Whoosh, it's been a few weeks since I've sat down in front of a computer to write. Even though it's been so nice to soak up every little moment with the new member of our family, I've got to admit that I missed this quite a bit too.
It's been over a month since Alma was born and we've all been completely in love soaking as much of these precious moments as we can. I cannot believe how much I actually missed having a tiny baby in my arms, hearing the little noises and looking at all of the little features.
If you've been following my pregnancy diaries, you probably already know that Alma was born six days past the due date, just like Eva, our first, and funny enough I was wearing exactly the same clothes too. But anyway, leaving those details a side, let's begin with this birth story since that's why you're here.
The evening of June 14th started with stronger contractions. Even though these were clearly not Braxton Hicks anymore, I decided not to pay too much attention or get my hopes up, since I'd been having contractions for the past days by now.
By night time, the contractions were still pretty consistent, and since I wasn't getting any sleep I decided to get up and prepare all of the last small things, just in case we needed to head over to the hospital in the middle of the night, like we did with Eva's birth. By the time I went back to bed the contractions faded away and I was able to spend a good night sleep.
Waking up on Saturday the 15th and realizing that I was no longer having contractions was a bit of a disappointment. I knew that this baby would come out whenever she was ready, but having the recent pressure of a possible induction plan in mind and having spent a good amount of hours with real contractions the previous night, I really thought this would be it. But oh well, what are you going to do.
After breakfast, we all headed out to the city center to run a few errands and grab the groceries from the market. At around 10h00 in the morning, whilst we were shopping, I realized that I was having contractions once again. More so like period cramps, but they were definitely consistent. For some reason, no matter how ready I feel to give birth at the time, it always takes me a while to realize that I'm actually in labor, so we continued the shopping as nothing was happening and then headed back home. Looking back, if I had to guess, I'd say that from the moment I realized that I was having contractions, they were coming every three to five minutes and were becoming stronger fairly quickly.
We've reached home at around 11h00 and by then I couldn't even help David unpack the groceries anymore. When I reached the point were I was moaning in quite a lot of pain, I realized it was time to call the midwife and I'm so glad I did.
The midwife arrived to our place at around 11h45 and it took two contractions for her to understand that I was already quite advanced. I told her that the pain I was feeling was exactly as when I was seven centimeters dilated on my first delivery, and indeed that's exactly how far along I was.
I spent the whole labor standing up and leaning over a chair. Instinctively, I kept moving my butt from one side to the other with every contraction, and somehow this helped a lot dealing with the pain. Looking back, I'm glad we decided to continue shopping right until the end and that I decided to labor standing up, as I'm pretty sure it helped a lot easing the whole process of birth this time around.
Eva, our three-year-old, and David were with me and the midwife the whole time. Eva was amazing! We're so proud of her. She wanted to be present for the delivery so we prepared her in advance for what to expect, showing her educational videos and even videos of positive births. She also kept me company on each midwife's appointment, and even helped them using the Doppler machine, so her sense of help and curiosity grew a lot in the past months. Every once in a while she'd tell me to lay down or ask me if I wanted to drink water or something else to help me feel better during the contractions. I could see that she was a bit concerned while I was at the peak of the strongest contractions but she was completely tranquil and excited to finally meet her sister, at the same time.
At around 12h30 I felt a huge urge to push, so I climbed on the bed and with Eva by my side and David and the midwife in the front sits, I started pushing this baby out. After a few pushes, the midwife broke my waters and noticed that there was meconium. However, this time instead of heading to the hospital, I heard her saying that with the next contraction the baby had to come out. This is when I thought to myself that even if I'd turned blue, I was going to make her come out all in one push. And so I did. At 12h50 I just saw a tiny beautiful human coming up to me and laying on my chest. I will never be able to describe the feeling of the moment when we meet our baby for the very first time. It's just something far too unique to describe with words. All I can say is that the entire room was filled with such an immense happiness that I'll never be able to forget.
We felt the umbilical cord still pulsing, which David cut later on, and a few minutes later I was delivering the placenta, which we also had a look at out of curiosity. I had one small stitch and after this we all had time to enjoy little Alma all to ourselves before the maternity nurse arrived to help clean the room and take care of us.
This whole time David had some fresh fish we had brought from the market cooking in the oven, so as soon as I was finished breastfeeding the little pumpkin, I was able to have a delicious meal. So much better than bread and jam, let me tell you! A few minutes later I was able to take my first shower as a mother of two, and just a few hours later we were left alone for the very first time.
I am so happy to have been able to have such a relaxed and nice delivery in the comfort of my own home. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the delivery I was hopping for, without medication and with David and Eva next to me. I also loved having Annelies as our midwife, she was just super chilled and helpful throughout the whole process, and I can't thank her enough for the amazing work and support she has provided in between so many phone calls she was receiving. She was definitely the perfect fit for this delivery.
It's crazy to look back and think about what we did on this day, how it started and how it ended. We managed to do so much and from now on nothing will ever be the same. We're now a family of four and we couldn't be more proud of each other for this accomplishment. Definitely another beautiful day that will stay in our memories forever.
I hope you enjoyed reading this positive birth story. Thanks once again for being around!
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