At the beginning of this year(2025), we welcomed a baby girl to our family. We are absolutely in love with her and we are just filled with so much gratitude for this little blessing.
This is our second baby and a very different experience than our first. For starters, we had our first baby at home and this time we decided to use a birth center. This was also a faster labor and delivery compared to my first which was about 14 hours from start to finish and our second took about 6 hours to make her debut.
A lot of it is now hazy but here’s what I do remember:
My contractions started just before midnight and they were irregular and they changed depending on if I got up or was laying down. When I got up they became quicker and closer together but as soon as I laid back down they became longer and farther apart.
When neither moving or resting got them to go away completely, I got up again and called the midwife around 2 AM to chat with her. I felt bad waking her up when I wasn’t sure if I was going into labor but I knew it was enough that I wasn’t crazy for thinking it might be labor and they needed to know earlier than later to make sure someone was there and everything was in place
After filling her in on what I was experiencing she told me to meet her at the birth center in an hour and we’ll check things out.
I called and mobilized my mom and dad so that I had the support for myself and someone to look after our toddler.
We arrived a little before 3 AM and since I was the only one in labor, I got to pick which room I wanted and started to settle in.
Around 3:30 AM, I got checked and was about 4-5 cm. While I still wasn’t fully convinced I was going into labor, my cervix had clocked in and was ready for work lol
She also felt my stomach and found that the baby was more on the right side instead of the left where we want the baby to be. I got set up and labored in the left side lying position for a few contractions.
The contractions escalated quickly and got very intense but it doesn’t feel real how much time had actually passed between getting checked and hitting the point where I needed to get into the tub.
The entire time, I just wanted to get into the water. I even contemplated taking another shower before calling the midwife even though I had showered right before bed.
That desire to get into the water kept intensifying with the contractions until I hit a point where I didn’t care if it slowed down my labor because I would welcome the reprieve.
They had started filling the tub when I got there because it is a big tub and takes a while and this way they were prepared for when I was ready. Which was definitely appreciated considering how quickly I was ready to get in.
We called the midwife and let her know I was ready and got into the surprisingly hot water and it instantly took the edge off and helped me relax a bit.
I moved around trying to figure out the best way to feel supported and comfortable in the tub but things intensified so quickly that I never actually found what I was looking for.
A part of my denial with being in labor included how fast I was actually progressing. I was thinking I still had several hours left and couldn’t fathom why it was feeling so much like the end of my first labor did. It didn’t seem possible that I was already at transition which just made me feel like I was doing a poor job of handling the earlier stages of labor and that there was worse to come.
I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong that had me pushing out more than just breathing the contraction down. Turns out it was because my body was ready to get that baby out and it was not going to take its time.
With one of the contractions my water ended up breaking and that was grosser than expected!
I don’t think I pushed all that much before she very suddenly descended into the birth canal and sent me into a panic.
A lot of my fear got the better of me and she went back up. I may be mistaken but it felt like my muscles were able to hold her there until I could push again but my panic had me ready to give up and I was racking my brain for a way to make it stop so my muscles let up and she went back up.
However, that made me panic more because I knew she had to come out and that was the only way and that meant I had to experience that again.
My mom was able to get my attention and get me to calm down and that was everything.
The baby then came back down, but to my surprise and relief, it was not as bad as the first time and I felt empowered to get her the rest of the way out.
She began crowning but no one heard me and they couldn’t really see so no one knew. Which was kind of funny to me because I had my hand on the top of her head for a while and talked about how she had hair and a few pushes later someone realized and the whole room was like “oh my gosh”!
Unfortunately, she stopped coming out and it took awhile before her head finally emerged all the way then she really stopped coming out.
Turns out her shoulder was stuck and things took a scary turn as that became clear and we mobilized to fix that in the very short window that shoulder dystocia allows.
They informed me with urgency that I needed to get out of the tub, they laid a blanket down while I stood up as quickly as I could. I was yanked out of the tub, put on the floor, and did a maneuver that brought one leg up kind of like a lunge. That apparently did the trick and she came flying out at 5:50 AM – about 3 hours after we arrived at the birth center.
They used the oxygen mask on her for a few breaths as a precaution considering she was stuck for a moment. After I was able to look her over and comprehend that she was okay, it was unequivocal relief.
We quickly moved to the bed because that floor was better for birthing than resting. My body then struggled to let go of the placenta so we had to do quite a bit of convincing before it finally came.
There is a 30 minute window to get the placenta out or they have to transfer you to the hospital for a retained placenta. I was told this after the fact and informed that I was at minute 28 when it finally came out…
I knew there was a window and that was why they were so urgently trying everything they could, I just didn’t realize the window was so short and that I was that close to needing a transfer.
After a little while on my chest, they did their checks and measurements of both me and the baby then let us rest for a little bit.
She was a big baby weighing in at 9 pounds 14.5 ounces, 21 inches long. This did surprise me as she came sooner than my first did and I had kept getting this feeling like she was going to be smaller than he was. Apparently this was just wishful thinking!
Our family left pretty quickly after that and we got some time to rest. I got a smoothie and a snack tray and they drew an herb bath for me to relax in once I was ready.
They give you 12 hours after you give birth to rest and reset before you go home but we were ready earlier than that so we didn’t stay the whole time.
Overall it was a good experience with the birth center and I will likely use them again in the future. There are things I did like better about my home birth with my first in comparison, but in lieu of a midwife that I like and trust and can afford, I’ll be fine going back to the birth center.