My fourth and final baby has arrived! This is the story of how she came earthside.
I became pregnant in May 2019 and was due February 11, 2020. My dating sonogram gave me a due date of 2/14/20 and knowing I go a few days past 40, I told everyone that I should have a Valentines baby. This pregnancy, I focused on my nutrition by following the Brewer Pregnancy diet the best I could. I stayed busy and active with my other three kids, their school and sports, my youngest and his speech therapy and their special dietary needs while going to college myself and buying a new house in the middle of it. Our hope during this pregnancy was that I wouldn’t have the same cardiac issues I had during my last pregnancy in order to be able to have a home birth and luckily, that was the case!
I dealt with more fear surrounding birth this time than any others though and had to work through them from early on. Even until the end, when after I had hit 40 weeks and had a full night of prodromal labor, I had to work through major fear of birth, transition, pain. Unfortunately, my husband and all 3 kids came down with the flu the week of my due date and it dragged on. I was utterly exhausted from taking care of everyone’s needs, trying to keep the house spic and span in preparation for the upcoming birth, and just being so pregnant. Right as everyone started to get better, I got hit with something like a cold virus along with my two sons. I felt so frustrated and defeated but tried my best to keep my spirits up.
On 40+5, I read through a chapter of Christ Centered Childbirth on working through fears to combat pain and I felt more mentally prepared than I had previously at any point this pregnancy! The following day, Monday Feb 17, the two youngest kids and I were in bed after napping together and I decided to pray with my daughter about the upcoming birth. I thanked God for this new baby who would be the perfect addition to our family and asked him if we could meet her soon. After we said amen, I stood up and had my first contraction! I had another a few minutes later then went to the restroom and had my “bloody show.” I texted Justin immediately and told him he should head home from work soon, not knowing how long it would take since my third baby’s birth was less than 3 hours. This was at 3:30pm. I let my mom know I was having contractions too, so she could start heading this way. They were spread pretty far apart, about every 4-6 minutes lasting 1 minute but they were fairly strong and I knew they were real from the first one. Justin came home and started getting our birth supplies laid out, the birth tub liner on and bedroom tidied up while my mom entertained the kids in the living room. I did my makeup, listened to music, sat on the birth ball and mostly hung out in my bedroom.
Birth & Baby Supplies |
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Justin's childbirth resource manual |
Music was such a huge help to me this birth. I put together a pretty eclectic Spotify playlist and enjoyed it so much!
My friend Jessica brought us dinner around 6 which was a total godsend so I didn’t have to worry about what the kids would eat. The contractions continued to be spaced about the same until around 6:30/7 when they started to pick up in strength and speed. From that point on, I didn’t leave my room again. I had Justin start filling up the birth pool and we let the kids "swim" in it for a little while. My mom and Justin taught the kids what happens when I have a contraction and explained that they should try to be quiet when I’m having them.
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| Silas was so concerned about my pain so I reassured him all was well. |
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| Mid Contraction |
I didn't want to get in too soon so I waited until I was really in a lot of pain which was around 8:00pm. I didn't know at the time, but Bridgette was positioned badly, causing the pain and spaced apart contractions. I didn’t find the pain relief I was hoping for in the water and eventually, I started just bawling. It was an emotional response from deep within me that felt so good to let out and Justin was amazing and just held me while I cried. I wondered at the time if it was a sign of transition that I hadn’t experienced before because it was such a strong emotion. My dad had come over with pots to boil more water because the hot water heater wasn’t able to make the tub hot enough on its own. He ended up staying and watching the kiddos in the living room, which was so helpful. Silas had told me that he didn’t want to come in until after I had her so that worked out perfectly. The contractions continued to stay pretty spaced apart, which I was not a fan of. I kept getting pulled back into the darkness of transition over and over and over rather than just dealing with it all at once and getting it over with. They were so strong and overwhelming it made my skin crawl and I wanted to escape my body- no matter how I tried to relax and accept them for what they were. In my 3 previous births, I didn’t want to be touched and needed silence most of the time but for this birth, I wanted Justin right beside me the whole time. His encouragement and presence really helped bring me through the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
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| Scarlett taking it all in |
Transition continued for about an hour and a half in the water, while I was trying to find the position that brought the most relief. I spent much of that time crying, telling Justin how bad it was hurting, that I wished I could have an epidural (haha!) and eventually that I just simply couldn’t anymore. I knew I had to be close-ish, so I tried pushing a little during a couple contractions to see how it felt. I was feeling overwhelmed and impatient but then after trying pushing and not feeling it, I started to worry that I wasn’t listening to my body and that I could have thrown off the whole process. I decided to check for the baby's head, hoping that would encourage me to keep going but instead, I felt a small bit of her head and a whole lot of squishy cervix. That’s when the real panic set in. What if I was only halfway done with this work!? I knew I didn’t have it in me to do several more hours of this! I looked Justin straight in the eye and told him I absolutely can’t do this. Poor guy was trying to decipher whether this was transition talking or if we needed to do something else. He contemplated his words carefully before asking me if we needed to load up and go to Borger (where the OB is.)
