Aaron Joseph's birth story

My youngest child is 3 weeks old. I just feel the need to put his birth story someplace :-)

On February 27, at 41 weeks 6 days, I started having some contractions at around 4:00. I’d been having them on and off for days so didn’t think too much of it. At around 6 they hadn’t stopped and I noticed that I’d also developed a leak. I went along as usual and the contractions started to pick up. I had my husband fill the pool in the hope that I might have the baby faster than my last or at least have some pain relief as things got more difficult. While in the pool at around 10 I got a big gush of fluid. I had several more gushes over the next few hours. One of which caused my oldest to stay away, he thought I peed myself, LOL! I labored all night and through the morning until about 11:00. At this point my contractions slowly tapered off and spaced to about 20 minutes apart after a couple hours. I stalled in my last labor at around this time so I thought it was just normal for me. After about 4 hours with no progress I did ask my husband to have a quick feel to see if I had made any progress at all and I had. I started to wonder after about 5 hours so I called a couple friends and got online. After a while I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted transition to come. I’d had some worries about how things happened in my last labor. I was worried about the pain as well as the lack of an urge to push. Although I thought I’d put these feelings aside they were still there. I asked my friend her opinion and she was blunt and honest, her words were what got me through the hardest part of my labor. She told me I needed to decide now if I wanted another major surgery or if I could put my fears aside and allow my body to do what it needed to do. My contractions were back before our conversation had ended. I knew the hospital was not the place for me but if I didn’t allow my body to continue that is exactly where I would end up. My labor was back in full force by 8:30. I labored on-with a little help from Bob Marley‘s music- without too much problem until around 9 when I got this pain. It wasn’t like any others and didn’t come with every contraction at first. I knew I was well into transition because this was the exact way things happened when I had my last homebirth. I was still hoping to get the urge to push so I did what I could to get through them. Soon it became apparent that I was losing control. I screamed, begged and prayed for this pain to stop! It’s odd, this kind of pain for me is almost like an urge to push. Once I literally couldn’t get through them I knew I had to push and my baby was born in less than 15 minutes at 10:32 pm on February 28-his brother‘s birthday. I pushed in my bed on all fours which is new for me. I was able to guide his head out by using small pushes with no tearing and hardly any hint of the ring of fire but my husband caught. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more proud of himself. All in all it was a great birth and I’m so happy that my little one is here now. My oldest son(10) cut the cord. He was a little nervous and worried about hurting the baby at first but he did a great job! My 7 year old daughter clamped it, my husband coached her through. My 2 year old was the best little labor partner, he kept me happy and laughing during times when I didn’t think I could. My 8 year old slept through the birth she tried so hard to see. She’s quite the little midwife already. She was up with me half the first night doing anything I asked from poring water on my tummy to passing me drinks without so much as a word. After things settled we got him weighed and checked his length. He weighs 9 pounds 2 ounces and is 22 inches long. He’s my largest baby. He’s nursing well so far and is quite a demanding little guy!