Part 2: Irish Twin Surprise Pregnancy after a Diet Controlled Gestation Diabetes Experience with a Midwife

My first experience with natural labor and delivery was equally as trying as it was euphoric. As a first time mom and the first in my family to consider natural labor, I spent much of my pregnancy advocating for myself and my baby. I was determined to experience the birth I imagined, regardless of the common perception of a birth house delivery. Kira and her team made my dreams reality by keeping me educated, informed, and confident. After 12 hours of labor, 2 of those pushing (yes he made me work for it), I delivered my perfectly healthy baby boy!

Imagine my surprise when at six months postpartum, I found out I was also 20 weeks into my second pregnancy! Overwhelmed, yet overjoyed, one of the first phone calls I made after my discovery was to my midwife. Kira was there to console me through the overwhelmed, and celebrated with my overjoyed. She was more than happy to spend the next 20 weeks with me.

Those (nearly) 20 weeks came and went. Before I knew it, I was 6 days shy of my due date and having contractions at 1 in the morning. But I had just done this, I should be well prepared. Right? I was not prepared for how quickly things would move for me this second time around! From my first contraction at 1:15 a.m., I could tell things were going to be different. The intensity of my contractions did not compare to my first experience. I paced my living room in the quiet of the night, trying not to wake my family. I wasn’t quite convinced that it was time to wake everyone and put things in to motion. I wasnt even ready to wake Kira, I knew she had just had several long nights catching babies! I even checked her Facebook to see how long ago she was online, wondering if she was asleep.

By 3:45 my contractions were hardly even one minute apart! Some would stop me in my tracks, but some I could still speak through. It was a bizarre feeling, given my first experience was spent writhing around in my bathtub while I went through transition. We loaded up and drove to the new birth house, carrying with us only the 6th baby to be delivered there! The ability to speak through my contractions escaped me when I walked in the birth suite. Funny how babies seem to know when to kick your body into high gear!

I’m willing to admit, I was afraid. I had just gone through this, and pushing was a long and exhausting process. But, I had the best team to support me. My water broke during a contraction shortly after I arrived and I immediately felt the urge to push. I guess my kids like to give me a taste of what life will be like soon because just like my son, my daughter made me push 2 whole hours to deliver her. There were many changes in position, trips to the toilet, and Kira looking into my soul (sitting on the toilet) to tell me “don’t be scared!”. I was definitely scared, and my trips to the toilet were uneventful. My baby was blocked by my very full bladder. We even attempted a catheter, but we were hardly able to remove a tablespoon of urine.

With what felt like little progress made, Kira suggested we try her “hail mary” position. I was to hang my lower body off of the bed with my feet on her knees while Jacob supported my upper body on the bed. Something about that position did it for me because I instantly felt my baby moving down the birth canal. Over my primal animal noises I could hear my team saying “she’s right there!” and “Look at all that hair!”. I wasn’t convinced they were truly seeing her crown until my sister peeked around and said “OH MY GOD SHE DOES HAVE SO MUCH HAIR!”. I stopped waiting for contractions and began an constant push, I was so ready to meet my baby!

When the ring of fire started burning I reached down to see what all the fuss was about. I had to know for myself if she really had all this hair everyone was so excited about. Kira looked up at me and said “you can catch her if you want to”. I’d pay obscene amounts of money to know what the next few moments looked like from the outside. I wish I knew a way to describe the feeling of genuinely knowing I was capable of catching my own baby, then reaching down and doing it. One second I was breathing through the stretching of the ring of fire, the next I was holding my daughter as I pulled her from the womb onto my chest.

She, like her brother, came out with a (very) coned head. They both required almost exactly two hours of pushing, and they insisted on being delivered with their right hand on their face. An omen of the stubbornness to come! Her first moments, however, were serene. She curled up on my chest while I held her, and her dad held me. A memory carved so deep I can still feel her little hands on my skin.

The Natural BirthHouse gave me all the tools and space I could ever have needed. I will always choose Kira and her team to support me through the journey of birth.