Ep. 18: My Birth Stories!

I’m back after giving birth to our fourth kiddo! I am a sucker for a birth story, so I thought it was finally time for me to share my own! I hope they encourage you and maybe make you laugh a time or two. Enjoy!

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Transcript

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Welcome to Foundations for the Childbearing Years with Alison Roos, the podcast equipping married couples with empowering biblical and practical guidance for preconception, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. I believe this is a transformative season of life, and the best time to prepare for it is long before you ever see those two pink lines. Think of this like premarital counseling, but for your childbearing journey. If you want to step into parenthood with wisdom, clarity, and Christ at the center, you're in the right place. Let's jump in. Hey everybody, welcome back to Foundations for the Childbearing Years. I have been on a bit of a hiatus after I had my fourth baby, so I'm excited to be back and jump back into recording some episodes. I thought just to kind of ease my way back in here, that today I would share my four birth stories with you guys. I love a good birth story. I love listening to them even when I'm not pregnant and when I am. Obviously, sometimes it's too much, and you just need to not listen to any more birth stories because it can get into your your mental space if you're preparing to give birth. Um so I've also had that season as well. But um overall, just love hearing people's birth stories. I always ask people, I'm like, tell me about your birth. I would love to hear about it. Even better if you have videos that you like to share, because that's how I am. And I know not everybody's into that, but I love um, you know, just me and some of my closest friends. It's just like common practice now that we pretty much immediately send each other the the raw videos of our births, and it's so fun. I just I love that. Um, so I thought instead of me rambling and just trying to remember all of the birth stories and details, which of course I do remember them, but I didn't want to be too scatterbrained. Um I thought, so after each of my kids have been born, I have taken the time to just when I'm sitting in my bed for two weeks, I pull up a Google Doc and just type out their birth story like in all the detail that I can remember because I want to remember them. So um, and it's fun because when I read back through these, there's like little random tiny details that I just didn't even remember. Um so I'm uh instead of rambling, I'm going to read you what I have written after each of my babies. So um, you know, this will definitely be all of the fun uh TMI details. So if you do not like that, here's your heads up to maybe don't listen to this. Okay, um, so I'm gonna jump in. So uh this my first baby, he was born in uh 2019. So that's when I wrote this. Okay, here we go. The backstory to this story is that I lived in a country in Southeast Asia for three months of my pregnancy. Because of that, my prenatal care looked slightly different than it likely would have had I been in the United States. I had one appointment with an OB before I headed overseas that confirmed the pregnancy and gave me the due date of December 21st, 2019. Yay! While out of the country, I decided to make the switch from traditional hospital birth with an OB to a home birth with a midwife, which is a whole other story. So when I arrived back in the States and hired my midwife, she had me go and get an ultrasound to confirm a few things since I hadn't been seen by any providers in a few months. At this appointment, my baby was measuring bigger than he was quote unquote supposed to, based on my first appointment's estimated due date, which would make him do closer to December 2nd. That's what they told me. Because of this difference, my midwife decided to split the difference between these two due dates and call it December the 15th. So that was my new due date. This all comes into play later, so that's why I wrote all this down. Additionally, my midwife allowed her patients to wait until 42 weeks. And if you hadn't gone into labor naturally by then, you would risk out of a home birth and have to transfer to the hospital. Oh, all of this will come into play later on. So December 15th, my new due date came and went. Excuse me. I was still very much pregnant and very much in pain, but not feeling too antsy yet. The days dragged on as my mom got into town on the 17th, and still no signs of baby yet. I had one of my regular weekly at-home appointments with my midwife on December 23rd. While she was there, she asked if I had noticed any leaking, like my water leaking. And I said maybe a little bit here and there, but nothing major. She decided to go ahead and swab me to check and see if my water had broken and was just slowly leaking, and that test actually came back positive. This was pretty exciting news, but I hadn't experienced any other signs of early labor yet, so I was a bit skeptical. This news also set a timer for 24 hours. If my body didn't go into