On Tuesday, December 19 around 6 AM I started feeling contractions. They were lasting 30 seconds coming every 10 minutes. These lasted all day Tuesday never ramping up. I was able to sleep between contractions that night.

Wednesday morning, I started feeling discouraged as there had been no progress. Around 4 PM contractions started ramping up, about five minutes apart.

Jess, our doula, came at 6 PM on Wednesday. We started using positioning and walking to our advantage and got contractions to get stronger. The midwives were on their way! This definitely helped my spirits.

We started filling the pool up and setting everything up. Shortly after they arrived my labor slowed way down. We worked to get baby repositioned to seemingly no avail. Around 5 PM on Thursday contractions were strong, but spaced out to 10 minutes apart. After a cervical check, I was 6 cm, I had completely given up. We got on the toilet where I started crying. I was sure that he was not coming on his own, that it was my fault and it was time to just give up.

My husband finally got me in the shower where I continued to cry, telling him I just wanted to lay down. After getting out and walking around between contractions, I could see everyone setting things up. I refused to believe it was really time.

A few minutes later I asked my mom for a barf bag. I had hit transition! I started getting the urge to push and got in the pool. I was 9 cm and still had a cervical lip. We tried for one contraction to push it back and it hurt so bad I decided to labor down instead.

Dorothy had me labor on the toilet for three contractions. I wanted to panic through them, but that made it worse. I don’t know what finally clicked but I accepted the pain and made it through contractions without panicking.

After this, we moved to the birth stool, where Dorothy offered to push my cervix out of the way again. I was extremely hesitant to accept, but brought myself back to let go of the fear, and said yes.

The first round of pushing was brutal, my bag was still bulging at this point. I had pushed through a few more contractions and baby was descending! My midwife covered herself in pee pads expecting my water to break at any point.

Once I could feel my water bag I think I had 2 to 3 more contractions. The head was out. I got to feel him adjust his shoulders before the contraction that let me meet my baby.  With a few more pushes, the most beautiful boy was born en caul in our bedroom.

I got to scoop him up immediately and enjoy the newborn bliss. I immediately delivered my placenta, and got to move to bed to cuddle and latch.