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Kateri’s Homebirth

October 30, 2017

KATERI homebirth
Today, Kateri turns 5 years old! She has grown up to be such a funny, beautiful, crazy, little girl who has brought so much joy into our lives. I am extremely thankful to God for entrusting me to be her mommy. Now that I have a new blog, I wanted to post her birth story from a previous blog here. This was one of the biggest days of my life.
Here is my homebirth story, which happened while Hurricane Sandy was hitting Northern Virginia…
HURRICANE SANDY
^^^^ weather conditions at the time of delivery

Just starting into one day past my due date, early Monday morning (October 30th) I was experiencing contractions but they were very irregular and inconsistent. They were definitely contractions but maybe just the early labor stuff. Nothing that seemed too intense. I did notify my midwife, knowing that labor can go quick once things picked up with how my past labor was. I took a bath, which did seem to slow things, and took a nap. By the time I woke up I did not feel anything. I was really upset/depressed by the whole thing, and for the rest of the day did not feel anything. Not even braxton hicks. I was terrified of the thought of going in labor as the day went on knowing that the storm was going to hit and the weather conditions become worse as time went on. I also really wanted the baby to come at the same time so I felt torn. Overall just very hormonal.

1:40 am Tuesday I woke up with only what seemed liked bad cramping. I thought I might have had a stomach thing going on. It wasn’t until 2:00 when I felt like they were contractions. Once again they were very spaced out and irregular, some being 6 minutes apart and others being 15 minutes. I did check outside and was very relieved to find that the storm had calmed down dramatically by then and was only light rain.  At 3:00AM I was getting frustrated that things were still very irregular and I was convinced that it was just another false labor so I decided to go back to bed. I ended up waking up at 4:00AM still feeling contractions and decided to try walking around to see if it would make things seem more like “real” labor. At about 5:00AM I had Brian take our kids out of our bed and put into their room, to start preparing our bed just in case. Contractions were still irregular, some 5 minutes apart then spacing out to 10 minutes, sometimes 15 minutes apart. I was in total denial that I was in actual labor, maybe early labor. After a little while we decided to call our midwife at about 5:45AM for her to come and check things out. After calling her, contraction seemed to lighten up even more, I was so frustrated that I was almost in tears! My midwife arrived at about 6:20AM and she checked dilation and to my surprise, I was 8 cm! I literally had to ask her twice to make sure I heard “8cm” correctly because I couldn’t believe it. I felt too good to be in real active labor and contractions were so spaced out that I thought I would only be at 5 or 6cm if that. Here is a picture of Daddy and me waiting for a contraction at 8cm.

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Even after being checked, I was still in denial. Shortly after setting everything up, everyone else showed up: my sister with her daughters, my mom, and birth assistant.

Kateri 10 30 12 013
Birth supplies
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Picture of my amazing midwife and birth assistant
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This is a picture my mother took on the way. Look how gorgeous the fall colors were that morning!

The baby was still high up, so the next 30 minutes or so was spent trying to lower the baby.  At that point, I mainly labored on the toilet. It felt the toilet was the easiest place for me to try to bear down in hopes of getting the baby to drop. It was really weird trying to bear down during my contractions, I was still very confused about what was going on. I didn’t feel like my contractions were that bad, they were still very spaced out, and I felt way too good in between them.

At 7:15, my midwife suggested we move to a more comfortable position on the bed and not risk a baby coming in the toilet. So we moved my laboring over to the bedroom. They had me try lying on my side at first. Since I was still nervous about labor being irregular, I only stayed laying on my side for a couple minutes. I thought if I laid down and got too comfortable, labor would stop.

Kateri 10 30 12 003

I was still able to joke around with Brian and my sister. Brian was laughing at me because I kept saying in between contraction, “this is boring” and my sister and I were making inside exorcist jokes.

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Contractions were still not close together at all and to me still not very intense. I was confused on what was exactly going on, not sure if the baby was coming any time soon, if I still had a while to go, let alone if I was really in labor for real. My sister even mentioned how I didn’t look like I was in labor and she couldn’t even tell what was going on. After a while, my sister went ahead and called my nieces into the room. Shortly after that our daughter, Genevieve, woke up to join the party.

Kateri 10 30 12 009

It wasn’t until the second to last contraction (the first real extreme one) that I physically and mentally felt like “hey! the baby was really on its way”. I hardly realized pumpkin was starting to crown at the start of the last contraction. With that last contraction, Daddy went to catch her as the water broke and pumpkin fell onto his hands/the bed.

Kateri 10 30 12 011

It’s a GIRL!!! Kateri Autumn, born at 7:42 am, our most petite baby yet, weighing in at 6lb 6oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Just as healthy and perfect as can be, what a blessing. God is so good!!

Then the birth team did all the fun things to the baby: weighing, measuring, and making sure she was perfect. We chose the name Kateri because on October 21, 2017 (nine days prior) Pope Benedict XVI canonized Saint Kateri Tekakwitha!


Happy 5th Birthday Kateri!

in Lifestyle # Birthday, Homebirth, Pregnancy

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