My own birth story | Seattle, WA Birth Photographer

So this is pretty crazy. But I figured, if I’m gonna expect you to invite me into the most personal, intimate experience of YOUR life, I should share with you MINE! A little nervewracking for me, since I’m being very open & detailed about the birth of my daughter, Tessah, AND we didn’t have a professional photographer (just my mom with my Rebel T2i) to take photos in flattering ways or capture the best facial expressions (note: the photo when I’m first holding my daughter, I look scared to death! I’m sure I smiled soon after that, but my mom didn’t know to how to get a good shot like that… ;)) but all the more reason for you to see them. What a difference having a professional take your photos & video can make in how you remember that day! We will ABSOLUTELY be hiring a photographer for our next birth.

This will also give you some insight into who I am as a mother, and why I care so passionately about birth photography. So without further ado, here is my birth story, originally written for my personal blog.

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Our sweet Tessah is now almost 3 months old! I have spent these glorious first days with her just soaking her up and enjoying her, (and still trying to take care of “life”) instead of spending that time writing blog posts about her, CLEARLY. 😉 (We also went to visit our families in Oregon and California for about a month, so we stayed busy seeing lots of friends and family!) Every few nights I try to jot some things down in my journal to her, but that’s the only writing I’ve been doing since she’s been born. Even though I don’t regret how I’ve spent that time, it’s finally time to finish the story of her birth! What better day than Easter to share the story of new life?

I’ve become a bit of a “birth junkie.” Even before I got pregnant I started reading birth stories, watching birth videos, and reading up on natural birthing methods. So obviously it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to my own daughter’s birth day. Particularly after 9 looong months of pregnancy, I couldn’t wait for that day! So finally, here I am 12 weeks later, sitting down to record that incredible experience. If birth stories gross you out, then don’t read on. But you’re missing out. 😉

Before I get into the whole story, I’d encourage you to read my sweet friend Michelle’s blog post “A Valuable Curse.” She put into words how I felt about birth but didn’t know how to say it. Essentially, it came down to my belief that if there is a lesson that God could teach me through the pain of childbirth, and if He created me to do it a certain way, then I certainly didn’t want to miss out on His blessings! I feel that this excerpt describes perfectly the terrible beauty that was my birth experience: “So I pressed forward through the pain and the fear. This is the value I found…that at the point of no return it happened, my body…laid there cursed, but suddenly life lay there before me. I have never seen with my eyes the perfect picture of grace until that moment. My God, who laid the curse on me, was there to replace it with life.” I had a desire to experience childbirth naturally, at least once, because I believe God created us perfectly and must have a lesson for us in it, and if billions of women before me have done this, then I could certainly do it! (Little did I know what I was getting myself into…. lol)

I always figured I wouldn’t go into labor on or before my “due date,” so January 8th came and went, and still I patiently (most of the time) waited to meet our little girl. Soon after I wrote my “38 weeks” post, during which time I was really starting to feel miserable and sooo ready to not be pregnant anymore, I was driving and heard something on the radio that really changed things for me. A woman had emailed the radio station KLOVE asking for prayers; her and her husband had tried for 10 years to have a baby, were finally blessed with a beautiful little girl this last year, and she died from SIDS at 29 days old. All of a sudden tears were streaming down my face as I realized how selfish and ungrateful I had been. How much I would regret how I had spent the last few weeks of her life if something happened to Tessah at birth or soon after. And how thankful I was that God spoke to me through another couple’s tragedy. I determined right then to enjoy every moment I had with her, whether she was still in my belly or not! Every little interaction with her took on new meaning, and I just savored those last couple of weeks playing with her little feet sticking out my side, or laughing at her constant hiccups. I was already a mommy to sweet Tessah, and I wanted to remember those last days of her growing inside me with joy and fondness, not bitterness and irritability.

All along, Sam had predicted that she would come on Thursday, January 12th. I thought that would be fun, since 1/12/12 is a pretty cool birthdate! I also hoped it could happen that day, since it was only 4 days over my due date, and I prepared myself for 10-14 days over, just so I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I had to wait that long, and since my two other sisters that delivered this past year went 6 and 9 days past their due dates. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions since about 15 weeks, and prodromal (false, irregular, but sometimes quite painful!) labor since 36/37 weeks. Especially at night when I would get up to go to the restroom, I would have a couple of very intense, painful contractions with menstrual-like cramping shooting down my legs, but when I went back to bed, they would go away. Several times I thought I was going into labor, but sure enough the contractions never developed into anything more. I didn’t want to rush or push anything, I wanted to just trust God, my body and my baby to work their magic when the timing was perfect!

