Jane’s Birth Story {Personal}

When you unexpectedly have your baby on your bathroom floor I suppose it’s a story worth telling!  This might be a little long winded and a few, somewhat gross, birth details – but you will at least have the FULL story.

Jane Elisabeth Speake, born April 14, 2018 at 2:08am

7lbs 8oz and 20.5 long.

Let me give a little background before I jump into Jane’s story.  Jane is my second child and Sam – my first – was born in December 2016.  I still ought to blog about his birth story because I know I love reading them when other ladies write theirs.  Granted, his was not quite as eventful as Jane’s!  Anyway, on to the background story: I went into labor naturally with Sam five days after my due date and didn’t take any meds. His labor wasn’t necessarily slow, but it wasn’t extraordinarily fast either.  I started timing very mild contractions with him around 10pm and at midnight I lost my mucus plug with bloody show.   I had contractions all night that varied in how close they were.  I never slept, instead I watched a movie, took a couple baths, and paced around the house.  We got to the hospital at 10:30am and I was in quite a bit of pain, and I was at 6-7cm.  I labored in a tub for a couple hours and at 1:30pm I got out and started pushing (the time I spent in the tub was actually the worst part of his labor for me – even though the water felt nice I had veryyy strong contractions).  Sam was born at 3pm after pushing for 90 minutes!  I always wonder when the labor duration length technically “starts” because sometimes that first contraction barely feels like anything… but I guess you would say I was in labor for 13 or so hours with him – even though it wasn’t 13 hours of “hard” labor.

When I was going into the final count down with Jane, I was hoping that labor would be faster than it was with Sam.  But also one of my fears (with both babies) is that I would arrive at the hospital in a lot of pain only to be told that I was only 2 or 3cm and then be sent home.  I did not want that to happen!

The week I gave birth I was starting to feel really uncomfortable.  I had pretty strong braxton hicks a good part of each day.  Sore back. Sore stomach. No energy. Due date of April 18th was quickly approaching.  April 13th was a pretty busy day for me. I had an appointment with a lactation consultant, returned some equipment to our cable company, and was sorting a bunch of junk for a garage sale I was supposed to have the next day with my sisters.  While pricing garage sale stuff all I really wanted to do was sit on the lawn chairs and eat protein bars and never move again. After a couple hours of pricing and sorting I was feeling tired and cranky.   Later that night my sisters and I talked about the baby coming any time. Jessica wanted to put out garage sale signs but then we joked about me going into labor that night… and then not being able to have the garage sale.  Little did we know… haha

Philip (my husband) and I crawled into bed around 10:15pm.  I felt worn out and told Phil, “I am so over being pregnant”.   About 30 minutes after going to bed I started to wonder if I was possibly feeling a contraction.  The night before I had a lot of trouble falling asleep because I was paranoid that every little twinge was me starting labor so this time it took a little bit for me to decide it was actually something to start tracking.. but eventually I did get out my contraction timer app and timed contractions for a little while.  Then around 11:30pm I texted Katie and Jessica to say that the Braxton hicks seemed to be changing because I could tell when they started and stopped, but I was still pretty skeptical that it was for sure labor and they weren’t painful yet.

I wanted to try and sleep because I was worried it would be like labor with Sam, up all night with contractions and he wasn’t born until 3pm the next day.  But I gave up on that pretty quickly and 15 minutes later I decided to get up.  I was curious to see if the contractions would slow down or stop once I moved around.  

My house didn’t get picked up very well that day (since I was busy and feeling so blah) so it needed some cleaning.  I would pick up Sam’s toys and work on the dishes, get Chester food and water, etc etc in between contractions. Around midnight they did start feeling more uncomfortable and there were a few contractions that definitely took my breath away, but I still felt like I had a ways to go and I had most of the night still ahead of me. I also should mention that from very beginning, the contractions were pretty close together.  They came every 3-4 minutes and that never really changed.

Around 1:30am I decided I would take a bath.  While in labor with Sam I took a bath in the middle of the night and when I did the contractions slowed down a bit.  I decided if the contractions didn’t slow down I would get Phil up and we would call the hospital. And yes, at this point Phil was sleeping and didn’t even know I started having contractions – ha!  I wanted him to get as much sleep as he could, especially since with Sam it took so long and it didn’t seem like there was any reason to wake him up until I knew it was the real deal or it got too painful.  While I was in the bath the contractions started getting more intense – closer and more painful. After one really bad one I quickly got out (as fast as I could) to let Phil know it was time.  

Around 1:55am Phil got out of bed was getting dressed.  He grabbed his Lion King ‘Hakuna Mattata’ T-shirt out of the closet and asked if that was a good shirt to wear for the delivery and he laughed.  I may have chuckled but I certainly wasn’t in a laughing mood right at that moment because a major contraction had just started. (He did in fact wear that shirt).  I was trying to dry off from the bath, get dressed, call the hospital, and text my sisters and friend to come watch sleeping Sam all in between contractions that were now only 30 seconds to a minute apart. At 1:59am I finally got the text sent to those three girls that it was baby time and asked if they were awake. 

