MAVERICK’S BIRTH STORY

 

Maverick Wilder Bunyan

8 lbs 2 oz

20 1/4 inches

1/8/25 at 11:14 pm

 

I began pumping and collecting colostrum around 37 weeks pregnant. I had gestational diabetes with my first pregnancy, and my providers told me it was highly unlikely that I wouldn’t have it in future pregnancies. So when I passed my glucose test with flying colors, I could barely believe it. Part of me was scared that the test was wrong and Mav could be born with blood sugar issues from me developing diabetes after the test or something - so I wanted to have colostrum just in case. I was SO glad I had it because he wasn’t able to nurse due to a surprise cleft palate, so the colostrum I harvested is how we fed him for his first 24 hours. 

 

During the first week of January (39 weeks pregnant) - I was trying hard to get things moving. Sitting on my birth ball, spending time with my husband, chiropractic adjustment, spinning babies 3 balances, etc. 

 

Thursday, Jan 2: 

I went to the chiropractor in the morning, and that evening had contractions all night. Around 4 in the morning, I finally woke Zach up crying and told him I’d been having contractions that lasted 45 seconds to a minute about every 5 minutes all night. I was so tired and discouraged because they weren’t progressing so I knew it wasn’t true labor. He said, “are you sure it’s not the real thing?” But I had been having sporadic contractions for weeks now - sometimes for an hour at a time, and was pretty sure this was just a longer and more intense version of that. I went to the bathroom around 4:15 and had bloody show. I called him in and said, “maybe I was wrong, maybe we’re going to have a baby today!” I continued to have contractions randomly throughout the day, and they would get really intense whenever I tried to lay down and rest. My hope dwindled throughout the day as I realized we wouldn’t be having our baby today.

 

Friday, Jan 3:

Night came again and I was exhausted since I couldn’t get any rest during the day. Again, the same thing. Contractions all night that got more and more intense until they slowed down around 4 am. I was able to sleep with contractions coming about every half hour from 4-8 am. I got up and did the miles circuit and a workout. Then Zach and I went to Chick-fil-A for a lunch date and walked around Menards to see if we could get things moving. I had lost more mucus and bloody show so we knew something was happening with my cervix and the contractions weren’t completely useless. Contractions began again at 7:30 pm and started coming consistently at 10 pm. 

 

Saturday, Jan 3:

I was defeated Saturday morning. I hadn’t slept well since Wednesday night. Every night I had consistent contractions, and every day I had them randomly. And consistent, intense contractions would pick up whenever I got relaxed enough to go to sleep, so naps were interrupted and ineffective.

That night, they started again. I was shaking so much from hormones and having regular contractions that eventually were coming every 4-5 minutes so my midwife, Dorothy, came out around 3 am with her assistant Maggie. We checked on baby and did some spinning babies techniques. But my labor completely stalled out again, so she told me to get rest and that she’d come back if things picked up again. I slept from around 5:30 to 8 am, had breakfast, and got a little sleep from 9 - 11 am.

 

Sunday, Jan 4 - Tuesday Jan 7:

The same pattern continued - consistent contractions every night that spaced out during the day.

On Tuesday night, my mom spent the night with us. I went out in the hot tub with Zach and it felt amazing, but I had intense contractions about every 5 minutes while we were out there. My mom was up all night with me working through contractions while Zach slept. They were really intense and I had so much back pain, so she did hip squeezes for me. They were coming every 3 minutes at one point and were hard work. She kept saying we should call Dorothy because things were progressing so quickly. But I didn’t believe I was in true labor after a week of this.

 

Throughout this entire week of “false” labor - I lost more mucus plug and bloody show each day. Things were moving in my cervix, but I didn’t know where I was at.

 

Wednesday, Jan 8:

Dorothy (my midwife) had to do a postpartum visit in Muskegon, so she told me she could stop in to check on me and talk through options.

 

Just before she arrived, I was sitting on my birth ball crying and telling my mom and Zach that after 6 nights of false labor, I felt hopeless, exhausted, and absolutely at the end of my rope. I told him I was ready to check myself into the hospital for an induction and epidural. I had no strength left. Every day, I felt like I was completely emptied of myself, and then I would be emptied more. I was depleted physically and emotionally. Dorothy came in the house and we discussed things & decided on an ultrasound to check baby’s position & a cervical check to see where my body was at.