On the morning of Wednesday, January 11th, I woke up a few times between 2-3am with the same intense contractions I had been having when I was getting up to go to the bathroom, but these were waking me from a dead sleep. (Well, as deep a sleep as I could experience at 40 weeks…) At 3am I got up and had a bowl of cereal. (Not untypical for those last few weeks either.) I tried to go back to bed, but as the contractions kept waking me up every 20 minutes or so, I started to get excited, smiling to myself in the dark and listening to my husband softly breathe, having no clue what that day had in store for us! By 5am I couldn’t lay there anymore, so I got up and decided to clean the whole kitchen. We had made cupcakes with homemade icing the night before (funfetti, our favorite!) and I had been so tired I had left all the mixing bowls and cupcake tins out. So I went right to work, making that kitchen spotless! I then went to work on the bathroom. The sun started to come up, and I decided to open the blinds… lo and behold, a snowstorm was upon us. (There is a rumor in Denver that whenever a storm comes in it sends women into labor if their bodies are ready for it. lol Well it happened to me!) It was so beautiful and peaceful, watching the huge snowflakes fall, the drifts pile up, while I was warm and cozy, bustling around my little apartment getting ready for our birth-day! (A bit off topic, but now having given birth, don’t you think kids should send their MOTHER a gift on their birthday?? How come THEY get all the gifts on a day when they did zero work? Just sayin’…. ;))

My mom had flown in the week before, and she had been such a big help getting everything clean and organized before Tessah’s arrival. I wanted to let her and Sam sleep as long as they could, cause I knew this was gonna be a long day for everybody! I had texted my doula, Jill, at 5am though to let her know I thought I was going into labor so she could make preparations with work and her kids if need be. About 7am I couldn’t stand it anymore and I texted my sisters and told them I was in labor. Sweet girls, I think all of them text me back within an hour (even though they are an hour behind us!) telling me how excited they were and that they were praying for us! I think it was about 8am that my mom finally came out of her room, and I asked her how she slept. When she said “good,” I replied “I’m glad, because I’m in labor!” It was great to finally have someone up with me, sharing in my excitement! A half hour later I couldn’t wait any longer and I snuggled in next to Sam, waking him up and whispered, “We’re gonna have a baby today.” His eyes slowly opened, and he said “Really? You’re sure?” I nodded and we shared a sweet moment smiling at each other, until my next contraction came. 🙂 About 9:30 I took a shower, blow-dried my hair, and put some makeup on. Just because these contractions were getting intense and I was gonna give birth soon, didn’t mean I needed to look like a bum doing it! I got dressed in my comfy drawstring sweats and most comfortable, loose maternity top. By the time I had finished “getting ready,” the contractions were definitely coming closer together and getting more intense, forcing me to stop and have to breathe through them each time. Sometimes though, I would have 15-20 minutes between one contraction and the next, and then I would have a MONSTER one, like 3-5 minutes long! The longest one we timed was 5 1/2 minutes!! I was having quite a bit of back labor, and some of them took my breath away.

We had a friend offer to let us borrow their small SUV, since we just have a little Honda Civic, and it was still dumping snow. Sam and my mom drove over to their house to get it mid-morning, and I’m so glad they did! We got over a foot of snow that day. I ate some food here and there, and walked around trying every different position that made the contractions tolerable. My favorite was standing in the bathroom, swaying my hips and and leaning against the countertop. That was my favorite place, because the edges of the counter are rounded and didn’t hurt the palms of my hands. At one point, because my contractions were at least 10 minutes apart and I was starting to get tired, I laid down in bed for a little bit to try to doze. I had a couple of small contractions in there, and then all of a sudden a HUGE one for like 4 minutes that I thought was going to rip my body in half! I got out of that position as soon as it was over and swore I wouldn’t lay down again until after I had that baby!

I got in the tub for a little bit, and it was nice for awhile, changing up the feeling of the contractions and taking some of the heaviness away, but then I just started to get too warm and irritated laying on my back and not having the water totally cover my belly. I spent some more time out of the tub just trying to talk with Sam and my mom, working through the contractions and being patient- I didn’t want to rush into that hospital and be there forever!