labor naturally by then, by the end of the 24 hours, we would have to transfer to the hospital. This was tough news to swallow since we were planning a home birth and I cried many tears over it. Once I processed this new birth plan, I told Christian, my husband, that I just needed to move forward as if we were for sure going to go to the hospital in the morning because I didn't think my heart could handle it if I was still planning for a home birth and then I ended up in the hospital. Needless to say, I did not go into labor in that 24 hours on my own, so we headed to the hospital the morning of December 24th, Christmas Eve, and met my midwife there. Funny enough, there were no beds available, so we actually had to leave and come back a few hours later. When we finally got through to triage that afternoon, the hospital midwives did an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid levels and did a non-stress test for Judah. He passed within 10 minutes and they thought my fluid levels looked great. They went ahead and did another swab of their own to check and see if my water had broken. Their test came back negative. They said it was common for full-term pregnancies to produce positive tests even when the waters hadn't broken. Thankfully, we got to head back home. Yes. They said they would see me in three days for another non-stress test if nothing had changed. We also knew that since I was already 41 weeks and two days based on the December 15th due date, I only had five days left to go into labor before I couldn't even have a home birth. Anyways, once we got home, my midwife showed me how to use my breast pump to hopefully stimulate some contractions and get my labor going naturally. Then she headed home, told us to call if anything changed. This is where things get kind of interesting. I mean, it's all interesting, but so that afternoon I got a call from the hospital. They were calling because they were confused about my due date. The date in their system was showing December 21st. Uh, which, if you remember, was the date of my first appointment when I had gone to see the OB at this hospital. Um, which would only put me at 40 weeks and three days rather than 41 and 2, which would be great news because it would mean I still had over a week to let my body go into labor naturally. So essentially that very first appointment I had was the due date I should have just stuck with. And anyways, so this was so exciting. I called my midwife on that afternoon of the 24th and updated her with the news, and I was so thankful to have the extra time. Um, in hindsight, this is me adding adding this in here, but just this is all so crazy, and I hate that I let this all kind of happen the way that it did, but I didn't know any better. Um, and I've since learned that early dating ultrasounds are actually the most accurate, so I don't really know why this midwife, you know, wanted to split the difference based on a 20-week scan, and I would just never do it this way if I was doing this all over again. But, anyways, I back to my story. I was just so grateful to be home. I could have waited another week for Judah. On Christmas Day, probably around mid morning, my back began to hurt off and on. This went on until around 2 or 3 p.m. when my mom suggested these might be contractions and wanted to time them. They were so sporadic and far apart though, so it wasn't that helpful. We went for a walk, opened gifts, ate some tamales, and rested. I used a soccer ball and rubbed my back against a wall most of the afternoon to help with the pain. It hurt but was extremely manageable. I honestly didn't think I was in labor. That night around 10 p.m. as we were about to go to sleep, I got very nauseous. We decided to let my midwife know just in case. She ended up driving out to our house to check me and see what was up. When she got there, I was feeling better, and we were shocked when she did the cervical exam to find out that I was already five centimeters dilated. She told us to go ahead and blow up the birth pool and get everything set up because we'd likely have a baby within the next 24 hours. She left her bag of supplies there but decided to go home. We were to call her when my contractions were five minutes apart, lasting one minute each, and that went on for one whole hour. So Christian and I blew up the tub, rearranged our room, hung up my labor affirmations and scriptures, grabbed all our home birth supplies we'd prepared beforehand. By the time we climbed into bed, it was a little after midnight and my contractions were really getting painful. My midwife had encouraged me to try to get some sleep, so I laid there as long as I could, but couldn't fall asleep. After about 45 minutes, I had to wake Christian up because I needed help coping. All of my labor was in my back. Lame. So counter pressure on my lower back was the most helpful thing for me during the contractions. After an hour, it was time to call our midwife. She arrived around 2:30 in the morning and things were moving really quickly. Our hot water heater was struggling to fill the birth tub, so I almost gave birth on land, so to speak. Christian