My First Birth

Welcome to my blog! I am so excited to have my FIRST blog post written and out there in the world to help inspire other moms!

Did I just say first blog post ever for Unpopular Moms?!!! Yay! (This is both exciting and scary for me)

This blog post is going to tell the story of my first birth. My baby girl Solmarah. She is now 19 months old and was born in March of 2018.

It feels so good to reminisce about the wonderful and empowering birth experience I had and I hope I can tell the story in a way that helps you reflect positively on your own birth experience(s) and also help you look even more forward to any births you may have in the future!

And P.S.

My reasoning for titling this post my FIRST birth story is because I am currently pregnant with baby Hortel #2 who happens to be another GIRL!! As I write this, I am 25 weeks pregnant! Wow this pregnancy is going by so fast. Baby girl is due to arrive in early February 2020!

What an exciting time I am in and I am just trying to live each day with positivity and gratefulness (although many days this endeavor has been a struggle….. #motherhoodrollercoaster)

I will be so excited to share about my 2nd birth next year and before that I plan to write another blog post about my birth plans for this little babe before her arrival! I know there may be questions that you have about my birth plan and I am so excited to answer those and help you work through what your birth philosophy is so you can put together a birth plan for yourself as well.

Okay and now onto Solmarah’s birth story!! Eeekkk!! I feel nervous, anxious and excited all at the same time about telling my story.

It was 9 o’clock pm on the dot on the 25th of March 2018. I was standing in front of my washer and dryer folding freshly washed scrubs, getting ready for my work week ahead. When out of no where my water breaks and gushes all over the floor. So after standing there for a moment in shock that my water just broke, I scurried right into the shower (as you can imagine or may have experienced for yourself, it’s quite an awkward waddle when you have a full term baby belly and amniotic fluid rapidly spilling down your legs)!

All the possibilities of how my (now very closely impending) birth could go were swirling through my head as I stood in the shower and called Kirk, my husband. I told him that my water just broke but that I wasn’t even having any contractions or cramping. I knew that in this scenario there were two possibilities; either, I would soon start having contractions or labor could take a while to kick in. So we erred on the side of caution and we decided Kirk should come home from work right away.

As I waited for Kirk to get home from the fire station I was able to clean up, set out the hospital bag I had all ready to go and got into my labor gown and sweat pants with a towel between my legs. SERIOUSLY! The amniotic fluid never stopped flowing out. It’s amazing to think about how much fluid is really in there!

At about 10 o’clock pm, I began to feel cramping which then quickly escalated to more than cramps. This is when Kirk got home. Yay! What a relief I felt when he was home and showered and ready for whenever I thought it would be a good time to go to the hospital. Since beginning to feel contractions about an hour after my water broke, I felt like they were quickly starting to become uncomfortable. Within 45 minutes to an hour I was really trying to focus my attention, my breathing, move my body the way that felt best and walk around to handle the pain. My plan going into this labor was to stay at home for as long as I could tolerate while keeping in mind we had a 30 minute drive to the hospital, an ER check in process (since it was after hours) that would have to be completed as well as time going through OB triage before getting admitted which would finally give me access to the birth tub I thought I would most definitely want to try out.

Now it’s 11 o’clock pm. It was barely an hour after Kirk had gotten home and only two hours after my water had broken. I told Kirk we better head into the hospital because if we waited too much longer I was not sure how I would sit still in the truck with a seat belt on for 30 minutes! No questions asked, Kirk put everything in the truck and we headed for our baby birthing destination. I was so excited! I was also nervous! Birth comes with so many possibilities. I couldn’t help but think to myself how intense my pain was becoming so quickly in this process that I don’t know how I would be able to tolerate it through hours and hours of labor. They do say that quick labors have a somewhat sudden and powerful onset! I should have known what was in my near future! Kirk delivered our baby girl in the truck! JUST KIDDING! Things happened fast but not that fast.

We arrived at the hospital at midnight. Got checked in through the ER and escorted up to OB triage. Being a former labor and delivery nurse I was very curious as to how dilated I was so the nurse checked my cervix and I was 5cm. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT! I was so uncomfortable and I was only half way to being completely dilated. Would any measure of dilation have made me feel justified in my pain level? Probably not. But I much rather would have heard that I was 10cm and ready to push. I would get there soon enough!

Everything looked good with my check in through triage so I was able to be let off the fetal monitors and walk around as I felt I needed to. We quickly got moved to our labor room. I was hesitant but firm in my request to want to be placed in a natural childbirth room despite my cervical dilation and increasing pain level. (At this hospital you can request a natural childbirth room where the set up is a bit different from the other rooms and they typically would have to switch your room if you wanted an epidural placed). So off I went waddling to our cozy-ish hospital room. Walking was a little rough for me but I really got pain relief from planting my feet and swaying my hips side to side.

This is the point where I basically lost track of time. All I could think about was getting through the next contraction. We even almost forgot to call our moms to tell them we were at the hospital. Luckily, Kirk made the calls and my mom decided she was going to come right away. Kirk’s mom came up when she got our message, which ended up being great timing, just after delivery. Up to this point I had planned on only having Kirk in the room for delivery and no other family.

I was offered the birth tub when I got in the room and I asked for it to be set up right away. It ended up taking a while to get filled with water and by that point I could not imagine climbing in or having to climb out when I was in even more pain. When my midwife arrived, my labor was progressing so quickly she never ended up leaving the room until after Solmarah was here. I was just standing at the end of the bed, getting lower back and hip massage by my midwife and by Kirk and swaying my hips through each contraction. I remember being really nauseous at one point and vomiting a few times (as if contractions aren’t enough us moms have to throw up at the same time too! Gaaahh!). Ice chips were all I could bare to have throughout my labor.

Next thing I knew I was feeling something different. SO MUCH PRESSURE! I hadn’t been checked again up until this point for cervical dilation but my midwife could see the changes in me and thought it would be a good time to see where I was at and maybe it would be time to push. Well, you guessed it… 10cm and baby girl’s head was nice and low! WHAT A RELIEF IT WAS TO HEAR! At that point I was not sure how much more I could handle and if it weren’t for being able to change things up and get onto the bed to push I would have cried! Through the pushing process I really felt I could handle all the sensations I was feeling. More so than during stage one of labor trying to get to 10cm. To me it was like my pain was really for a purpose in these moments (even though all birth pain is for a purpose!).

I felt most comfortable on my side while pushing so that’s how I positioned myself and approximately 20 minutes later we got to meet our baby girl! 2:12am March 26th, 2018 soon to be named Solmarah arrived by the grace of God. She was a healthy 7lbs 12oz even being only carried for 38 weeks and 3 days! She was perfect! We were in awe! (I can’t stop, won’t stop with the exclamation marks!) Both Grandmas arrived to the room soon after and we just felt so blessed!

I could go on and on about those first hours of life with Solmarah in our arms but I’ll wrap up this beautiful story with this.

I feel blessed that I am able to reflect on every moment of my birth experience and feel empowered by it. My hope is that EVERY SINGLE MOM out there can do the same. Embrace the journey. Regardless of the way you hoped and envisioned your birth would go and the twists and turns your birth story actually took that were out of your control, be proud of your beautiful birth-giving momma self!!

Talk to you all soon!

XOXO Jerica

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