My doula works a full time job, so I was texting with her throughout the day, and felt like I was managing fine with my mom and Sam there, and she headed right over after she got off work at 5pm. By this time every contraction was a lot of work to get through, and I was starting to shake a bit. I had said all along that I would know when I really needed to go to the hospital, and I finally felt like it was time. (Sam and my mom had thought we should head for the hospital at like 10am. Ha!) We left about 7pm. I sat in the back seat, leaning forward and gripping my arm around the passenger seat headrest like my life depended on it. But the ride turned out to not be nearly as bad as I thought it would be, just three or four contractions in the amount of time it took us to get to the hospital. We got there safely, but there had just been THREE other women in labor who had checked in in the last 30 minutes! So they put me in a wheelchair to wait until they were done registering the woman ahead of me. Could anyone explain to me why they bother to have you PRE-REGISTER when they make you do it again at the hospital??! The pain of my contractions seemed to instantly triple, and I was suddenly shaking and bawling sitting in that stupid wheelchair, outside the registration office. I don’t even know exactly where I was, I just kept my eyes closed. Jill hollered at someone that I needed to get to a room ASAP, so someone came and started wheeling me to L&D. I just kept bawling the whole way there, I didn’t even care who we were passing in the halls or if it freaked any little kids out. I just remember thinking, “what is this floor made of, COBBLESTONE??” as we bumped along.

We got all set up in a room, which I hardly knew what it looked like because I asked them to turn off all the lights except for one and kept my eyes closed for almost the entire rest of my labor. I hadn’t been checked for dilation at all before I went into labor, and when they checked me and told me I was only at 4 cm after 16 hours of labor I was a bit confused! After all my reading up on the stages of labor, I was SO sure I was close to transition, if not in it already, because of my shaking and feeling like I was starting to lose control. After that initial check, I told them I didn’t want to know how far along I was if they checked me again. I just didn’t want to know how much further I had to go, I just had to keep working through each contraction one at a time! But at least I was 100% effaced, so I had that going for me.

I tried a lot of different positions, leaning over the raised back of the bed, sitting on the birthing ball, and standing and leaning against the foot of the bed, swaying my hips.

Sam was just amazing the whole time, constantly by my side, holding me when I needed it and backing off when I didn’t want to be touched. The poor guy’s arms were completely worn out from pressing on my hips for so long! Apparently one time when I was breaking down and telling him I needed an epidural, he started telling me that I was in the 4th quarter and I was almost there… lol I don’t remember that at all. Must’ve blocked out anything that wasn’t particularly helpful to my labor process. haha

I do remember a particularly helpful thing that my doula said to me, but in the moment I wanted to punch her in the face. I was completely exhausted and dreading each new contraction that I knew was coming, and when I told her with just a whisper “I don’t know how much longer I can do this for….” she replied, “Until you have this baby!” Um, thanks. You were supposed to wrap your arms around me and say “Poor baby, let’s get you that epidural, and a burger and milkshake while we’re at it.” Just kidding, it was exactly what I needed! I felt the support all around me, having all three of them believing completely that I could do this without any drugs, and willing to do anything I needed them to do.

After several hours, and after being checked again and knowing I wasn’t close to being completely dilated yet, my doula gently told me “Laura, I know you are really afraid of laying down again because of what happened at home, but a side-lying position will really help this little girl move down. Can we try it?” So I cautiously laid down, fearing the worst, but at that point I was SO exhausted that it felt amazing to just lay down! Lying down quickly became my “favorite” part of labor, because even though my contractions got closer together and more intense, they suddenly got shorter (like normal contractions, lasting for 30-60 seconds! That was the first time they got that short!) and I was falling asleep/passing out between them. I was sooo drained and out of it, at one point when I fell asleep I started to dream that Tessah was already in my arms, I was so happy! Then out of nowhere, this horrible contraction started in again and I realized it wasn’t over. Awesome. Also somewhere in there, while having the intermittent fetal monitor on me, the nurse said that Tessah’s heart rate was getting a little high, and that she would like to give me an IV if it didn’t start to come down. I said “NOPE, I will drink tons of water and we’ll get it down!” I wanted the most natural hospital birth possible, with the very least amount of interventions, and I had refused even the hep-lock, which is just a “starter IV” in case they needed to give you fluids or drugs for some reason. The two biggest reasons they prefer to do that is in case you have to get an emergency C-section, or start to hemorrhage after giving birth and they need to give you Pitocin to force uterine contractions. I knew from my research that if they had to do an emergency C-section the meds wouldn’t have time to get through my body before they would need to get the baby out anyway, and if I started to hemorrhage they could just give me a shot of Pitocin in my leg. So in between every contractions, I just chugged as much water as I could (which felt good anyway because my throat and mouth were so incredibly dry from breathing so hard during each contraction,) and her heart rate indeed came down!

