Our family’s newest addition arrived last week: Beatrice Margaret Marie.

We are beyond smitten with her. She’s a quiet yet intense baby with a fiery cry and uncanny alertness. And a champion eater.

I am so grateful for how the Church cherishes new mothers and their babies. The day after her birth, our priest came to say the prayers on the first day after a woman has given birth to a child.

O Lord Jesus Christ our God, who wast born of our immaculate Lady Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and didst in the manger as a child and appeared as a suckling: Do Thou have mercy upon this handmaid, who hath now given birth, and preserve her by Thy strong arm; forgive her every sin both voluntary and involuntary, cleanse her from all stain, heal her every pain, and grant health and strength to her soul and body. Surround her with joyous angels of light, and guard her from all evil; preserve her from every jealous eye, and have mercy upon her according to Thy great mercy, and raise her up in loving kindness. And do Thou, O Lord, protect the child to whom she hath given birth; preserve him from all sickness and accident, from evil by day or by night, and from every snare of the adversary, and bestow upon him Thine heavenly benediction. And grant, O Lord, that this Thy handmaid and the child born of her may come to adore Thee in Thine holy temple in due season, for all glory, honor, and worship are due unto Thee: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

And today, on the eighth day, our priest will come back again to pray the naming prayers over her.

I am listening to the advice of my midwife and the recommendation of the church to rest as much as possible: I’ve barely left the bed, prioritizing healing, prayer, and rest of body, soul, and spirit.

I wrote out her birth story for those who are interested — I love reading birth stories and find them beautiful and fascinating. Feel free to skim or skip if this sort of thing makes you squirm, however. There are a few pictures as well.

After a lot of discussion, Jake and I decided we were going to have a home birth with this baby, if all remained healthy and normal with the pregnancy. Our nearest birthing center was an hour away, and my experience in the local hospital with Michael had been more traumatic than I had realized at the time. This time, I desperately wanted bodily autonomy, providers who would ask or explain before touching me or intervening, listen to me when I talked about my body/pain, and an environment where I felt safe.

We found an amazing midwife in Sacramento who listened to my concerns, shared my beliefs on the balance between holistic and modern medicines, and was very knowledgable and experienced. I also found a doula who was kind and amazing and would provide the support we needed during labor.

As March arrived, I had settled into thinking that I would definitely reach my due date of March 13th, or maybe even go past it. The ladies at my church threw an incredible baby shower for me on Sunday the 3rd. I wasn’t able to have a baby shower for Michael with my church because he was induced early and we had a major COVID surge right after his birth, and I was so touched they were determined to make sure our baby girl had one. I waved away comments of “any day now” with a laugh, mentioning how stagnant I felt and how I’d had no symptoms of labor approaching. I thought baby girl was in it for the long haul.

One of the women who put the shower together had joked that Sunday night I was allowed to go into labor, but not before! We needed to have this baby shower!

And Sunday night, I began to feel light, irregular cramps.

Monday (38 weeks and 5 days) the cramps continued throughout the day, though as evening came on they became a bit more regular. I passed more mucus, and some bloody show. My midwife said that could mean things were getting started or would start within the next 24 hours. I also knew that they could be false alarms and I could be pregnant for days still. I went to bed early, just in case things might actually be serious.

Turns out that was a good thing. Tuesday morning, the cramps were still coming, now at more regular intervals. Jake went out to work for a little in the morning while Michael and I ate breakfast and cuddled on the couch. My mom went to work, and my dad took Michael for the day so I could rest. I was starting to believe I might be in the early stages of labor, but I could still move and talk through the cramps without problem, so I figured maybe things would ramp up over the next few days. Jake came in from his office to work from his laptop and help me time contractions, and I laid down next to him and rested. I took a shower and got into comfy clothes. We were texting with our doula and midwife all this time. Contractions were coming regularly now, every 5-7 minutes and lasting for about a minute. I could still move and talk through them without issue, so no one was really concerned about how close together they were. I told my cousin not to take the day off work, because I was sure it wasn’t going to happen today (sorry Kelsey…we’ll know better next time).

We walked down to my parents’ house to check on Michael and my dad around 1 pm. My mom had just come home from work early after Jake updated her on my stats: she said she had a gut feeling she’d need to be here, at least to rest to help with labor whenever it came. I’m glad she listened to her gut. We talked and walked around outside with Michael by the chicken coop. I had a few more contractions where I just leaned on Jake and paused a moment before continuing on, then we went back home and laid down.

