With 8 pregnancies behind me, you’d think maybe I would have this whole thing pretty much figured out. Not so! Granted, I was planning a home birth for the first time and so that was untried territory for me. Still, I didn’t really expect any other surprises – but got a few at the end anyway!
Not only was I overdue for the first time in my life (40 weeks and 2 days), but I had my shortest labor yet (3 hours) and our new baby girl weighed 9 pounds (that’s big for a Sweden!).
Here’s how it all happened.
Just before midnight on Wednesday, January 26th I was hit by a sharp pain so intense that I was jerked away from deep sleep. When a couple of mild contractions came after, I thought to myself “More Braxton-Hicks!” I get them constantly in the final weeks. Turns out, my labor had started.
I assumed there would be many hours ahead of me; my last two labors had been 5 and 6 hours respectively. So I got up and started doing little things around the house as quietly as I could. One hour later, at 1:30 a.m., I was bending over the countertops; it was that bad. So I woke my husband and called the midwife, sounding quite pitiful over the phone, I’m sure!
At this point, I was especially grateful for the fact that we didn’t have to go out in 20 degree temperatures for a long, grueling ride in a cramped vehicle. This is one of THE nicest things about home birth! Nor did we have to wake up any children and send them to their grandparents’ house. At this hour, all seven of them were sound asleep; I had closed their doors and turned on fans for “white noise” to cover up any racket I might make…
Jeremiah’s obviously a veteran at this point; he knows the patterns and the tells. After assessing the situation, he quickly set up a twin mattress and cover.
Just after 2 am, I had three horrible contractions very close together and realized I was transitioning. The chills, the shakiness, the kind-of-ill feeling in your stomach – yep, they were all there. Jeremiah seriously thought he was going to have to be my midwife this time around. But she arrived along with assistant about 10 minutes before my daughter came. Whew!
As I knelt next to my bed, the angels of mercy were buzzing with preparations. One of the mental tricks I use to stay on top of the pain is telling myself it’s necessary to get the baby out so I can finally look upon our newborn child. Will it be a boy or a girl? God will reveal His secret soon!
But there was a slight hitch when her head got temporarily stuck. A position change suggested by the midwife fixed it right away, and our baby was born at 3:01 am. She was a bit purple in the face from that momentary snag, but the rest of her body was beautifully pink. After a few lusty cries her facial coloring improved dramatically. The midwife surmised that she had her little hand tucked near her face and that’s what caused her not to slip out so easily. In fact, there was a little pink mark on her cheek that I think was caused by the pressure of her hand.
The names we had picked out (Genevieve or Bridget or Alice) just didn’t seem to fit. After many hours, we both settled on Mary Kate. It came out of nowhere, but we love that it’s a double name, a nod to our Southern roots. Her patron is St. Katherine Drexel, who spent her inheritance in doing good for the underprivileged, especially American Indians and impoverished blacks in the South.
Mary Kate weighed 9 pounds 1 ounce and was 20.5 inches long, my biggest so far.
Look at her fat little face!
It was so fun to watch the children waking up that morning, wondering into my bedroom and discovering a new baby in there. My parents and in-laws were also taken aback by our calls that morning; no, I wasn’t in labor – the baby had already come!
Having a supportive family was an important part of this birth. My mother took all the children to her house that first day; they slept over and returned the next morning. So we were able to have a full 1-day “babymoon” with peace and quiet and lots of rest. Then came the food and the help with housework and so on. Our parish provides meals for a week or more through fellow mothers in the area. We are incredibly blessed in this regard!
Here’s Mary Kate with big sister, Susanna:
