Caleb's Birth Story

Sunday, January 4th (my due date)
I woke up on my due date and issued an eviction notice. Caleb had 18 hours to vacate the womb. I gave him until midnight to GET OUT! (Didn't really think that it would work....but I had high hopes.)

That morning was snowy. The boys went out to play in the snow, while Dan and I watched the neighbours attempt to make their way up their driveway (they failed epically). We discussed our options about heading to church. Dan was up for staying home, while I was desperate to get out of these four walls. I had been cooped up here for far too many weeks in case of quick delivery (and being too uncomfortable to go far). We decided that if the van made it up the driveway, we would head to church. Lucky for me, we made it up without any issues. (The neighbors have bald tires).

The rest of the day went on normally. Church. Naps. Dinner. Then things changed. I started having contractions at 5pm that were 10 minutes apart. Pre-labour. AGAIN. For days, I would have prelabour from 5-9pm. (gee, that's reminiscent of Micah's birth as well). In fact, the day before, I told Dan that tonight might be the night (I was wrong).

From 5-7pm, the contractions were 10 minutes apart. We put the boys to bed at seven.
Then from 7-9pm they were 6-8 minutes apart. Rach (my friend and midwife), called earlier to ask how I was. We talked it through, but I wasn't convinced this was the real thing.

At 8:15, Tina (my other midwife) called to discuss my contractions. They were both concerned since I've had a history of fast labors, and the roads/weather was bad. There was freezing rain and slushy conditions. They asked if they should come. I told them, no. I didn't want people hanging around in case the contractions stopped. They decided to call back at 9pm to see how I was.

At 9pm, I had one epic contraction where I actually felt the baby "head down." When Tina called back, I still thought this would fizzle out. In fact, after that one big contraction, it took 12 minutes for the next one to arrive.

At 9:15, things changed. The contractions change immediately to 3 minutes apart. After 2-3 contractions, I told Dan to call Tina and Rach. This was the real thing and it was going to take time for both of them to show up because of the bad weather.  Little did I know, but Tina and Rach were on the phone discussing whether they should break my water to "move things along" when Dan called to say this was definitely labor.

Every 3 minutes another contraction would come. During this time, I was in the bedroom standing over a towel, thinking that with every contraction I was pissing myself. Later when Tina showed up, she tested my "urine." It was in fact my fore water. Cuz, you know, I had TWO waters! My water had broken! This was the real thing.

We spent the next hour or so laughing our way through contractions. At one point, I was humming haaaaaa. Dan comes by and asks if I'm singing the hallelujah chorus. At which point, I break out in song. Dan and I were laughing hysterically when Tina walks in the door. She actually asked if I was in labour or if this was a joke. Nope, I was in labour. It took until Rach walked in for her to realize that I like to laugh when I labor.

We joked around, telling funny stories, while I laboured and they set up equipment. This was the first pregnancy/labour that was not frantic. There was time to set up equipment and to test oxygen etc. It was a pleasant experience.

But still, deep down in my heart, I had doubts and fears. Every time, the midwives would put the Doppler to my belly, I would hold my breath, thinking that they wouldn't find a heartbeat.  I feared delivering a stillborn. But every time, they would reassure me that everything was fine. A nice steady heartbeat. As time went on, I started to believe them. I was going to have a nice healthy baby.

We continued to joke around and enjoy the time together. Dan was texting Katrina back and forth, since she was praying for us during this experience (and totally curious about what gender we were going to have!) I laboured continuously, laughing between contractions.  I was watching the clock as well. This baby had till midnight.

I remember thinking, "This is getting boring. Time to move things along and get this baby out before midnight." The midwives had offered to break my hind water, knowing that I was stalled at 7cm. At 11:15ish I agreed to get the party started. They broke my hind water with the warning, "The next contraction will be more intense."

Well, with that contraction, things got intense. No longer were things funny. I remember being soooo hot. Dan went to get a cold washcloth and I was worried that when he went to get it he would miss the whole thing. Hello transition!

I finally climbed onto the bed on all fours. With the next contraction, the baby went from being above my pubic bone to on my perineum. Hello painful!!!! The midwives kept telling me "to let your uterus do the pushing" in hopes that I wouldn't tear. Easier said than done! If the thoughts in my head could have come out! Yikes! They weren't the ones with a baby's head coming out!

With the next contraction, the head was out and the following one, at 11:41pm, the baby was out. I heard Dan ask, "What is it?" I looked down and much to my surprise, it was a boy! I was super excited! Throughout my pregnancy, I secretly thought it was a girl. But I didn't want to set my hopes on either gender, for fear of disappointment. But as surprised as I was, I was genuinely excited to be a mom of three boys!

10 minutes later and the placenta was out. One stitch and another small tear....not bad for the third time. (in fact, if I was a first time mom, they wouldn't have stitched me at all. But because I was going to be up and about, lifting kids, they wanted to ensure a speedy recovery).

Within two hours, the midwives had left. Our house was cleaned up, the paperwork was finished, breastfeeding established, baby weighed and measured.

We had our healthy baby boy, born on his due date, before the midnight deadline. Praise the Lord!