My Birth Story.

One thing that helped me prepare and feel more at ease about labor and giving birth during my pregnancy was reading other women’s positive birth stories. What was so amazing about these stories was that none of them were the same and most of them did not go according to their birth plan, but they still found the experience to be positive. I hope that by sharing my story, I contribute to the movement of empowering women to take control of the decision making during their labor and delivery and provide some peace of mind that you can have a positive experience—even if it’s not exactly what you had planned.

Sit back and relax, because it’s a long one…

Pregnancy:

My pregnancy was pretty straightforward. James and I were very fortunate to get pregnant quickly (it's like my body synced with my type A personality perfectly), my symptoms were pretty standard, and I was healthy. In the first trimester I was extremely nauseous and fatigued, but at about 15 weeks that went away and I felt great! I even scaled a mountain at 19 weeks. At my 20 week scan, they said my placenta was sitting lower so we booked another scan at 32 weeks to make sure it moved as my uterus grew. All was clear at that scan, but they said she was measuring in the 90th percentile! At the time, I hadn't taken the gestational diabetes test, because (due to covid) they were only having high-risk women take it. Because of her size, they had me take the test and it came back negative, so she was clearly just growing fast.

My midwife referred James and me to Healthy Birth Choices for prenatal classes. The class was 7 weeks long, led by a holistic birth coach/educator, and we learned SO MUCH about labor and birth process. (I HIGHLY recommend seeking out a prenatal class to take with your partner before you give birth. It was money well spent!!) It was all on Zoom, which was kind of a bummer because we didn't get to see the other couples in person, but it was an amazing experience! James took extensive notes during the class and really stepped up as my birth coach/partner in all of this. Between this class, The Positive Birth Company hypnobirthing course, and reading "Give Birth Like a Feminist", I was confident I could give birth naturally with zero intervention. I also knew that if, for health reasons, the birth plan could not be followed, I could make the right decisions for me and the baby, because I was educated and not afraid to ask questions.

The third trimester became very uncomfortable with not a lot of sleep, propping pillows under me, severe congestion, and random hip pains. I swear to you, I ripped my bed sheets from tossing and turning so much!! Looking back on my pregnancy, I'm trying not to let my not-always-positive experience due to covid and unemployment ruin any future pregnancies I may choose to have. I'm not going to lie, this winter was hard. I felt a bit lonely not being around family and friends (even friends here), and it took an emotional toll on me for a while. I felt like no one was really with me on this pregnancy journey—besides James, obviously. Fortunately for FaceTime, I was able to stay connected, and we made the most of the outdoors by taking full advantage of hiking in the mountains up until I was 33 weeks.

Labor & Birth:

I had my 36-week appointment with my midwife on Friday, May 14th. Everything was moving along just fine and my uterus was measuring at 37 weeks. That weekend it was really nice out so we went for a two-mile walk down by Bow River, and I really didn't do much on Monday. Tuesday morning (37+1 weeks along) I rolled out of bed about 8 am and water was dripping down my leg. I waddled to the bathroom and it continued to flow. I yelled for James and told him I thought my water broke. I started to have a mini panic attack because we were for real about to have a baby, but I also had just turned 37 weeks and hadn't gotten my Group B Strep results back yet. If it came back positive, I knew we'd have to intervene right away to get me on antibiotics to prevent infection in the babe.

I called my midwife to let her know and she was able to call the lab and get my results back. Thank the lord they were negative! She then wanted me to come in to have my water checked to make sure it was actually amniotic fluid. I guess she just had a patient with a similar thing happen but it ended up not being her water and she didn't have her baby for another week or so. James drove me to the midwife clinic and the tests she ran came back negative. I was a little frustrated because I started to get excited that we'd get to meet our baby soon. She sent me home with two swabs in case water came out again. That afternoon I took a nap and when I woke up, water came leaking out again. I tested it and it was negative again! I decided I'd put a pad on this time just in case more came out while I was sleeping.

That night, I ended up soaking completely through four pads. I tested the water at 4:30 am on Wednesday and the swab turned blue!! I knew I could go back to sleep for a bit and contact my midwife in the morning since Group B was negative and contractions hadn't started. I texted her around 7:30 am letting her know what happened, and she said she wanted me to come in to have a non-stress test done since contractions hadn't started. James and I met her at the hospital around noon and she hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor. We were there for almost three hours and still no contractions. I had some cramping but not anything crazy, so our options were to go home and try to go into spontaneous labor ASAP or go with an induction to limit the risk of infection. As much as I didn't want to be induced, I knew this was the right option for the safety of both of us. Unfortunately, all the rooms at Rocky View (and at Foothills Hospital) were booked with women laboring so we were going to have to be put on a waitlist with no clue when we'd get in. We were put on the list at Rocky View and went home to wait for the call. I tried everything I could to go into labor at home but nothing was happening, so we decided to just have a chill final evening and get to bed early in preparation for a long day ahead of us.