was having to run back and forth boiling hot water for the tub and pressing on my back every couple minutes during contractions. Uh plug for one reason why it would have been awesome to have a doula to help with some of this. Shout out to Christian for rocking it as my support person. Finally, I was allowed to get in the birth tub uh like it was full there was enough water in there for me to get in. Likely somewhere around 3:30 or 4 a.m., though I had absolutely no clue what time it was in the moment. As soon as I got in the water, I felt my water break for real this time. Very shortly after that, I felt the urge to push. I pushed for an hour and a half, and it was by far the most difficult part of labor for me. I know some women love the pushing stage, and hopefully I will next time around. But the contractions were way more manageable for me, and pushing felt like it went on for an eternity. This was the part where I wanted to quit and was literally thinking, I think I might die here in this tub. Ha ha. I pushed in several different positions and eventually got back on my hands and knees to push that baby out. Judo was born December 26th at 5:37 a.m. into Christian's hands. It was the best feeling in the entire world to finally hold that baby in my arms. He was immediately placed on my chest and I stayed in the water with him for about an hour. I even birthed my placenta in the water about 30 minutes after he was born. People sometimes ask if it was gross in the water, and to be honest, I literally don't remember. I couldn't have cared less about that personally. Eventually it was time to get out. So Christian got to do skin to skin with Judah while my midwife helped me get cleaned up and into bed so they could assess the damage. And I put a smiley face. The midwives measured Judah and did his little newborn screen, cleaned everything up for us, tucked us into bed, and were on their way out the door within a couple hours of me giving birth. Then we all took a four-hour nap in our own bed and began the adventure of figuring out life as a new family of three. Judah's birth was everything I could have ever dreamed of and more. I know that's not everyone's story, and I do not take it for granted, especially after I almost had him at the hospital unexpectedly. Needless to say, I fell in love with birth after this experience and honestly can't wait to do it all again. Wow, I don't know how many days after his birth I wrote that, but I really did mean that. So that was my first birth, and that was the birth that launched me into all of my love for everything pregnancy, birth, postpartum, the works. Okay. Then we had another baby. This one was in March of 2022. Okay, another boy. We're having another boy. Um, as I as I entered the final weeks of pregnancy with this little guy, I was honestly feeling pretty great, both physically and mentally. The biggest challenge for me was keeping up with my toddler when all I really wanted to do was lay in bed and rest. I was seeing a chiropractor every week to try to help little Caleb get into a more ideal position. I'd been experiencing lots of Braxton Hicks contractions every day from probably 36 weeks or so on. And around the 38 to 39 week mark, these would get slightly more intense most evenings, but then go away when I went to sleep. I knew my body was doing some good prep work while I tried to wait patiently. Throughout the days on March 29th and 30th, I finally saw my first signs of something happening down there, some blood-tinged mucus. I knew this could mean labor was imminent or that it was still a week or more away, so I took it with a grain of salt, but was really encouraged that anything visible was happening. My mom got into town on the 29th to help with my toddler, which was a much needed break for me. On the 31st, I was 40 weeks, six days at this point. Excuse me. I went on a nice long walk by myself in the morning while my mom played with Judah at the park. Around 3 p.m. we were picking up some groceries at Aldi when I felt my most intense contraction yet. I literally slowed the car down to breathe through it as I was driving through the parking lot. Uh I was a doula at this time. I had become a doula after giving birth to my first, and so I was really aware that this could be nothing, so I wanted, I really wanted to proceed with my day as normal and not pay much attention just in case this was the real thing and not and like getting too excited about labor can slow it down. And this comes into play later as because of how much denial I was in about this labor. So I think, you know, my being in the birth world kind of uh, you know, it was helpful in some ways, but also unhelpful because I was just in my head about everything. Okay, that was an addendum. A couple of hours later, the contractions were still coming pretty regularly from what I could tell, and I found myself wanting to be alone in my room in my birth ball. They were still not too intense or anything yet, but definitely more than just Braxton Hicks. I texted my midwife just to give her a heads up in case this was the real deal. She asked me to time them because she was at another