We watched Fr Brown murder mysteries on a laptop in bed, pausing it every time I had a contraction. The doula called to check in and suggested I move positions, so I tried a contraction in an inversion position. We then called the midwife to let her know how consistent things were at that time (5 min apart, 1 minute long, for about 2 hours now). The contractions had definitely gotten stronger, but I was still standing and breathing through them and had energy. They started to come more frequently after the inversion. Our midwife suggested I take a shower to relax and cope and she’d head over to check things out soon. I was still in denial. My only experience with labor was Pitocin contractions, but these ebbed and flowed — the peak intensity lasted only a few seconds. I figured I had a lot more intensity ahead of me before I should call people to come over.

As soon as I got in the shower, the contractions became more intense and closer together (2-3 minutes). It took more focus now to breathe through them instead of brace against them. So at 3:30 pm, I finally told Jake to assemble our birthing avengers — we had talked about the possibility I could be “in denial” when labor came…I hadn’t fully accepted this was actually “real” labor until now.

Our doula arrived quickly by 3:40 since she lives close by, and watched me through a few of these more intense contractions. I laid on the bed for a little, covering my eyes, praying, and listening to some of my birthing playlist. She was amazing, helping me remember to release tension and breathe slowly as the contractions ramped up. The intensity began to build, and it took all my focus to let them ebb and flow.

They began trying to inflate the birth tub, but by then I think everyone knew there was no way we were getting it set up and filled before things escalated. I hadn’t been fixed on the concept of a birth tub anyway. What was most important to me was autonomy: being able to move and cope and push listening to my body.

Our midwife was still 50 minutes away, given it was 4 pm and the wrong direction for rush hour.

I switched to my hands and knees on our bed, leaning against Jake’s shoulder, and began to vocalize through the contractions. I call this my “mooing stage”. Intentionally making deep, opened mouth noises helped me focus my energy and keep my face relaxed. This is where I really went into “labor land” and was entirely focused on laboring, missing almost everything that was going on around me.

Our doula realized I was closer to transition than most of had thought, and did amazingly making sure we had all the supplies ready for the midwives, and prepping mom and Jake in case the midwives didn’t make it in time. Somehow, they got pads and towels around and under me (since we hadn’t even prepped the bed for birth yet). The assistant midwife arrived at 4:50 pm, and our midwife arrived about ten minutes later.

At this point, the mooing stage was now “roaring stage”, or as my mother put it, a Celtic war cry. And I was definitely in transition. Many unmedicated birth preparations talk about transition as the moment where the mother has moments of doubt. I had started to think maybe I couldn’t do this because it was so intense. Then I remembered what people said about transition and in my mind, I was like, “you got to go a bit farther before you feel like you can give up — wait til transition and then you can say you can’t do this”. I was still in denial that I was as far progressed as I was.

I could feel her head descending in my pelvis. My midwife helped me shift one leg up into runner’s start position to give her more room to navigate the pelvis. I didn’t want to push, afraid of tearing like last time — I instead focused on having the roars channel my contractions downwards. I briefly felt the “ring of fire” as she crowned, but pressure from her head overrode the sensation and it eased as my midwife applied counter pressure. I felt her head emerge and reached down and touched it. Her shoulders and body came with the next few roars, and, at 5:14 pm, Beatrice Margaret Marie was born. She made, as Jake said, a squawk of indignation directly after she arrived, but otherwise no crying at all. I will never forget looking down and seeing her wide awake face staring back at me as they immediately passed her between my legs and into my arms.

I spent a blissful golden hour with her in my arms — I passed the placenta without an issue about fifteen minutes later. They gave me a shot of Pitocin as my bleeding was a bit heavy, but I had no tearing at all. We didn’t get her stats until more than an hour after birth, because she was laying on my chest while I rested and my amazing birth team took care of me. She was 6 lbs 13 oz, and 21.5 inches long, with a 13 inch head. And, an overachiever: she passed meconium three times with the first two hours, and peed once. She also latched as soon as possible and spent much of the first night cluster feeding. And when weighed for the second time after birth, instead of losing weight, she’d gained a quarter pound.

This birth experience was everything I needed, and more. I hadn’t fully realized how difficult and frankly traumatic Michael’s birth experience had been for me. Between the epidural brushing a nerve on insertion and wearing off during transition (I now say confidently, having had an unmedicated birth), not having a choice about pushing on my back, the perinatal/postpartum depression, and a handful of other factors I recounted in his birth story, it was a rough experience. In comparison, the nurturing care of both my doula and my midwife and her assistant was incredible. The gentleness and respect in how they treated me was enormous: asking or explaining before every time they touched me, no cervical checks, belly binding, herbs to help my healing, showing me how to properly rest and move my postpartum body.

This birth restored my confidence in my voice, my body, and my strength and capability. And to top it off, it was cheaper than the hospital birth. I am beyond grateful for the experience. The entire thing felt holy, and we’re all still resting in the golden glow of it days later.

To God be the glory.