Something in me shifted with that question and my answer to him came in the form of powerful roars, where my body began bearing down and pushing baby down toward my birth canal. I had two contractions like this where I just felt wild and was screaming while pushing the baby down. The boys heard me yelling from the living room and Archie started bawling wanting to come to me and Silas just sat there worried. I had another brief moment of panic right before the baby started crowning and I began to hyperventilate then I talked myself down: “I’m so close now. If I can get through this, my baby will be here. I’m almost done” So during the next contraction, she started crowning and boy did it hurt. Her head came straight down rather than angled from the crown of her head, making the circumference wider than normal. I kept chanting “slow down, slow down, slow down” trying to convince myself not to just push with all I had. She made it out to about her eyes. Being in the water, I instinctively reached down to feel her head. It was squishy and I could feel a full head of hair. I could also feel how tight I was around her little face, as if I was already fully stretched. I told Justin & my mom, “Holy cow this is a big baby!” And she ended up with burst blood vessels in her eyes from the angle she came out, which broke my heart. I had another long contraction that got her nose out but she sure wasn’t moving fast. Scarlett had been in and out of the room the whole time and she was in during this part but she must have figured it was still going to be a while because she started to leave so I hollered at her to come back. Inside, in labor land, I felt so wild and out of control but on the outside, I was so calm and quietly told Scarlett that the baby’s head was out, that she was about to be here, she had a lot of hair and then asked Scarlett if she was ready. I leaned over, putting my weight on my left arm on the edge of the pool, propped my right foot up and started pushing as hard as I could. The rest of her head came out and I just kept on pushing. I could feel her shoulders turn and it still took quite an effort to get her out, giving me a second degree tear. Finally she slipped out and had the cord around her neck so I flipped her underwater to unwrap it and pulled her up! It was my first time to catch my own baby because Justin usually does and that was a pretty awesome experience. She was absolutely covered with thick vernix. She was quiet at first but not in an alarming way, more of a “that was just hard work” way.
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| Unwrapping the nuchal cord |
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| That birth high and feeling of accomplishment is my favorite thing. |
Everyone cheered and the dogs peeked over my shoulder from the bed at their new baby! I rubbed her back and started crying from happiness. I asked Scarlett to grab me a towel to cover us with and Bridgette let out a little cry. Justin went and got the boys and my dad and everyone I love most in the world surrounded me and celebrated my new precious baby. I felt so loved and relieved and exhausted all at once. Bridgette started to get cold after a few minutes so we decided to get out and get her warmed up. Her cord was short and done pulsing so my mom helped me out of the tub then we cut the cord. I was hoping that the placenta would come quickly so I wouldn’t have to cut it before I was ready but this placenta was as sticky as the baby was. I started having horrible contractions that felt the same as my transition contractions and they were relentless. Bridgette wasn’t wanting to nurse yet and it hurt to even sit so Justin gave me a dose of Angelica root tincture to help encourage the placenta to come out. After an hour of this and a second dose of the herbs, we called our birth consultant to ask her opinion on the pain and her advice was to really try to encourage the placenta to come. I had been bleeding quite a lot from the start so we were all on high alert, paying attention to how I was feeling. So I went to the bathroom and gave a little squat and a big push and out it came along with a ton more blood and several huge clots. It was the smallest placenta out of all four of my kids! But I immediately felt so much better. So I cleaned up and got in bed with the baby. After we were settled and she began nursing, Justin put the big kids down for bed then came back and started on cleanup. My mom didn’t leave until around 2am and we didn’t go to bed until 3! The whole experience was much more challenging than I was expecting and I had to physically and mentally fight my way to the end. And the end is only the beginning, really. Nursing and not sleeping and adjusting to the needs of another human will all take time and patience to get used to. Luckily for me, I have the best, most supportive partner on the planet. I don’t think I could have found the strength to make it through that birth without him. We are so blessed with our new baby girl!
Bridgette Tennessee was born 2/17 at 9:45pm weighing 8lb 3oz and 21.5” long. She was my second biggest baby with Silas beating her by only 3oz!
Bridgette means "strength" and Tennessee is a Cherokee word meaning "winding river" and is my great great grandmother's name, who gave birth to one of my favorite people I’ve ever known. Giving our last baby an ancestor's name just felt right and so meaningful.
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| I am blessed! |
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| Looking right into my eyes |
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| Time for measurements! |
Thank you, Mom for taking photos during the birth for us and for supporting me so much during this pregnancy and birth! Thank you, Dad for your unconditional love and support and for helping with the boys during the birth! And last, thank you, Justin for being the very best husband and dad I could have ever hoped for, for always supporting my "crazy" ideas and trusting me with them & for going above & beyond to give me the best postpartum "4th trimester" possible.
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