birth in Waco and would need to decide if and when she needed to drive back. As I timed them, they were honestly kind of all over the place, anywhere from four to ten minutes apart. I was a little confused by that. At around 6 p.m., my husband got home from work and we all sat down to eat dinner together. By this time I was on my birth ball at the table, having to pause, close my eyes, and really focus through each contraction, maybe six to eight minutes apart at this point. But I was still able to eat dinner. I told Christian to pretend like nothing was happening and act normal, but in hindsight, we probably should have started taking things more seriously at this point. I did text my doula to tell her she should probably head this way. She had to drive three hours from Dallas. I went back into my bedroom to focus after I ate about half my dinner, and I needed to poop really bad. After that, I decided to hop in the shower to see if that felt good, and it definitely did. But I was worried it was causing things to slow down, so I got out after five to ten minutes. Once again, this is just me being in my head about like the things I had learned about birth. It was like water can slow you down, etc. From there, the details get a little fuzzy. I know that around 7:30 p.m., one of our midwife's assistants got there to check on me and the baby. We honestly thought that she was just gonna check things out and then leave and come back later. Ha ha, still in denial. She obviously could tell things were moving along, and my midwife was about 45 minutes away at this point. My contractions were painful both in my back and in my low belly and getting more intense. I liked having someone press on my back, but mostly I was able to cope with them on my own just by swaying, breathing, and kind of humming to myself. At some point, my midwife and her other assistants arrived, and I remember saying I needed to go poop again. Usually that every when a mom says that, everybody thinks like they're about to push a baby out, like they don't actually have to go poop. It's just kind of a similar feeling. Um, but I went to the toilet and actually did have a significant bowel movement. And the reason why I kept why I included these in my story is because when I look back at this birth, these bowel movements, these those two bowel movements were like the worst part of this entire labor. Honestly, they were so painful and terrible, and just it was like my body was like clearing out, which a lot of times your body will do that, like leading up to labor. But for me it was happening during labor and it was just really horrible. So that's why I keep mentioning this, anyways. Okay, I remembered how good the shower had felt earlier and asked my midwife if I could get back in. She hesitated a little and then asked if they could check my cervix first. And if I wasn't too close to delivery, then I could get in. So I stood in the bathroom and leaned over on Christian while her assistant checked me. Turns out I was complete. I was 10 centimeters with a bulging bag of water. Mentally, that is the moment things got real for me, and I was like, oh wow, this baby is really coming. Let's do this. Since she said my bag of water was bulging, I decided to see if I could try to get it to break because I knew that would help move things along. So I squatted down over some chuck's pads, held onto the bathroom counter, and tried pushing just a little during my next contraction. Sure enough, my water broke everywhere and things immediately intensified. I did not like the squatting position and really felt like I wanted to get in my bed to feel more grounded and like something was holding me up. I hobbled quickly over to the bed and reclined against Christian. I began pushing, and within one to two pushes his head was crowning. I kept my hands on his head the whole time. It kept me motivated that he was really almost here. This was by far the most intense and painful part of my labor, but also the quickest. I pushed just a couple more times and there he was. My midwife's assistant removed the nuclear cord from his neck and I pulled him up to my chest in sweet relief. He took a minute or so to cry and breathe, but I never felt concerned. I was just over the moon and on an oxytocin high that he was actually here and in my arms, our little miracle baby, Caleb Wilder Roos. He was born at home on March 31st, 2022, at 8 51 p.m. He was eight pounds, 12 ounces, and was 22 inches long. He was my biggest baby so far. I birthed dippalcenta about 20 minutes later. Caleb latched on and started nursing around then as well. We stayed in the bed snuggling and nursing for an hour and a half before I got up to pee and clean up. The midwives checked Caleb out, assessed my tear, cleaned everything up, and were gone by around 11 p.m. Sadly, my doula did not make it in time. She arrived about 30 minutes after he was born. And we went to sleep around midnight and in the morning got to introduce baby Caleb to his big brother. His birth was a dream, and I keep saying about Caleb when I look at him, he really is a dream come true. I'm so thankful to Jesus for his presence in