Obligatory, new mommy birth story stuff.

My husband and I are probably the most annoying 1^st time parents our friends have. We didn't do any of the “expected” things soon-to-be parents do. We chose a midwife, instead of an OB. We planned on, if the pregnancy and labor went by without complications, to have a water birth with no pain meds in a free-standing birth center. We decided that we wouldn't find out the gender of our baby. We didn't tell our friends the real names we picked for baby, and if pressed about names, gave fake one. (Fergus Bartleby for a boy, and Hephziba Beryl for a girl, if you're curious) And we're not crunchy, granola, hippy types. We just knew what we wanted out of our birth experience, and we kind of liked making our friends go crazy with the not knowing. (Does that make us bad friends?)

I was 10 days past my estimated due date and hugely, uncomfortably pregnant. Around 2 am on April 15, 2013 I woke up, thinking I was having more Braxton Hicks. Sore and unable to get comfortable I decided to take a warm bath. Sitting in the tub I started thinking that maybe it was real contractions afterall, so I started timing them. Around 10 minutes apart, for close to an hour.

The hubby had been working massive amounts of mandatory overtime at work for months and was sleeping like the dead. When I went back to bed at around 3:30 am it took a bit for me to get him conscious enough understand me when I told him that he wasn't going to have to go to work later that morning.

I was actually able to sleep a little bit more, despite the contractions. But by around 6 am, I was awake and the contractions were close enough that I told the hubby to call the midwife and let her know what was up. She told us to come to the birth center around 9 so she could check out my progress. We also called my parents, who live an hour away, and the doula. At 9 am the midwife concluded I was dilated to 4 cm, and so I went home to labor some more.

My parents and the doula helped coach me through the contractions that never seemed to let up. I would periodically take warm showers or baths to help with the pain. Around 1 pm while in a warm bath I suddenly had an incredible urge to push. Once I got out I told the doula about it and she said it would be a good time to go to the birth center. We got to the birth center around 1:30 pm.

Since I was a 1^st time mom, and I wasn't having the typical long contractions, the midwife didn't think that I would be much more than 6 cm dilated, but I was 8! I labored in the birthing tub for a while until the midwife decided I needed to switch positions for more effective pushing. Moved to the toilet and stayed there until my legs got tired and I moved back to the birthing tub.

After about half an hour in the tub, I could feel & the midwife could see the baby's head coming down the birth canal. After one good, hard push, the baby's head was out. By that point I was so in the zone, so to speak, that I didn't even hear the midwife say, “Wait a little,” before the last push. I somehow just KNEW that one more good push and I'd have my baby!

After that last push things were kind of a blur for me. All I cared about was the beautiful, tiny baby in my arms. All the fears I had about whether I'd be a good mom or not vanished. The hubby described it as me going “from 0-mom in less than 60 seconds.” :)

Serenity Faye was born at 3:20 pm, weighed a healthy 6 lb 12.5 oz. Apparently she swam out wide eyed & waving (since she came out with one hand by her head.) I feel very lucky that as a first time mom, my birth went exactly as planned and that I have such a wonderful, beautiful, sweet baby girl.