 

I laid in my bed and we did the ultrasound which confirmed he was in a good position, even though we suspected poor positioning could be causing the prodromal labor. Then Dorothy did a cervical check. I was so nervous since my cervical checks with Hunter were always painful and I was scared she was going to say I hadn’t dilated or effaced at all. She checked for a few seconds and I held my breath - then she smiled and said, “you’re about 90% effaced, 7 cm dilated, and your baby’s head is very low - no wonder you feel so much pressure. I’m not going to keep feeling around because I can feel the bag of waters bulging and I don’t want to break your water right now.” I burst into happy sobs and she grabbed my hand and said, “You’re there! You’re doing so well! Your body has been doing the work and you’re going to have this baby so soon!” 

 

She said that since getting rest had been futile, she believed it was best that we just get labor going and I could rest once baby was finally here. I was a candidate to have my water broken, so we made a plan to have me pump every 10 minutes for an hour and take Cotton Root Bark tincture every 30 minutes to encourage labor to start. She would go to her postpartum visit, and return around 7 pm to check me again and break my water.

 

I took a shower with Zach so he could help me work through any contractions I had while in there. I washed and dried my hair, had a bowl of leftover beef stew for a late lunch, and then began the “induction” process. I felt a renewed sense of strength and hope. Contractions were coming semi-regularly when she arrived around 7pm. When she arrived, I hadn’t had a contraction in 20 minutes, but it seemed like my body knew that help had arrived and it was ok to get going because within minutes of her arrival, I had a strong contraction and progressed quickly into active labor.

 

We never got around to breaking my water. I asked if we were going to, and Dorothy said she believed I was in active labor and we didn’t need to - I was in absolute disbelief that FINALLY my baby was coming.

 

Violet and Maggie, Dorothy’s assistants, filled the birth tub. They ran water from the shower and heated water on the stove. We got vitals and listened to baby. I walked around the kitchen and living room with Zach swaying and working through my contractions. My worship playlist played loudly and I spent my entire labor singing and worshipping. Throughout many of my most painful contractions in my prodromal and actual labor, I reached my hand up and asked the Lord for more strength. He met me in each surge and gave me strength to meet the next one.

 

I hugged Hunter goodnight around 8 pm and Kaylee took him to bed. I was so emotional knowing that the next time I would see him, I’d have another baby in my arms. It was so bittersweet.

 

When the pool was finally filled, I got in and it was so warm. It felt amazing. I labored there for a while and could tell my contractions were spacing out from how relaxed I had gotten, and I needed to pee. Dorothy encouraged me to go to the bathroom because a full bladder can slow things down. I knew the toilet was good for dilating, so Zach came with me, and I worked through about 6 contractions on the toilet. They were coming about every 2-3 minutes and were very intense.

 

I got back in the water and continued to work through contractions. Shortly after getting back in the water, I decided to try getting on my hands and knees. Within a few minutes of that, my body started bearing down on its own and I let out an involuntary grunting sound. All 3 of our birth attendants came over to the pool immediately. They knew we were moving into pushing. I was shocked. I never felt my body bear down like that with Hunter because I had all coached pushing. It was wild to just let my body lead me. With the first 2 contractions of my body pushing, I felt his head descend into the birth canal. I reached down and could feel his head maybe an inch inside of me.

 

I got back into a sitting position and proceeded to have several contractions where I pushed, but my body wasn’t bearing down like before and he wasn’t moving. Dorothy felt and said I had a slight cervical lip. So for the next few contractions she held it back, but after a few contractions like that I yelled, “Dorothy!!!” I wasn’t mad at her, but it hurt like crazy to push that lip back and I couldn’t help but yell. So we decided not to do it anymore. We were getting so close to his arrival and I looked at Dorothy and said, “I can’t do this!” She said, “Autumn, look at me, you either walk out to the car to go to the hospital and have this baby out there or you have him right here. Those are your options right now! You HAVE to do it and you CAN do it!” Everyone in the room kept telling me that I was strong and that I could do it. I kept begging the Lord to give me more strength. 

