The Birth Story of Patience Anne

Monday October 11, 2010- 10 days past my due date

10am. Appointment with my midwife- everything is perfect- just waiting!

11:30am. Massage with my best friend Rebecca. She hits some pressure points and we pray for things to begin!

12pm. Visit my chiropractor who takes an extra long time with me doing everything he knows to get my body ready for labor. I am feeling good!

4:30pm. Arrive at my in-laws for dinner.

5pm. Start having contractions but they are sporadic and I've been having them for months so I don't pay too much attention.

5:30pm. They seem a bit close together so I ask my mother-in-law to use her watch. They are 2-3 mins. apart.

6pm. Everyone is sitting down for dinner, but I cannot sit. They are too close together and I'm uncomfortable. I walk around the house and go outside to text my mom and best friend that this may be the night.

7pm. I tell my husband that we need to go home. I really don't want to have a baby in the van!

7:30pm. We leave our 22 month old with them and we head home, but not before stopping at Tops so my hubby can get 2 energy drinks and I insist that he get me 2 yogurts for after delivery.

8pm. We arrive home and hubby is in super Daddy mode. He gets the pool set up in our bedroom, and all other preparations set. Hailey (5 years old) and I clean up the house. Contractions are still coming, but are a bit more sporadic.

8:30pm. We decide to make a birthday cake for the baby! Hailey is super excited about this!

9pm. We start watching a movie but decide it's not appropriate for Hailey, so we shut it off and go decorate the cake. Hailey loved it. I was still contracting- but they were still not too bad.

10pm. We decide to put Hailey to bed so she'd have energy to be awake when the birth was occurring. She wasn't too happy to go to bed, but was excited with the idea of us waking her up to watch her baby sister or brother being born.


I'm not really sure about the timing of everything after that. I know Peter and I got into the birthing pool together at some point and it was really relaxing and intimate. It was great to be focused together and to not have any distractions. I still was not fully convinced that this was really labor, since we had had a false alarm two weeks earlier where I was contracting all night long and then everything just stopped. So it wasn't until...



Tuesday October 12, 2010- 11 days after my due date

1am. I noticed a significant change in the intensity of the contractions and they seemed to be "deeper". Rather than in my belly they were lower in my body. I was really uncomfortable and the only relief I had was when Peter would rub my lower back. I'm not sure how close the contractions were, but it was at this point that I was fully convinced that this was indeed the "real thing."

3am. I was laying on my bed and I felt something burst (my bag of waters) and it was actually a bit painful. I let out a yelp- it sort of felt like I had been punched internally. When I felt the warmness of the water I told Peter my water had broken (good thing we had the plastic sheet on the bed!) and I got up out of bed and headed to the bathroom to pee and then got into the birthing pool.
We called the midwife and my mom, and I texted my best friend to let them know my water broke. My midwife said she was on her way. Once the water broke, the contractions were much more painful and were coming very close together. I knew the baby was making its way down. During this time I had to have Peter on his knees behind me, with his hands on my shoulders. This was the only way I could relax my shoulders and stay focused on relaxing.

3:50am. My midwife arrived and checked for the baby's heartbeat. Everything sounded great and she headed downstairs to sterilize her instruments.

4:20am. I can remember praying in between the intense contractions and asking God for His strength. I told my midwife to go wake up Hailey. I reached inside myself and felt the head about 1 inch away from being out of me. I knew I would be pushing soon. I got into a comfortable position squatting and leaning over the side of the pool. I wanted to gently and slowly let my body do the work instead of forcing it like I had done with my last child. I reached down and felt the baby's head coming out and I just held it there and tried to breathe until the next contraction came. I talked to my baby telling him/her that we were going to do this together and we were going to see each other soon. My midwife said to "Ease your baby out." So I kept saying "easy, easy." When the baby's head was completely out, I let out a scream of relief. It felt so good to be past that point. My husband didn't even know the head was coming out until it was completely out and he saw it. He reached in and helped me pull the baby up onto my stomach. Our sweet baby was out. It was amazing! My midwife put a towel around the baby and I lifted the baby's leg to discover that it was a girl! Our third baby girl! She was so calm and peaceful and never let out a cry at all. In fact, she was so relaxed on me that she started to fall asleep. Hailey was so excited to meet her new sister and kept saying how cute she was. Peter kept saying how awesome I did and was right by my side adoring our little Patience Anne. I decided to get out of the pool and deliver the placenta in my bed. It was taking a while since I wasn't able to nurse the baby due to her short cord. It was at least 20 mins. later when I delivered the placenta. It ended up being folded in half, so when it came out, it was like giving birth again. We left the placenta attached to Patience for about 2 hours. Every last drop of blood that she could have received from the cord got to her. The cord was completely white and totally empty when Hailey cut it. Patience Anne weighed 9lbs 4 oz. and was 20 1/2" She was completely healthy and nursed like a champ! This birth was amazing. I am so grateful to have such a supportive husband who was with me every step of the way through this labor and delivery. He took care of all the clean up from the birth and took such good care of me while I was recovering. Praise God for His enormous blessings that I do not deserve!