The phone rang at 1:30 am on Thursday and my midwife said a room was ready for us at Rocky View. As soon as I hung up, I started bawling. I know was primarily due to my hormones going wild, but I was hit with this overwhelming feeling that our baby was coming and life as we knew it was forever going to be changed. I looked on our bed at Ella and Copper just snoozing away and kept thinking about how much I love them and I really didn't want to leave them. We texted our neighbors to let them know (they watched the pups while we were at the hospital) and headed out.

We got to the hospital around 2 am and there was literally no one there besides the staff. It was actually pretty calming to not be around the typical busyness of the hospital. We were brought into a really nice labor and delivery room that would become my home for the day. There was a comfy couch and a big-screen TV and we were able to make the room the way we wanted. Around 3:30 am I finally got my oxytocin IV hooked up (first ever IV experience, btw), and then not five minutes later a man came in to draw my blood. I wasn't very happy about this, because I'm not a fan of needles and was just getting settled with the fact that a tube would be in my wrist all day. He tried to get blood from my arm but for some reason had no luck (whatever he did hurt like hell and resulted in the biggest bruise of my life that looks like a tattoo on my tattoo), so he had to pull from my hand. I started to get overwhelmed again and cried uncontrollably. Poor guy was probably like, omg get me out of here lol. It might have been part hormone part panic attack but after he left, I calmed down, we dimmed the lights, we put on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I took a nice nap. My midwife then went to take a break since she had delivered two other babies that week and got maybe two hours of sleep the night before, but the nurse that filled in for her was so nice and accomodating.

After my midwife had returned from her break, we decided to watch a movie as I continued to rest before things picked up. It was really nice to have her in there with us the whole time—one of the many perks of going with midwifery care. The nurses don't stay with you during labor as your midwife does. We watched Little Miss Sunshine and Mama Mia and both my midwife and I were singing along to Mama Mia haha. Finally, around 7 am, I could feel the real contractions begin.

Over the next four hours or so, contractions started to pick up and I was having to breathe through them. They weren't super intense at first and I could still talk a little through them, but I wanted to practice focusing on breathing for when things got more intense. We learned about abdominal breathing in our prenatal class and the hypnobirthing classes I took (as well as my years of yoga), so this came easily to me and the nurses kept telling me I was doing such an amazing job through each one. My midwife left for a quick lunch break and returned around 11 am. She said she wanted to check me to see if I was dilated because she was hoping I'd be much further along by now from a breathing/contraction standpoint. I agreed to do the vaginal exam because at that point I was curious too! I knew that this was just the beginning so I hoped knowing my dilation and progression would help me focus. Unfortunately, I wasn't dilated at all. She said she was able to barely fit a finger in my cervix and that she could stretch it if I wanted her to, so hopefully, things would get moving. I knew this would be SO UNCOMFORTABLE and there was a slight risk to the baby because the water was broken, but I agreed because I knew it would help me make smarter decisions as we moved forward.

Not long after the stretch did contractions become more intense. At this point, I was unable to focus on anything besides breathing through them. It was the craziest feeling to just let your body do the work and welcome each contraction. I literally had to yell to breathe out and breathe through each one, and I knew people down the hall could probably hear me but I honestly didn't care. I was in the zone and knew that each time a contraction came (and the stronger they became) the closer we were to meeting our baby. I found sitting on the birth ball to be the most effective and most comfortable position to labor in after leaning over the bed for a little while. The birth ball allowed me to really dig into each contraction and feel stable enough to breathe through. After a little while, I stood up to go to the bathroom and accepted another vaginal exam. I was certain that after two hours of hard labor, I'd be at least 4-5cm dilated. Nope. Only 2cm. I looked at James and told him it was time to get the epidural. I really wanted to give birth naturally, but the intervention of oxytocin made contractions too intense too quickly for me to keep up and I was absolutely exhausted. After each one ended, I literally felt like I was going to pass out. James (and my midwife) was seriously amazing throughout everything and kept motivating me to keep going. He stuck to phrases he knew would have a positive impact on me. This was something we talked about while creating our birth plan. The 45-minute wait for the epidural felt like hours and I continued to labor standing up while leaning on James. Pro tip: switching positions is extremely helpful!!

When the doctor arrived with the epidural around 1:45 pm, I was so relieved. Little did I realize he'd have maybe 10 seconds in between contractions to put the needle in... Luckily, James held me as I leaned forward into him and I prayed I could get through the contraction without moving. After it was done, I could immediately feel the relief and the doctor said I did a phenomenal job. Although an epidural was not in my birth plan, it felt so good to be able to relax and rest again. I also knew that if I didn't get one, I wouldn't have the strength to push when the time came. At about 2:30 pm I accepted another exam and I was about 5cm dilated. It was such a great feeling knowing that the work I did was worth it, and now I could let things continue to build without worrying about the pain impacting my progress and performance.