A little while later I was checked again, and my midwife, Jen, told me that I was completely dilated on one side, but not on the other, called “acylindrical dilation.” She suggested turning to my other side. She also said that my bag of waters was bulging but still intact, and to help move things along she could break them for me. All along I had said I didn’t want my water broken, since it can increase the risk of infection, and can also make labor a lot more intense and painful sooner than it needs to be. I said I wanted a moment to talk about it with Sam, so she stepped out to check on another laboring woman. Little did we know that that woman was about to start pushing, so even though we decided in just a few minutes that I would have her break my water, she didn’t come back! Sam started to get a little irritated, but I knew there was nothing we could do. Suddenly I started to feel “pushy,” and Jill told me to breathe in short little puffs like I was blowing out a candle, which was supposed to help ease that feeling until I was completely dilated. I couldn’t help but push a bit though, and after a couple of uncontrollable pushes, I felt a big GUSH and my water broke on its own! I was so relieved it broke by itself, I was so excited!

Shortly after that, Jen came back in, was happy to hear that my water had broken already, and after checking me again, she stood up and with a smile said, “You’re complete! You can start to push anytime now!” It may sound weird that after about 23 hours of labor that I wasn’t ready to push yet, but all of a sudden I got nervous and scared! It became a bustle of activity as a couple more nurses came in, getting the warming table turned on, lowered the end of the bed and attached a squatting bar while I just listened to my body and waited for the right time to start pushing.

I tried a couple different positions, but just ended up squatting because that felt most natural to me. Pushing was NOT my favorite part, as some women have said it was for them, but I did enjoy the difference in the contractions, feeling her move down and having longer breaks between them. It was definitely THEE MOST INTENSE experience ever!!

During this whole time, I could only hear Sam’s voice encouraging me and so excited to meet our little girl. After pushing through about 4 or 5 contractions, I heard him say “Babe, there’s her head!! You’re doing it! She’s almost here!” I still choke up when I think about the emotion I felt hearing him say that, and I really feel like that was my greatest motivation, getting her into his waiting hands- he was so excited! (There was ONE point though when he said “Her head is right there!” and I screamed back “I know, it HURTS!!” haha sorry babe 🙂 )

Before I knew it, my body just took over, I had nothing left to give on my own but somehow I am pushing with a strength I didn’t know I could have. As my friend Michelle wrote, I felt like I was on death’s doorstep. I literally felt like I could die, feeling the most pain I had ever experienced in my life, but I gave in to it, gripping the bar with everything in me, pressing my face against it and losing all comprehension of what was actually happening anymore. And at that moment, when I felt like the most cursed, wretched being on earth, (tears always come when I think of this moment,) I was given life. At 2:50am on January 12th, 2012, after 24 hours of labor, I reached down and, along with my husband and my midwife, caught my beautiful baby girl and drew her up to my chest. Tessah Fay Paulescu had entered our lives.

With a mixture of lingering pain, shock, and overwhelming love for this perfect, tiny, slippery little person, I held onto her so tight and the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Look at all her hair!” I was SO unbelievably happy.

And tired. 🙂

There was a lot of blood, and since at that point my midwife and nurses didn’t know it was from tearing so bad, they gave me a shot of Pitocin in my leg in case I was hemorrhaging.

We just loved having her wrap her perfect little fingers around ours, hearing her raspy little cry, and kissing her chubby cheeks! Our first moments as a new family of three!

I was SO incredibly thankful for my doula, Jill!! She just knew exactly what to do or say to me every step of the way. She was so much more than a “birth attendant,” she became a sister to me that day.

(I’m so disappointed I didn’t think to get a picture with my mom at the hospital before Sam took her home several hours later. She was so wonderful and perfectly supportive with her gentle reassuring words and touch during the whole experience. And she also took most of these pictures! Thank you, Mom!!)

Daddy holding his baby girl for the first time, instantly in love.

After almost 2 hours of snuggling with Mommy, it was finally time to get baby all checked out and weighed!

A big, healthy 8 lbs 4 oz and almost 21 inches long!

I couldn’t stop kissing her sweet face…

And marveling at how adorable she was!

Just before getting transferred over to our recovery room:

Daddy and Tessah already bonding together 🙂

Perfection.

We spent a little over a day in the hospital, and then I was ready to be back in my own bed, and use my own shower! So we packed everything up, attended the discharge class for new parents, and bundled our new little blessing into the car to take her home!

Finally safe and sound at home in Daddy’s arms. My little angel.

My incredible mom, who stayed with us for another 3 weeks after Tessah was born! Her help was invaluable.

With my midwife Jen at my 6 week postpartum appointment!

We have been so blessed with little Tessah Fay- she is just amazing!! We are so in love, and already can’t imagine our lives without her. So thankful for our healthy baby girl!

After all the sickness, heartburn, soreness, sleepless nights and labor, I can truly say it was ALL worth it!

Being a mommy is heaven on earth.