prickly contractions) attempting to have the natural birth we envisioned for our son and for ourselves.

My midwife who assisted us throughout these eight hours, advised us that because we were coming up on 24 hours since my water broke, the concern for infection to baby and mom was high and we needed to move our birthing process from the birthing suite to a more medical environment upstairs to deliver either one of two ways: vaginally or via C-Section. I just was not dilating in a way that was conducive to having our child. We needed to be 10 centimeters dilated and at 8 hours of active labor, I was only 3.5-4 centimeters dilated.

To C-Section or Not to C-Section

Moving “upstairs” was a whirlwind of emotions including:

• exhaustion from being up since 7:00 AM the previous day (my husband had been up since 3:00 AM since he had to go into work that morning)
• a tinge of failure as the visualization of your birth is ripped from your grasp
• a strange guilt as you tried your best to will your body to do the right thing and alas, it worked against you
• and happiness as we knew that we were one step closer to meeting our baby boy

From the time we were admitted upstairs, we attempted to continue naturally but after a day of laboring, the exhaustion was setting in. To preserve what energy I had we opted for an epidural to take me through the worst of the contractions as we waited for my cervix to dilate so we could deliver vaginally.

Hours into this process each check of my cervix was a blow to the chest as the midwives would tell us after each check “unfortunately you’re still only 4 centimeters dilated.” How much longer could we go before baby was put into a position of distress?

After consulting with our midwife team and doctors, their suggestion of a C-Section was seen as the only logical way to get baby boy out happily and safely. We prayed to God that this was the right decision for our family and went into the operating theatre with the happiest (and cheekiest!) team of surgeons we could ask for.

With my husband (and our HILARIOUS anesthesiologist!) by my side, I felt like this was how things were meant to be–picturesque dream of birth be damned. I felt pressure but no pain, baby T was delivered, Dad cut the cord, and he was placed on my chest aaaaanndd the waterworks began. Never have I ever felt a feeling so surreal and out of body than the second my son looked at me in my eyes. I just remember saying “he is so perfect” over and over to my husband and couldn’t believe that the boy I met at 15 years old is now the father to our first son.

Anything I had ever done wrong in my past was seemingly wiped clean by this wide-eyed human that squirmed on my chest. Purpose filled me as I knew that of all the things I will ever do in life, none will match or even come in a close second to rearing and keeping safe this child of ours.

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Talk to Us

What was your birth experience like? Did everything go as planned? Let us know in the comment section below!