Around 3:45 pm, the OB was consulted, because the baby's heartbeat was dipping with each contraction—which is pretty normal, but I wasn't progressing enough at the max oxytocin level. There was a recommendation to use an inner uterus catheter to measure the contractions and see if they were growing in intensity enough that I would deliver without increasing the oxytocin any further. James and I talked about the benefits and risks and asked if we could wait it out and see if anything changed over the next hour. We really didn't think the benefits outweighed the risks to go with the catheter, so we were told we could wait and see how I progressed.

Thankfully, contractions started to progress again and we didn't have to use the catheter or increase oxytocin. I was advised to lay on my side as the baby's heartbeat was still dipping at the peak of the contractions. Up until this point, her heartbeat was totally fine, and she seemed to be pretty happy in there. I did start to feel a bit of pain in my uterus and realized that the epidural might have gone down with gravity because I was sitting slightly up for like twenty minutes. Yeah, I had no idea that could happen and I was so uncomfortable in that bed. I accepted a top-off just to make sure it wouldn't wear off any further. Also, because of the number of times an OB had to be consulted, they recommended a transfer of care for the delivery. I was told that my midwife would still be there, but the OB would be the one to do the delivery. I accepted this knowing that I'd still have my midwife by my side and backing me up when it came to decision-making.

At about 6 pm I was 8cm dilated but we still weren't sure how long it would take to be fully dilated. My midwife told me she was considering calling in another midwife to take over because she was starting to lose steam (she had worked A TON that week and that day) and wanted to make sure that I had someone fresh to ride everything out. I could tell she really didn't want to leave (and I didn't want her to leave), but it was the right thing to do for the safety of all of us and I trusted that whoever she brought in was going to a great job.

An hour later, the OB wanted to do another exam. I accepted and I was fully dilated!!! It was such a great feeling after a long day but I knew my work was far from over. The delivery nurses came in and started to get everything ready. I was honestly so nervous about pushing at the right time and making sure that I changed my breathing during crowning so I went over everything with them and asked how they'd guide my pushing. They were seriously awesome and made me feel so comfortable. They were our age and super laid back so it kind of felt like we were talking and joking around with friends.

I started to push around 8 pm and honestly, I felt really good about each one. I knew exactly what to do because of my preparation ahead of time and she was progressing through the birth canal rather quickly. The only issue was that her heartbeat was not picking back up as fast as it should have between each contraction so they started talking about alerting the OB to check on me. The resident OB was the one giving me the vaginal exams after my midwife left but I hadn't met the OB on staff yet. What an awkward way to meet someone...immediately after pushing..but every single person that assisted me was so calming and professional. And at this point, so many people saw what was going on down there that it didn't even phase me.

After he left, I continued to push. Not long after that it was time to call my midwife and call the OBs back in. The resident OB was the one who delivered the baby and at one point he said we might have to use a vacuum to get her out since her heart beat was still struggling to come back up between contractions. After weighing out the benefits and risks, I said yes to the vacuum if we needed it. Luckily, two pushes later, he was like, we actually don't need to use the vacuum, she's coming out. So I switched up my breathing to push her head out and literally 2 pushes later I heard "you have a baby!" and they laid her on my stomach. I immediately burst into tears. I couldn't believe she was here! James just looked at me and we both kept crying. It was such a magical moment that I will never forget. We delayed the cord clamping and I had some skin-to-skin before they had to move her to check her. James cut the cord and they were able to easily guide the placenta out soon after. It was really cool to see what was feeding her all these months!

There were SO MANY people in the delivery room, which was the opposite of what I initially wanted, but everyone was cheering me on and when Mia was born, they all celebrated with us. It was like a little birthday party for our baby girl. Since there was some meconium in my fluid earlier that day, NICU nurses had to be on stand-by just in case anything happened, but they checked her over and everything was great! She was grunting a little bit at first because she was trying to pass some of the fluid in her lungs but that quickly went away. James also was able to get some skin-to-skin time while I showered and got ready to head to the postpartum room.

Looking back, I'm so thankful for all the research and preparation I did leading up to this day. James and I were 100% on the same page with everything and it was so amazing to have him learning alongside me so I didn't feel like I was doing any of this alone. I was fully prepared to give birth naturally, but Mia clearly had other plans. If I could give any piece of advice to expecting parents, it's to learn everything about the labor and delivery process so that you are completely aware of all that could happen and you are able to make confident decisions for the safety of both you and your baby. While my birth story was not my birth plan, I had an extremely positive experience and wouldn't change a thing.

Now, I'm going to go back to snuggling my baby.

xo, Stef