I will start with Tuesday: I started to lose what I recognized as the first signs of mucous plug. That evening my Braxton-Hicks contractions started to feel crampy. I was able to fall asleep, but they woke me up at 2:30AM and kept me up the rest of the night. It was good practice to relax everything else and breathe through them. We headed to Idaho Falls the next morning to see Tabitha and also go to Dr. Orchard again to make sure my pelvis was aligned just right. Sure enough, he adjusted things and said baby would probably drop even more. When Tabitha checked on baby, she could tell he had dropped more and moved out of the posterior position. This was all good to hear after the breech fiasco from the week before. When I went to do my pee sample, I saw that I was losing more mucous plug. Tabitha guessed we'd probably be having a baby over the weekend at some point. I continued to have crampy contractions throughout the day. I had a lot of crampy contractions through the night again - stronger than the previous night - that would come every 30 minutes or so. Again, good practice for me as I relaxed through them and snoozed the best that I could in between.
As I started my day Thursday, the contractions slowed down. I continued to lose a lot of mucous plug throughout the day. I sensed that I would probably go into labor that night and have a baby in the morning. We had sex to get all those good prostaglandins to ripen my cervix up 😁 As we headed to dinner time, my contractions were strong enough that I had to stop what I was doing and breathe through them. Then out of nowhere, they started coming consistently 10 minutes apart, with one sprinkled in at 5 minutes apart. I texted Tabitha to give the heads up that tonight could be the night.
At 9:30 when I laid down to go to bed, I started tracking my contractions with a timer. I could tell they were the real deal because of how the contractions moved down to my pelvis and then to my legs. Pretty soon I started to have a pattern of every 8 minutes, then every 6 minutes, 8, 6, 7, then 5, then 4, back to 7...they were pretty all over the place, but slowly moving closer together. I called Tabitha around 11:30 to update her and tell the birth team to come on over.
When they arrived, my uterus got extremely shy. My contractions slowed from every 5-6 minutes down to 11, 12, 13 minutes apart.😳 I definitely prefer laboring alone, but it was really interesting to see my body have a very distinct opinion about new people arriving. While they set things up my contractions didn't get any closer than 8 minutes apart. My legs continued to fatigue from the contractions so I asked them to fill the birth pool so I could get some relief. I got in the pool at 2:45 and labored there the majority of the time. Things returned to a more normal - every 5 minutes or so - contraction pattern. I labored in there alone with Justin, and the strangest thing - anytime Tabitha, Robin, or Sierra would come in to check on me, I would have a total lull in my labor pattern. They would totally stop! As soon as they left, contractions would start up again. I know this about myself that I prefer to labor alone (even having Justin there was throwing me off a bit), but it was so interesting how my body responded to observers.
I had Justin bring me a snack at 4:20 and I told him to go take a nap because I was doing fine on my own. In fact, contractions had pretty much stopped all together, so I took a nap too! Tabitha came and offered to check me around 5:30. I wasn't sure about letting her check because I didn't want news of a small number to discourage me or Justin, so I said she could check but let's not tell Justin the number so he doesn't worry in case it's only 3 or 4cm. Turns out Justin was awake and heard our entire conversation. 😂 I was 7 cm and she figured I would probably be ready to push soon. Her checking me spurred contractions on once more, and I basically went right into transition. From 6:00 - 7:20 I labored to completion. The weird thing was: I was having hard contractions, but they were still really far apart. Then when they hit, they would kind of start, stop, start up again, and then really surge like a weird roller coaster. For the first time when giving birth, I was also weirdly emotional during this phase. I was just feeling so grateful for my birth team, my husband, my kids, for this baby, and I felt so supported and loved as I brought baby Earth-side. As I thought about all of that, I was so full of gratitude to the point the tears were flowing freely. The amount of love I could feel in that space was truly sacred.
I was feeling ready to push, so Tabitha said go right ahead. On my first attempt my water broke partially: I didn't feel anything pop but I felt warm liquid suddenly add to the water. 😂 Justin noted that the kids woke up at 7:25 and my water broke at 7:30. Thinking I would push this baby out in the next 30 minutes or so, we just let the other assistants keep the kids happy while I continued to labor. I changed position to hand and knees during my pushing to see if that would help any. Because the contractions were coming so far apart, it fatigued my legs to be in that position so I moved back to laying on my back. Mom showed up around this time to take the older kids away - I learned later that Dad saw a bunch of cars parked at our house when he was checking his pivot and guessed we were having the baby so she came by to get them.
After being at it for an hour I finally looked at Tabitha like, "What the heck is going on?" She had been suspicious of this all along, but decided to finally break the news that baby's head was likely acynclitic (head tilted toward the shoulder rather than tucked down) with a hand near the face based on my strange labor pattern (so much time in between contractions, little to no progress with pushing). She later told me that she could tell baby was in a wonky position when she first checked me upon her arrival, but wanted to see if baby would turn to a more favorable position for delivery as labor progressed. As much as she and I preferred to let baby labor down on his/her own during this phase, that just wasn't going to happen with a malpositioned head. And in fact, with the acynclitic head it would likely take more work than normal to get baby here. So at 8:30 we left the tub to see if a different position would be more efficient.
