The birth of Willow Mae!
Our perfect little Willow was born August 30th, mid morning surrounded by the best birth team.
Having had an induction at 38 weeks ending in a c section with my first babe I wasn’t really sure what to expect, how my body may present as it prepared for labor and birthing my second girl. For a couple weeks I had been having Braxton hicks, two days leading up to August 30th I was having more intense cramping. The night of the 29th my water broke when I stood up from laying down with my toddler for bedtime. I texted Salli because I wasn’t really sure if it was my water breaking, yet. I laid down to rest and the big gush came and I knew that my water had indeed broke. My doula advised I lay down and get as much rest as I could between the early labor contractions when they started so that I’d be as rested as possible. 12:30 am came and I woke my husband up because I was needing some help getting through contractions. I was very tired, especially since I hadn’t been sleeping well at nights just tossing and turning trying to get comfortable. I took a hot shower, walked the house, called my sister around 1:30 am to pick up my toddler. My contractions kept getting closer (also I was nervous because this was my first time with natural labor so I wasn’t sure how quickly things would approach and we had a 35 minute drive to the birth center). We got to the birth center around 3 am.
I moved all around during labor, my doula was THE best with providing pressure to my back during contractions and that made all the difference when managing through contractions. I listened to my Christian Hypnobirthing tracks, telling myself in my head over and over that my body was made to do this, everything was going just as it should go. Salli was so great at reassuring me of that as well because I think I asked a handful of times if each position was doing me any good after a few hours of pushing and trying some various positions to get her past my tailbone we had a baby in our hands and I was on the biggest high after achieving what I set out to do ten months ago. The proudest I have ever been, a new found love for my body was born that day as well. My baby and I DID THE DANG THING! A VBAC success, the most perfectly, redemptive birth!
I am so thankful for the staff at CTBC and my doula Lacriesha, I could not have seen myself this far without their support, love, and guidance throughout my pregnancy and labor.