every moment and detail of this entire pregnancy and birth, and I'm confident we will continue to experience that throughout Caleb's whole life. Amen. Okay. You will see that my births just kind of get like faster and faster. And like when I was looking at my stories that I wrote, like each one is like a little shorter than the one before. Okay, this is our third baby. Um and she was born in 2024. March. Again, another March baby. Okay, because this pregnancy was so different from my first two, I honestly was. Convinced I was going to have the baby a little earlier than I had had the boys. Haha, psych. I should have known better. My mom arrived on my due date to help me with the boys, and I'm so grateful for all her hard work and for allowing me to rest more at the end of pregnancy. She is the real MVP. We kept thinking the baby would come any day, of course, but days passed and nothing was happening. I was a little crampy here and there, but that's about it. The two days leading up to the baby's birth, uh, parentheses, we didn't know the gender ahead of time this time around. I did start having some bloody mucus finally, which was encouraging to me. At 41 weeks exactly on March 6th, the boys were with their weekly babysitter that morning, so my mom and I went shopping, ran a few errands. I remember saying during that time, I feel like this baby is about to fall out of my butt. Turns out I wasn't far off. I was having lots of little cramps again, but didn't think much of it. Around 1 30 p.m., I was laying in my bed resting and felt what I would consider my first real contraction. It was slightly more intense than the cramps and actually lasted for about a minute like you would expect. Then for the next several hours, these continued to come, but in a very irregular pattern, nothing too intense. So I felt a little unsure of what was happening. I did go ahead and alert my midwife though around 3 p.m. Since last time I waited way too long. She recommended I do part of the miles circuit to try to help the contraction pattern become more regular and help the baby get into the best position. Around 4 45, she asked me to time the contractions, but as soon as I started doing that, I felt like they majorly spaced out and were super short, so I told her I was gonna try to ignore them for now. We decided to check back in in about 30 minutes, and in that time they picked back up. At this point, I felt more confident that this was probably real labor, but I still felt like it could be a while based on the intensity. This was around 5 30 p.m. Guys, this is hilarious, okay? I just am so bad about being in denial in my labors. Okay, I talked to my midwife on the phone and she quickly or she reminded me that sometimes contractions can be irregular and still bring a baby pretty quickly. Based on my last two labors, we had a feeling this one could happen pretty quickly as well. So we wanted to be proactive about getting everyone there just in case. In the next 15 minutes, I had about three more intense contractions. So at 5 44 p.m., I told her, and this is a quote, kind of feeling like you could come just in case. By 6 p.m. she was on her way with the rest of the birth team. I also texted my friend who was coming to take photos to ask her to slowly make her way over. Christian got home from work right around this time, and I had just headed back to labor in my room from being outside with my mom and the boys because I could tell things were getting more intense. When Christian came in, I remember saying I was pretty sure this was it, but also that I was still kind of confused because it had been so random all day and not crazy intense, and I was still able to chat in between my contractions. But this was really when things shifted. We weren't timing them or anything, but if I had to guess, I'd say they were coming roughly every five-ish minutes, and I was definitely having to focus on them now. I was feeling them in my back a lot. So Christian was giving me some counterpressure most of the time. I had a bowel movement at some point in there, clearing everything out. Eventually everyone arrived and I requested for Judah and Caleb to come in the room with me. I really enjoyed having them around. They were helpful, they were a helpful and welcomed distraction. I mostly labored on my hands and knees and rested in between on the bench at the foot of our bed. The midwives came and listened to baby's heartbeat, took my blood pressure, but they mostly left us alone per my request. Probably around 7 p.m. things really got intense, and I was having to moan through the contractions because they were much more painful. My midwife suggested I could try pushing a tiny bit during one to see if it helped relieve some of the pain. I tried a couple times and it did help a bit. Finally, during a contraction, while I was bearing down, my water broke everywhere. I knew baby was about to be here. I immediately said, Someone go get Judah. I knew he would be so sad if he missed it. He climbed up on our bed and during the next contraction the fetal ejection reflex took over. I really didn't even have to push, and the baby came out all at