I made the phone call to the hospital at 2:00am.  At this point I was getting concerned  because everything was happening so fast. The operator at the hospital answered my call and got my information but it was extremely hard to even talk. That call lasted one minute but felt like an eternity. I got off the phone because the midwife needed to call me back and Phil took the bags out to our car. While he was gone I felt a lot of pressure. I knew it was most likely the baby but I was hoping there was a small chance I just needed to go number 2…

When I got on the toilet the pressure was so intense, I could feel the baby moving down.  I let out a moan from a combination of pain and fear that this was happening so fast, and in my bathroom at home. I was also scared thinking how long it took to push Sam out and I didn’t know what would happen if the baby wasn’t coming out – would I have to be transported to the hospital with a baby trying to exit my body?!  I think it was then that my water broke.

(At this point I should mention that our bathroom is DEFINITELY not the largest one in town.  It’s narrow and crowded for two people even when simply brushing your teeth…)

Phil heard my moan of all moans while he was out at the car with the bags and ran back in side.  He could tell that was not a normal contraction moan – something was happening. When he got back inside I told him to call 911. He called 911 at 2:05am. At that exact minute of the 911 call the midwife called me back. It was very chaotic trying to talk to the midwife because I was having major contractions and Phil was on the phone with 911.  Both phones ended up on speaker on the bathroom counter. It was then that I reached down and felt that the head was crowning. This actually brought me some relief that the baby was at least coming and that I wasn’t just being a wimp during early labor or something. Next thing I knew the head was out. The midwife instructed me to get off the toilet and get on the floor.  As I was getting off the toilet all I remember going through my head was that I just couldn’t believe that this was actually happening – to us! – and that none of my family knew what was going on right now… so much for a birth video or photos! Haha.

I got down on all fours and I could hear the baby making gurgling sounds which was reassuring that baby was alive! but also made me want to get the baby out so that we could make sure the airways were clear. Phil could see her head out and told me “Shannon, you gotta push the baby out right now!”.   But as I was there on the bathroom floor I somehow felt pretty calm and knew my body needed to wait a minute to have a contraction to help me push her out. And sure enough a few seconds later the contraction I needed came and I pushed her the rest of the way out. The crazy thing is that I don’t remember any pain whatsoever in that moment. I imagine it was the adrenaline and disbelief and everything happening so fast. But it felt like the easiest thing to do to push this baby out!

Phil guided her out and caught her, making sure her head didn’t hit the tile bathroom floor!  She let out a few cries – best sound ever. Still on all fours, I looked between my legs to catch a glimpse of my baby and the first thing I saw was her little private parts – and I exclaimed – it’s a girl!  (Yes – we had kept the gender a surprise – not exactly how I pictured finding out!)  We guesstimate she was born at 2:08am on April 14th, after only 3 pushes.  Phil passed the baby to me and we wrapped her the closest towel we had by us which was a towel that Sam had used for his bath earlier (haha). I sat up and put her on my chest as I kneeled on the bathroom floor. Right then is when the firemen arrived.  I am pretty sure I looked like a wild women – hair going crazy, bodily fluids every where, only wearing a sports bra with my leggings around my ankles.  But who cares – our baby girl was there and all was okay!  

One of the firemen cut Jane’s cord, examined her to make sure she was doing okay, even gave her a tiny baby hat to wear.  Her color was good right from the get go. I delivered the placenta on our toilet. The ambulance arrived and Jane and I were put on a gurney – a very strange feeling being wheeled out of my own house.   Before leaving for the hospital the ambulance driver asked if we wanted to take a photo and I certainly did!  She got one of us three all in the ambulance. At the hospital things were very laid back (all the hard work was over!) and we were discharged just over 24 hours later.  I didn’t have any tearing and Jane was doing splendidly.  So thankful!

I have to give a shout out to my husband, Philip, for being a fantastic baby catcher and midwife!  He said that he simply went into “work mode” because he used to deliver cattle when he was a rancher!  I suppose that makes me a cow in that analogy.  It’s pretty crazy that he went from dead asleep to 10 minutes later delivering his daughter.   Also thank you to Katie for the photos she snapped at the hospital during that first hour we arrived.  So glad to have those to relive a small part of the delivery!

Moral of the story is: A) It is a good idea to let your husband know when labor starts if you’re going to be a little stubborn about heading into the hospital.  B) If you have two babies within a 16 month time period there’s a chance the second one just slips right out, even if the first took awhile! so be ready!  C) If we have a third baby down the road – we will probably be getting in the car after the first contraction – at least if Phil has his way with things.