At this point I was feeling pretty discouraged. Being fully dilated since 7:30-ish and being an hour later with no baby was not what I expected to happen whatsoever. Had baby been in proper position, I would have had him/her by now! So now I knew what was coming - which would be a lot of pushing followed by my legs likely cramping up - and I was feeling distraught. They got me to the bed and Tabitha could sense my emotions because right before I laid down to get ready to push she took my face in her hands and very gently said, "Kelsey, you've SO got this," to which I was crying and nodded my head, "okay." Justin was able to snag a picture of this moment and it makes me tear up when I look at it. I was feeling discouraged and if I'm being honest - I was afraid too. Afraid of my legs cramping, afraid of fatiguing to the point where I would need to transfer, afraid that I couldn't gauge where I was at and how long I would need to push to get this baby here. But her belief in me calmed me down and we got to work.
Right away I could tell this pushing was getting things done. I felt efficient and I could feel the baby moving down. During each contraction I was able to get 2-3 good pushes in, and then I would have an abnormally long rest between. We're talking at least 5 minutes. I was both grateful and annoyed at this. Grateful because my legs really needed the break: sure enough after being fatigued from 12 hours of contractions they were tired and they were cramping HARD. After each push I would lay back and cry as my legs cramped and the midwives rubbed them down. I was also annoyed because that meant it was taking that much longer to get baby here. One good thing about the long break was it made me REALLY determined not to waste a contraction, so I was sure to push as hard as I was able. Tabitha could see that there was more water sac that hadn't broken previously, so on a contraction she used her tool to break the last of the waters.
Close to 9:00 I had the biggest push of my life and let out an Amazonian warrior cry (that's the best I can explain it!). Justin wrote on his notes: "Kelsey screamed really loud." 😂 What can I say? Birth is wild and takes you to the edge. Tabitha asked if I felt like I needed to pee and offered to have everyone help me get to the toilet. I stood up, took one step, and my eyes went wide because I could feel baby's head coming down and out. I squatted, Justin caught me, and I pushed and felt his head begin to crown. On the next push they told me to slow down to give time for my tissues to stretch and prevent any tearing, which I miraculously was able to do. The next push I got his head out. And so on June 11th, 2021 at 9:10AM with one last contraction and after nearly two hours of pushing, I pushed this baby Earth-side into Tabitha's hands as I collapsed to the floor into Justin's lap.
Turns out, Tabitha's pee suggestion was a ruse: what really happened was when I screamed out on my push, she could see I had pushed his head past my pubic bone (probably hence the scream lol) and she guessed that if I stood up I would probably squat down and birth him. She was spot on!
The cord was short, so they were only able to get baby up to my belly. Baby needed a little help pinking up, so Tabitha gave him a few breaths as he came around. I was trying to be patient because that cord was between his legs, but I thought I spotted testicles. She continued to give him breaths and Justin asked if I could tell if it was a boy or a girl. I said, "I'm not sure but I think I saw balls!" Sure enough, once baby's oxygen was good I moved the cord and we had Rose Boy #3! I felt a gush of warm liquid and said, "I'm pretty sure I just peed myself," to which Tabitha replied that it was probably blood. Oh yeah, duh. I birthed the placenta out pretty much right after that, no messing around. It came without any issues.
Eventually they got me and baby moved off the floor and tucked into bed. Justin said after that delivery, "So I guess we're naming him Beckham?" We knew if baby was a girl we'd be naming her Harper, but we were undecided on a boy name. We figured we'd wait to see if it was a girl so we wouldn't need to worry about agreeing on a boy name. Essentially he was saying, "That delivery was insane - we can name him whatever you want," since I've been privy to Beckham. We bounced between a couple of names for the next 24 hours and finally landed on Beckham Beal Rose - Beal as a middle name because he was born on my dad's birthday.
Justin brought me a breakfast sandwich (and then another 😂) while I nursed baby for the first time and the midwives cleaned everything up/did all the newborn things. Beckham weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz measuring 19 and 1/4": my tiniest baby and my hardest delivery by far! Mom had come by earlier that morning to get Emmett and Logan, and at around 10:30 Mom brought the kids to meet their baby brother. At the door I could hear the midwives say, "Come meet your baby brother!" and Emmett and Logan were like, "No, it's a girl." ha! They - along with me - had been thinking it was a girl this whole time. Justin made breakfast sandwiches for my birth team to eat on their way home and now I'm the mom of THREE boys!
So there you have it! Beckham is nursing like a champion and I am getting plenty of rest. As difficult as his pregnancy, labor, and delivery was, he is an absolute dream of a newborn. Justin was an amazing Daddy Doula and is an incredible support as I do nothing but recover and nurse baby. Welcome to the world sweet boy! We're so happy you're here💓
