Lewis Scott - A birth story
As many of you know, my birth story with Everett was one every woman hoped to never claim as their own.
40 hours of labor.
6 1/2 hours of pushing.
Many stitches and a terribly long recovery.
Needless to say, I fought against anxiety as the due date with Lew grew close.
The very first night I felt a contraction sent me into a night of struggling to catch my breath and waking Zach up to pray with me.
We had made some different choices this time.
We felt that a home birth would be a better fit for me based off of some of the things that helped in my first birth.
I had given lots of time to praying and preparing for this birth —knowing that the Lord would care for me through it all, no matter what was in store.
I had seen his hand take me through something unbearably hard and watched him use it for good and growth.
This story would also tell of His goodness.
I knew my mental state had not been good through my first labor and delivery - how does one prepare themselves for something they’ve never experienced and can’t comprehend?
I wanted to go into this one with a stronger presence of mind and prayed that God would help me in this way.
I expected to go late once more —Ev was a week past my due date.
This time around, my due date was slightly sketchy due to a miscarriage right before this baby.
I’m on record to have gone 2-3 days early! Something that caught us by surprise!
It was a Monday and I woke up feeling like all signs of progress had stopped. It felt like this baby just wasn’t coming.
I resigned to living life and distracting myself.
The boys and I had a lovely time of reading on the porch.
Later we walked to our local peony garden with my sister.
At this time I started feeling contractions that felt a little different but we’re very inconsistent.
Still, I started to sense something and shared with Zach later that I thought we might be getting close.
That night I sat doing a puzzle with one of our boys and felt like the contractions were actually consistent and definitely different.
This was at about 6:00 that night.
Zach arrived home and I clued him in that things could be starting but not to get too excited.
Half way through dinner I climbed up the stairs to my bed and realized something was definitely starting.
I texted my midwife to give the heads up and started timing the contractions.
They were around 4 minutes apart.
With Everett’s labor my contractions never really came closer than 4-5 minutes apart, so this surprised me.
At this time the contractions were what I would call uncomfortable.
We decided to pack up the boys and have the family pick them up before bedtime so they wouldn’t need to be disturbed in the middle of the night.
By 8:30 they had left and I was struggling to stay “normal” through contractions.
I had a phone call with my midwife and she determined that by the way I sounded in the phone call through a contraction, now would be a good time to come.
This surprised both Zach and I as we thought surely we would have lots of time to spend before the midwife needed to be called.
Our sweet midwives showed up just after nine and got busy setting up the birthing tub.
We went to our room and prepared things before settling down to watch a show.
At some point they checked me and I was at a five. This was a little discouraging as I had hoped to be further, considering almost a week ago I was at a three.
Our midwives set up camp on the couch downstairs and checked on baby’s heart rate every hour.
One thing I was determined to force myself to do more this time around was to get as much rest as possible.
I didn’t believe it was possible through Ev’s labor and it was costly.
We laid down a few times throughout the night and I was able to get minutes of sleep here and there, though the contractions always seem harder when laying down.
Zach and I played a game somewhere around midnight. Contractions were spacing out a bit more but still feeling intense and I was having Zach give counter pressure as much of it was in my back.
I spent an hour or so in the tub during the night. Some time later I took a shower to help bring a bit of relief.
Zach was always there to offer a word of encouragement, a hand to hold. I couldn’t have done this without his steady presence.
We did another rest session and I knew the contractions had slowed down and I had gotten a few quick little naps in because of it.
Around 4:30 I had the midwife check me once more. I was between 6-7.
This was really hard to hear, having just labored through a full night with little sleep.
I told Zach that I needed to shift my mindset and let go of my hope for a morning baby.
I knew I needed to get moving if I wanted to progress quicker.
I started a routine of pacing, squatting and being on my hands and knees and the contractions started picking up.
One of the midwives suggested having Zach lift my belly during a contraction and push down a bit to help align the baby and keep things progressing.
This was almost unbearable but definitely was kicking things up a notch.
After awhile I shared that the back labor was getting really hard and the midwife suggested some time on hands and knees up on the bed.
Zach read psalms to me while I cried and worked through contractions. I was so tired at this point.
But I felt mentally refreshed and could literally feel physical progress as well.
I got up and paced and realized my contractions had bumped up.
I paced and worked through them, and my mom stopped by with breakfast and visited with us for a bit. It was a welcome distraction!
At this point it was around eight in the morning.
We opened the window and the breeze through our bedroom felt wonderful.
I stood by the window in the sunshine with the fresh air on my face and worked through the contractions, holding onto the side of our bassinet as I did, with the visual reminder in front of me that our baby was coming.
I shared that I felt the urge to push and the midwife said I should listen to my body.
She started to prepare for this baby to be born and watching her set things up gave me some much needed encouragement.
With Everett’s six plus hours of pushing, the urge to push didn’t exactly make me feel like I was anywhere close, until I saw her prepping everything.
She asked what position I wanted to be in and I said I needed to stand.
I pushed through a couple of contractions and she checked me to be sure of where I was at.
I was complete and she went ahead and broke my water.
I pushed for about one hour almost on the dot and both midwives agreed that it would have been only a few contractions, except that little Lew was completely posterior —thus the lovely back labor I was experiencing!
Holding your baby in your arms is quite positively the very best feeling in the world, both because of the immense relief of having finished, as well as the reality of such a long journey of anticipation for this very moment.
I lost quite a lot of blood afterwards and was so grateful for my midwives quick action with shots of Pitocin and an IV.
They were truly incredible and had the home back in order in no time after Lew and I were in a good place.
We loved our home birth experience and would gladly go that route again in the future if the situation allows!
Birth is by far the hardest journey I’ve gone through. It is a literal coming to the very end of every ounce of strength you never thought you had within you.
The Lord answered my prayer in giving me a more present mind and there were several opportunities of choosing to engage and push through instead of letting myself spiral out of control.
A playlist of worship music.
A husband with reminders of truth.
Some time in the Psalms.
And being in a room surrounded by the baby things I had been carefully preparing were all things that helped me keep pushing through.
We’re so grateful for the midwives at Birthwise for all of their support and help during this pregnancy and delivery!
