Our Birth Story-part5

I moved to my hands and knees on the couch which was made up with sheets, pillows and lots of absorbent pads. I requested my sister and James be woken up at this time so they didn’t really have much time to process before I was pushing as it all changed very suddenly. As my sister entered the living room the only thing I could get out was “the phone” to remind her to record the birth.

With a groggy James by my side and my midwives ready I started to push. After a good handful of surges our midwife checked the baby’s heart rate and he was hanging in there just fine. About 2 minutes of pushing passed and she checked him again. This time his heart rate was low so she had me switch to lying on my back to get a better reading. I pushed through a few surges on my back and she checked him again. This time I heard her say “on these next ones I’m going to need you to push hard”. And then the assisting midwife say “yeah your baby isn’t like this too much”. With their encouragement and a few very hard pushes my baby’s head was out. She looks me right in the eye and states “we need to get baby out, right now” as the assisting midwife tells the birth assistant to set up the oxygen tank. A few more hard pushes and his body wasn’t budging. The midwife then says to everyone “let’s flip her back over” and with their help and the help of James I’m back on my hands and knees. Amongst the stress and fear my mind went calm and all I could think was “You have to live, you just have to. There is no other option here”. More very hard pushes without waiting for surges while our midwife takes her hand over his head, reaches up and grabs his little hand freeing his shoulders. Just like that my baby is earth side. Born at 4:36 am.

But he isn’t through the woods yet.

Part 6 up next 🤍