once at 7 14 p.m. after about one hour and 45 minutes of active labor. I caught the baby myself and brought it up to my belly. The cord was kind of short. Baby cried pretty much immediately, which alerted my mom to come running in with Caleb just in time for us to look and announce that she was a girl. I was utterly shocked and so, so happy. What a beautiful surprise. Adeline Joy Roos was finally here and worth every second of the wait. It was so fun having the whole family there. I birthed the placenta about 15 minutes later while she nursed, and then we climbed into bed. We read a beautiful liturgy over her from the book Every Moment Holy. And Christian and Judah cut her umbilical cord. Later on, the midwives weighed her and checked her out. She was eight pounds, five ounces, twenty and a half inches long, and absolutely perfect. They cleaned up and tucked us all into bed around 9.45 p.m. We sent the big update to all our anxiously awaiting family and friends. We got our girl. It was a beautiful day and such a peaceful labor and birth. Praise Jesus. So that was by far my my favorite and easiest and honestly mostly pain-free birth. So um yeah, it was it was a really, really, really beautiful birth. I loved that birth. I mean, I loved all my births, but if I had to pick a favorite, that was my favorite. Okay. Then here's our fourth baby. Um, he was born just a few months ago in February of this year, 2026. So Okay, in the middle of the night on oh, also before I start this one, this one is fun because if you I don't know if you noticed, but all three of my first births were so similar. I went into labor like in the afternoon and then they were and then my water broke right before I it was time to push. And they just they it was basically like the exact same scenario, except they got a little bit shorter each time. You know, it was just a shorter labor, but it's very similar progression of things. Um, so I was kind of expecting something similar. I also had all of them around the same point. Uh like I had them at 40 and 5, 40 and 6, and 41 weeks. So like within three days of each other, um, I had them all based on my due dates. So again, just kind of expecting more of the same. Uh but surprise, surprise, this one, my fourth one, uh came so differently. Okay, so here we go. In the middle of the night on February 3rd, I don't think I put it on here, but I was 39 and oh gosh, 39 and 4, I think. I think I was 39 weeks and four days, something like that. It was before my due date. Um, I woke up to pee, and while I was on the toilet, I had the thought, what if my water broke right now? That would be so crazy, but also convenient for it to break over the toilet. Okay, just a random thought that I had. And then I was and then I was thinking about how I had never been in labor with my water broken before, since it had previously always broken right as I began to push. So that would be a new experience. Then 30 minutes later at 1.30 a.m. I woke back up to what felt like I was peeing my pants. I shot up and hobbled to the bathroom as more gushed out into my underwear. I was pretty certain my water broke, but also that had never happened to me before, so I was shocked. As I got up, it was confirmed that it was my water breaking as it continued to gush out periodically. I called my midwife to let her know, and then called my mom to have her go ahead and come since I had no idea how long it would be until baby was here. Alyssa encouraged me to go, Alyssa, that's my midwife, sorry, to go back to sleep since nothing was happening yet. But the adrenaline was really pumping, so it was pretty difficult to do. I did lay in bed and rest and began having light contractions around 2.30 a.m. I slept off and on uh between like 4 and 6 a.m. My mom and sister got here around 4 or 4.30 and tried to get a little bit of sleep. My sister was coming to take pictures. Um, then I got up around 7 a.m. and had some eggs and toast for breakfast. I was continuing to contract, but a lot of it was in my back yet again. So my midwife had me try rocking back and forth during contractions to see if that would help him get into a better position. That definitely made them intensify, but they were still very manageable and the pattern was not consistent. Some were five minutes apart and some were twelve. I eventually made my way to my room and did part of the mile circuit since we were really thinking he might be OP or kind of like sunny side up because of the water breaking ahead of labor, the weird contraction pattern, and then also the back labor. I had texted my friend that I had invited to my birth to get ready to come at some point, but I still wasn't sure how serious things were. My midwife and I decided to go ahead and have her come around 8 15 in the morning since I was so unsure about what to do and it felt stressful to me to try to make the call about when she should come. She didn't have the rest of the team come yet, though. When she arrived around 9 a.m., she listened to baby, checked my vitals, and discovered that he actually was not OP, which was encouraging, but did not explain the back labor. Christian made her some eggs