reliving my golden era.

I’d like to introduce you all to miss Leona Blake! She made quite the entrance.

Our planned natural hospital birth quickly turned into an unplanned, unassisted home birth.

I woke up around 730am yesterday morning after a night of on and off back pain. I had a couple mild contractions while I drank my coffee, and was super excited that I was finally having some labor signs! They weren’t strong at all, or consistent, so I went about my day as normal. We went to the mall around noon to walk around to see if things would pick up. The contractions got *slightly* stronger, but still nothing I was concerned about. We went home to watch the Patriots game, and the contractions were still super irregular. I was in contact with my doula all day to let her know what was going on, but I still didn’t think anything was really going on. Around 4pm, we went for another walk around the neighborhood, because the contractions were coming more frequently, but still not regular. I started cooking dinner around 5pm, and things REALLY picked up. I started having to sway through the contractions and they were coming about 6-8 min apart. Around 6pm, I told my parents to come by the house to watch our older kids so we could leave when we were ready. This is where my time gets fuzzy.

I started packing up our final hospital items and getting my kids ready for bed/school. Around 630-645ish, I had to start vocalizing through the contractions. My dad still hasn’t arrived, and I was freaking out. I called him and he said he was still about 20min away… which I was so confused by because it’s only a 30-40min drive! My doula was also on her way at this point. My mom called me at 7pm, and I had to put her on mute to get through a contraction. Our phone call started and ended with a really strong contraction, and we were only on the phone maybe 5 minutes. At this point, my contractions were consistently coming 2-3min apart. My next couple contractions were STRONG. And I knew we needed to leave, or we weren’t gonna make it… but my dad still hadn’t arrived. On my next contraction, I told my husband I felt like I needed to push. He made the executive decision to call 911. I texted my doula to tell her, and the last thing I remember before things got REALLY intense was receiving a text message from her, reminding me to keep my breathing in check, and breathe like I was blowing out birthday candles.

At this point, I knew she was coming in the house. It was just way too intense, and I was unwillingly bearing down with every contraction. I went into the bathroom (our half bath, which is literally the smallest room in the house), because all I could think of was all the stories about people giving birth on their toilet 😂 I put my hands in my vagina, and felt her head right at my cervix. The toilet was NOT comfortable, so I ended up on all fours. I know my kids came to the bathroom to see if I was okay and to try and help (with their hands over their ears because I was quite loud lol), but I can’t remember where in the timeline that falls. A single police officer showed up, and her head was halfway out. He told me not to push until the paramedics showed up… I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” Next thing I knew, this tiny area of my house was FULL of people. Like, 8-10 first responders in this teeny tiny area. Her shoulders came out on the next contraction, and the placenta came out a few minutes after that. We were transported to the hospital, and are both doing well!