Stella's Birth Story

Stella's Birth Story (from due date to arrival)

January 1st

The day our little one was due to come. One could say this was our last little “baby moon”. The time came and went with Aaron cleaning and getting things ready for her arrival, ha ha. He believed she was coming! He had the dining room table moved to the side and cleared off and chairs put away to make space for the water birth tub. I laughed at him because I didn’t think she would come for a few more days, guessing the fifth or so. I went for walks in the apartment hallway and took lots of laps around my kitchen island. We did everything to bring on the oxytocin. I was walking to the elevator and would go down to the bottom floor and walk up the stairs to try and get labor started… I managed to walk into someone else’s apartment on accident! It was the apartment right beneath ours. I also drank a latte from my new espresso machine with a silica packet still in it, Lol. That evening I posted my goals for 2019 on my new blog, Aaron played hockey on the PS4, we watched a Netflix movie about WW2 and I made chocolate chip cookies. It was a wonderful day together full of laughs, excitement and resting up for the big day!

January 2nd

Aaron went to work at the SuperThrift. I used this time to finish what was on my list to do before the baby came. I made muffins, nut clusters, cleaned my bathroom and swept the floors. I sent out some thank you cards and passed on Supernatural Childbirth to a friend expecting a baby. I had chicken in the crockpot, expecting to not have time to cook it after tonight! I had a 5:15 pm midwife appointment. There are seven midwives in Brandon and two are on call everyday for if someone gives birth, the one who shows first is your new primary midwife for the six weeks after the baby is born. Heika (student) and Angela (primary care midwife) did an exam to see if I was at least 2 cm dilated so they could do a stretch and sweep. I was! It hurt pretty bad. Angela was holding my hand the entire time and said I had a strong grip. She told me I would do well in labor. Aaron came during the exam which was a pleasant surprise. SuperThrift is around the corner from the midwifery. We left together and got Lee’s buffet where I had wasabi on everything.

January third

I woke up around 8 am with cramping and contractions. It was so hard for me to tell the difference. My mucous plug came out at 4:45 pm. That night I was cramping really bad and took a bath to help with the pain. I honestly think I could’ve had the baby that day had I not taken a bath to relax my body. When I called the midwife, they were just leaving another home birth and said I wouldn’t have the baby for a long time. Who knows.. my friend Amanda said maybe it is good we went slow because it was my first baby. That night I had a couple of contractions while sleeping. I woke up to the pain. They were a few hours apart.

January 4th was the day of beautiful Stella’s arrival.

We woke about 8 am with contractions ten minutes apart. I ate a muffin and later a popsicle. Baby girl was super heavy on my pelvis. I called my mom at 11:45 am to try and understand the difference between contractions and cramps. She agreed with me that they kind of mush together and said to call the midwives and let them know. At 1:20 on my water broke as I was standing in our dining room. Aaron and I just looked at each other and laughed. We didn’t know what to do so he just went and got a towel for me then dialed the number to page the midwife on call. We timed my contractions at 4-6 minutes apart. Juliette called me back and said she was on her way.

   When the midwife arrived she started setting up the IV with antibiotics because I was GBS positive. She told Aaron to start setting up the pool. With no directions on how to set it up, he did the best he could to get it built and started filling with water.  My contractions seemed about 3 minutes apart now and my pain was high. The sink adapter was being weird and squirting water all around the bathroom. It was connected to a hose and filling the tub. It wasn’t working. Aaron was getting frustrated because it was stuck on the threads and looked like it’d break the sink if he pushed it any harder. I told him and the midwife a few times I was fine to give birth out of water.

   Finally, Aaron gave up and came to be with me. He stood in front of me while I leaned on him to breathe through the contractions. I started to notice how relaxed Juliette seemed, like she was not expecting me to give birth anytime soon. I asked her if she was expecting the other midwife soon because I felt the baby would come anytime. She just smiled at me and said something to ease my worry… whatever she said didn’t work. I told all my friends to pray for a quick delivery! I told her I felt like I needed to push and let her know the contractions were at least three minutes apart so she called Angela, who just happened to be the other midwife on call. Angela showed up and asked if I had been checked to see how dilated I was, Juliette said no and continued to set up. Finally Angela asked her to check me and I was 6 centimeters. I told them about fifteen minutes later I felt like I needed to push really bad. When they checked I was ten centimeters dilated!

   I asked if I could start pushing and they just laughed. I was standing on my carpet with nothing under me. Because we weren’t able to do a water birth I told them I was open to any positions they had in mind. First, they set me up at the end of our island in the kitchen standing/leaning. I had a pillow under my arms and Aaron holding my hands. After about 3 sets of pushing they got a towel and wrapped it around my hips and shook my hips between contractions. They were getting very tired so they had Aaron do it a few times. They explained it like shaking apples out of an apple tree. Lol. They kept telling me she was almost here and I said one “do you promise?!” I was exhausted. Aaron was giving me cranberry juice, water and some electrolyte drink. They asked if I had eaten, I told them I had, but I threw it all up  around noon.

   They moved me to the bed where there were like three pillows for my arms so I could lean over, Aaron ended up finding about five more pillows, haha. He was on the other side of the pillows holding my hands and just encouraging me. After pushing a few times I asked if I could squat at the end of the bed. I was done… Ready to quit. They told me to give it my all and asked Aaron if he wanted to catch the baby. He declined, ha. I gripped under the bed, lifting up and pushing as hard as I could. That was it! At 4:20 PM Stella Rose was born!

   Angela started wiping the baby and Juliette had me push again to get out the placenta. Aaron cut the umbilical cord. Juliette had me lay down and put Stella on my chest. Stella looked so surprised! She was just looking at momma like  “what just happened?” I was pretty much speechless, I couldn’t stop laughing. I kept looking at her and then Aaron and back. I couldn’t believe we had a baby, right here in our arms! She was just wonderful. One of the main reasons I wanted to have a water birth was so the transition would be more gentle for Stella leaving the amniotic fluid. Also, less painful for me, as I wasn't planning to use any pain killers. Typically when babies are born in water their color slowly changes from blue to their normal color. I wasn't able to have a water birth but God still blessed my baby with a slow, gentle transition! :)

   After a few minutes they helped me try to get her to latch on to breastfeed. It took a few times throughout the next few hours while they worked breaking everything down, weighing the baby and all the random stuff that had to do, but she did latch. :) At some point they took Stella to the dinning room table to get her weighed, measured and check her temperature.

Angela had Aaron make me some peanut butter toast and tea. I have never felt so okay with being served before! This new baby was my focus and I was more exhausted than I have ever been. I had Aaron tell the midwives where their fruit and veggies were that I got for them. They noticed my homemade kombucha and were very impressed. They asked me to give them advice on how to make their own. To this I had to have them try my energy balls, lol.

   They helped me take a shower and get in some comfy pj’s, I should’ve planned clothes better.  Aaron got them clothes to dress Stella. They left us with the paperwork for Stella’s birth-certificate, social-insurance-number and health card. They told us they’d be back the next day and there we were… home alone with a ity-bity baby-girl. We were just smitten. So in love right away. We facetimed our parents to let them meet our sweetheart. Now the time was ours to be alone with our girl. To love her and teach her how loved she is!