while I continued to walk back and forth in my room, working through contractions every five to ten minutes, probably. I definitely was questioning in my head during this time if my midwife should even be there or not. I sent a text to my friend at 9 44 a.m. saying I'm still not in the zone yet, but that she should I that was a quote, but that she could probably make her way over. Things really picked up around 10 a.m. and from then on I was definitely, quote unquote, in the zone. I asked Christian not to leave me anymore, like not to, you know, go in and out of the room. And he rubbed my back and pressed on my sacrum during contractions from then on. I labored on my knees while leaning on the bench at the end of our bed, same as I did with Addie's labor. I remember joking that next time I needed to get some knee pads because my knees really hurt. At some point I told Christian I didn't really want to have the kids come in as I had thought I would because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and there were already a lot of people in there. My friend and my midwife, the midwife's assistant, and another assistant, my sister, my mom, you know, or my mom wasn't in there. She was just at the house with the kids, but and then me and Christian. So there's just a lot of people. Thankfully, I did change my mind. Uh Christian really encouraged me that, like at least to let Judah come in. So he came in at some point, our oldest, um, and sat on a chair in the corner. And then I had my friend actually go grab my other son um at the last minute and just hold him so he could be there too. Finally, after only about 40 minutes of active labor, my body began pushing him out. I remember thinking how much I did not want to push him out and how I just didn't know how he could possibly fit through such a small space. But I knew I needed to power through or the pain would never go away. I pushed for four minutes and he crowned and was born all in the same contraction. He felt much more difficult to push out than Addie was, even though he was almost a pound lighter than her. I think because he had his hand kind of up near his face. He had the cord wrapped around his body a couple of times, so my midwife helped me catch him and unwrap him and then passed him to me under my legs, um, where I unwrapped the last bit of cord. I snuggled him to my chest and kissed his head and told him I loved him so much. It was such an amazing moment with the family all around. My mom rushed in with Addy as soon as she heard the baby deacon cry. And we all ooed and awed over him for a few minutes. Then the midwives helped me move to the bed and deliver my placenta. It was taking a bit of time for it to come, so I got up on my knees with one leg up to try to help. I pushed it out at 1110. Um turns I didn't write what time he was born. Aw man, I think it was like 1040 something. 1047 maybe. Anyways. Turns out it had been uh so this is about my placenta, sorry. I pushed it out at 1110. It turns out it had been separated already, but was just kind of blocking the opening, and so it had collected quite a few blood clots behind it that also came out at the same time. So that was kind of just like a weird different experience for me from the last few times. But then uh baby Deacon latched on and began nursing once that was finished. Christian cut his cord at 11 30 a.m. and then the midwives cleaned up and headed out around 1 or 1.30 p.m. And that's all I wrote. So that one I kind of it's just funny how I had like a different feel to each one of them. I feel like that one was a lot more clinical. Like at this time this happened, and uh, you know, anyways. So those are my four babies' births. Four of my favorite days of my whole entire life. I love giving birth. I look forward to giving birth. Obviously, I have the normal fears and anxieties and the jitters, you know, leading up to each birth, but really I I actually told Christian I remember during this labor. I remember like even when I it was like during that 45 minutes of active labor, I remember looking over at him and saying, I love giving birth. Like, even though I was also like, This is horrible, I do not want to push this baby out. Um, so just kind of a funny, funny dichotomy how both things can exist at the same time. Like something can be really, really hard and painful and not fun at all, and can be like so beautiful and empowering and one of my favorite things in the world. And I don't even know how that works, but um, hopefully that is encouraging to somebody out there who you know is feeling nervous about their birth or has just not heard a lot of encouraging birth stories. Um, I feel like I have by the grace of God, and not by anything that I have done, but just I've had four really incredible peaceful births overall. I really can't ask for can't ask for more. Um so hope you guys enjoyed that, and hopefully uh I'll be back soon with another episode. Thanks for listening. That's it for today on foundations for the child bearing years. If you found this helpful, be sure to follow the show and send it to a friend who's preparing for this season, too. See you next time.