Lucy's Birth Story

It all started strikingly similar to Edith's birth—I woke up after midnight to go to the bathroom, kept an eye on the clock when I had more contractions than usual, and downloaded a contraction timer app when I realized the contractions weren't going away. I figured either things would stop within an hour or two, or else we'd have a baby by morning.

Well. Wrong.



After timing the contractions in bed for a while, I headed downstairs with my birthing ball so I could time things & watch Victoria on Amazon Prime. Might as well let Andrew get some sleep!

Side note: I watched the episode where she gave birth to their first child and am rather annoyed that they didn't make her as hugely pregnant as she would've been. She was SHORT you guys!

After a couple hours of this with contractions being irregular (3-10 minutes apart) and not really getting stronger, I got annoyed and decided to try to sleep again. I went back upstairs, gave up on the timer, and tried to sleep between the contractions that continued.

Andrew, realizing what was going on, told the kids I was in labor to try to keep them out of the way when they all woke up. It mostly worked? Nobody got upset when I went from calmly talking to them to yelling, "OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT GO AWAY" when a contraction hit (sorry kids, Mom was working hard!). But things were still super-irregular... I texted a few friends complaining and asking for prayers, let my midwife know what was going on, and hoped things would just stop completely so I could get on with the day. Eventually I decided just to go downstairs and get bread dough started, since no matter what I needed to get bread baked that day, and if a baby messed up those plans? Go for it!

I got the dough mixed amidst increasing contractions, sat down, and then... Everything stopped. 30 minutes of nothing. 15 more of nothing. 20. Clearly things had stalled.

Andrew was going to be going to Costco to stock up on *everything* that evening before a big snowstorm was supposed to hit, so I figured since he was already staying home that day, I might as well just have him go now with all the kids so I could nap and maybe have the baby some time in the evening. He packed the kids into the car around 11 and I lay down to nap, glad that *something* was getting accomplished, since these contractions seemed to be fruitless and this labor was already longer than my last.

10 minutes later, things started up irregularly *again*. I realized the dough needed to be folded and shaped, so I headed downstairs and once again, being in the kitchen seemed to speed things up but contractions still didn't feel much stronger. So I focused on what was important: getting my bread ready!

Around 12:45 I realized things were getting stronger with lots of low pressure. Now, when I was having contractions like that with Edith, it was still *hours* before she came, so I figured I had time. I texted the midwife to let her know, but didn't ask her to come yet because I knew if Andrew and the kids got back and the kids saw her car, they'd be convinced the baby was here. Also: the baby was still moving around a ton between contractions, and with EVERY SINGLE OTHER LABOR the baby has calmed down completely before delivery.

Note: not every labor and delivery is the same.

I texted Andrew to let him know that it would be good to come home soon, so he checked out and started heading home.

(Turns out he was almost out of gas, good thing he decided to skip it and just come straight back!)

Meanwhile, I asked my mom to be ready to help bring in groceries and then take the kids straight to her house. They got back and at least two of the kids immediately thundered up the stairs to check on me. Peter asked if the baby had been born while they were at Costco! I was feeling pretty nauseated and contractions were stronger than ever, so I dreaded dealing with this for hours longer... Texted the midwife to let her know Andrew was back, and she started making her way to us. At this point contractions were 2-4 minutes apart and I quit timing them because I was so tired of touching the phone!

Andrew was in and out of the room, I guess putting away groceries? He helped me to the bathroom during a loooooong contraction that I complained wouldn't end (hello, transition). I had planned to change into a cute nightgown to labor in but at this point I realized *that* wasn't going to happen.

Then we headed back to the bedroom and I realized that things weren't going to stop any time soon! I told him to throw some of the chux pads down on the floor just in case (the only thing that felt good was kneeling on the floor with my arms on the bed), got down on the floor, and then... My water broke. He texted "Hurry" to the midwife and then I heard, "Uhhh... There's the head."

Well. The unassisted home birth I had joked with friends about was apparently happening!

So, next contraction out came the baby! Delivered by her dad! He coached me through the pushing to get her all the way out, she started crying (oh hey, another girl!), and then we sat awkwardly for a few minutes with this baby still tethered to me... I managed to turn over to sit on the pads on the floor and hold her while we waited about 10-15 minutes for the placenta, both of us still kind of incredulous that this had just happened, only 20 minutes after he got back from Costco.

Finally I pushed the placenta out, we stuck it in a bowl, Andrew wrapped us both in towels, and we waited a few more minutes for the midwife. After that everything was pretty normal! And honestly, it felt nice to know that I hadn't made anyone wait around for hours for this baby to be born. But... Probably not the thing to strive for next time!

I had told someone else the day before that I just want as few people as possible to be around while I'm in labor. Looks like I got what I wanted!!

Andrew brought the kids in one by one to meet the baby after things had been cleaned up a little, and only *one* of them burst into tears when told that we had another girl. But that child is over it now ;) We settled on a name way more quickly than ever before, which makes me feel really justified in refusing to discuss names before the baby had arrived—Lucy had been on our list for ages but we hadn't used it because it felt too popular... This time we decided we didn't care anymore! And Adelaide had also been on our short list (princess, patron of parents of large families) and the flow was perfect so we had a Lucy Adelaide!

She's our smallest singleton to date, weighing in at 7lbs10oz, 20.5 inches, with only a 13.5 inch head! I'm still thrown off that she arrived the day after her due date, since the other girls were much later... But I don't mind!

3 days new!

Oh, and I remembered to have Andrew put the bread in the oven that evening, so I've got plenty of sourdough to last me until I'm up for baking again ;)

You can read the rest of our birth stories here.