What kind of photographer/birth photographer would I be if I didn't share my own birth?!
My first birth experience was an elective induction with epidural, it went well, uneventful, no real complaints, however for my second, I wanted to try something different. After months of mental preparation and planning my second was an out of hospital water birth at a freestanding birth center, it was EMPOWERING! Shortly after my second was born the free standing birth center closed down, so when I fell pregnant with Salem I knew home birth was the only option for me. I did a lot of research the first trimester and then we fell upon hard times. Money was tight, the winter was long, and tensions were high. With that, all my planning pretty much went out the window. All I knew is that labor would most likely be FAST! My first was 8 hour, second THREE hours, so surely this baby would come in like an hour..right? WRONG! I was sooo wrong. I Was 40 weeks 3 days when labor started. It started slow, coming in waves 15-30 minutes apart, I had a play date arranged for that day, initially we were planning an out of state adventure to a park we'd never been to, but contractions had us relocate to a closer park, minutes from my house. On the way to the play date I felt one big contraction but it fizzled out and the rest were light. We went about our day, aside from knowing contractions were coming, it was pretty uneventful. After hours at the park I went home ready for full blown labor to kick off, I called the doula, photographers, and midwife and let them know how the day was going, at this point contractions were coming 8 minutes apart and fairly painful, I thought for sure this was it! It was, but only slightly, throughout the night contractions continued to get stronger and closer together, but nothing seemed to be happening. I was getting exhausted and frustrated. At about 4am I was able to fall asleep for a couple hours, my birth team lying on the floor and me feeling and insane pressure to perform. WHY WAS THIS TAKING SO LONG?!! That morning at 6am I walked out to the kitchen, tears in my eyes, exhausted from painful contractions and broken sleep, only to find my husband (Nathan) in his work clothes "Am I good to go to work then" GAHHHH NOOOO WE ARE HAVING A BABY TODAY! (to this day I still want to kick him in the you know whats for that!) so he sighed and changed back into his house clothes. (a camo cut off..just what every photographer wants in their birth photos) the day went slow, contractions coming the entire time with what felt like little to no progress. Around noon it was suggested I try taking a shower and a little nap while my birth team went to lunch..so that is what we did. In the shower contractions seemed to come to a complete stop, I was defeated. I. went and tried to rest, falling asleep only to be jolted awake every 7 minutes by contractions. It was getting hard to manage. At that time they suggested we get into the pool, I knew this meant we were getting close. I started to have an incredibly hard time coping, it hurt, and I was tired. I knew we were close but I just wanted to stop, try again tomorrow. I said PLEASE CAN WE JUST STOP AND TRY ANOTHER DAY, I KNOW ITS COMING BUT IVE CHANGED MY MIND!! Rationally I knew I was in transition, I have seen it so many times and I know what it means, but I didn't care, I was done. I finally demanded a cervical check because I knew something was just slowing progression. Baby was asynclitic (head cocked) and hand was in her face. So out of the pool I went..to do SQUATS! Now, whoever enjoys squats in labor is a nut job, cause it was AWFULLL! ..but it worked! Shortly after squats began my water broke and baby was coming down! 3 more pushes and she was out! All I noticed when she was born was so much cheese-y vernix, it was beautiful! Shortly after that we decided to take a peek at gender! SHE WAS A GIRL!
~All Video and Photo taken by Michelle Hykel edited by me!~