 

I decided to get back into a kneeling position after almost an hour of pushing and immediately my body began bearing down again and I could feel him move. With one massive contraction his water broke and his head came out, and a few seconds and one more contraction later he was here and in my arms. He came out very fast and I could do nothing to slow him down. I wasn’t pushing him out, my body did all the pushing for the 2 pushes that brought him here and I was just holding on for dear life. I let out a roar as his head came out. I was so glad that my body took over and pushed him out. I don’t think I was pushing as hard or effectively as I could have because I had some unaddressed fear of the actual crowning and delivery part of birth. And while it was the most intense feeling and pain I had ever felt, it was fast and then he was here. At 11:14 pm on his due date, he was finally here. I was exhausted and in disbelief, but I wept and cried through my tears, “I did it!” He started crying and they looked him over while he laid on my chest and we just snuggled for a while in the pool.

 

I got out of the pool after about 15 minutes and sat on the couch as we waited for my placenta. I had an epidural and Pitocin with Hunter, so my placenta came immediately and I never felt it - so continuing to have contractions as I held my baby and pushing my placenta out was a new experience. It came a half hour after his arrival (11:45 pm), and then we cut the cord at 12:13 am - an hour after his arrival. Maggie looked the placenta over and taught us about it, and let us take pictures. It was cool to acknowledge it this time since it’s an entire organ that you built & birthed alongside your baby - often just tossed to the side and discarded. 

 

I had a second degree tear, so I laid in bed as Dorothy gave me about 7 stitches, and then I got cleaned up and dressed. I sat in a chair in the living room as Dorothy did Maverick’s newborn exam and Zach went outside in the snow to grill me my first postpartum meal - grilled steak with caramelized onions and roasted potatoes - which I had been looking forward to for weeks.

 

During the newborn exam, Dorothy noticed his cleft palate. The type he has is usually a surprise since it’s hard to see on ultrasound and is even missed during many newborn exams. It’s God’s grace that she caught it. The lighting in the room was very dim and she just barely caught a glimpse of something when Mav cried, and then used a flashlight to look at it better. I’ve read many stories where a cleft wasn’t discovered until baby had lost a ton of weight or was very dehydrated. We fed him for almost the first 48 hours with colostrum and breastmilk in syringes. And when he was 48 hours old, we were admitted to the NICU for feeding difficulties & mild dehydration.

 

His feeding difficulty and our NICU stay delayed my healing and made my first few postpartum days very hard. I spent some of my very freshly postpartum days recovering in the hospital - sleeping in a hard recliner maybe 3 to 4 interrupted hours in a 24 hour period. My husband and I were delirious from exhaustion. Walking down the NICU hall with a peri bottle, pad, and peri spray in my pocket. Not showering. Eating hospital food. Wearing the same outfit days in a row. And then being in an incredible amount of pain when I came home & the adrenaline wore off - and I had to spend the next week calling doctors, setting up appts, researching pumping, ordering equipment, etc. It certainly wasn’t the postpartum I envisioned, and I felt robbed. But that’s all another story to write out. 

 

Through it all, God sustained me. I was running on almost no sleep for well over a week, while running a marathon. He supplied me with supernatural strength. Every time I felt completely empty and without hope, He renewed me. When I truly believed I couldn’t go on - I felt like I was dying. Scripture, worship, prayer - He carried me through. I have never been so emptied of myself. So without my own strength and entirely dependent on Him. It wasn’t what I prayed or hoped for - but it was a redemptive birth in its own way. I saw that with Him, I’m capable of so much more than I ever thought I was. And the Lord was so so near to me. I expected a sweet closeness with the Lord - but I didn’t expect to be so exhausted, in so much pain, and to feel connected to Jesus in the way that I was. Understanding better the sacrifice He made by actually giving up His body for us - the way I laid down my body and comfort for my son and would do it all again. I begged the Lord to make my labor start. I said I would take any intensity - any pain - to just be done with prodromal labor and finally have my son here. To take this cup from me. But HIS timing is perfect - and He provided abundantly for us through everything - even when we had nothing left. 

 

God’s design for birth is amazing. Dorothy and her team are absolutely wonderful. I was so sad driving to my 6 week appointment with Dorothy. I told my husband I was tempted to get pregnant and have another baby ASAP so I’d have a reason to keep coming to visit with her. Dorothy is so sweet and genuine. Her kindness and care for people is evident. You can tell she really loves her job. Her & her team filled my home with nothing but peace & encouragement. They made me feel so safe and strong. There was no panic, no rush, no pressure. If you’re thinking about a homebirth with them - I can’t recommend it enough.