Due Date
August 29th came and went, with no hint of Baby Juliette making her grand entrance. I was so sure she would come early, or at the very least on her due date. I'd said it for nearly 9 months, "There's no way this baby is waiting for her due date." I was counting on her to behave as her five siblings had-- Nathaniel, Gabriella, and Lillianna all came the day before their due date. Adaleine was four days early and Penelope was ten days early. My assumption made sense! Birth, however, is like the oil field. Unpredictable. It runs on its own schedule and with little consideration for anyone else. (But so amazingly beautiful!)
The 30th--not one contraction.
August 31st, we went about like normal. I thought, "surely today will be the day." And then we heard about the Odessa shooting and the day was no longer normal. We ordered pizza and enjoyed each others company over a movie. And then, right before bed, I could tell my water was leaking and began having contractions here and there. We prepared the bed for birth and told the kids their baby sister would be here in the morning. Justin and I decided on Faith for her middle name before we told each other good night.
We all slept in the next morning, till about 9:00. Still no Juliette. I expected a middle of the night call to the midwife and the kids waking up to a baby sister to hold. I did call her at 4 AM to say my water had broke but the contractions were very inconsistent. Anyway, we were all disappointed that she wasn't here yet. In fact, Nathaniel's first words to me that morning were, "I thought you said we'd have a baby this morning?!" All morning long, my contractions were sporadic and totally not conducive to giving birth. At 11:45, my midwife, Shanna, came to listen to Juliette's heart rate and to see if I was dilated. She confirmed that my water was indeed leaking, but I was only dilated to a 3. Still a long way to go, especially with the lack of contractions I was having. Shanna mixed up a little drink to hopefully get things going so I wouldn't have another uneventful day, followed by a restless night. A little castor oil, lemon verbena oil, peanut butter and orange juice. It sounds worse than it tasted.
I gulped it down with instructions to take another dose in four hours if my contractions didn't start becoming regular.
Well, they didn't. From that point on, I kept having the same 21 second, 14 second, 47 second, 10 second contractions, some being as much as 30 minutes apart. Finally, I decided I'm going to go take a shower, fix my hair and look halfway decent when Shanna came back to deliver Juliette. I told Justin, who was preparing the birthing pool, my plans. It was 2:00 at that point. As soon as I got in, a really long, intense contraction hit me, followed by two or three more. I washed my hair and got out to sit down. Three more contractions hit me and then Justin came to tell me he set the pool up in our room and as soon as I was ready to check it out, to let him know if I liked it and if I didn't he could change it. I told him, "I'm sure it's fine. I think you need to call Shanna. I had some contractions about a minute long and probably less than five minutes apart. I feel like I need to push but I know it's not time yet." He repeated my message word for word to Shanna and she immediately left her house to come to ours. It's 2:24.
Justin left the bathroom to finish setting up, and I stood to try to get some clothes on. That plan I had about looking halfway decent-- it didn't happen. Another contraction hit me. I laid a towel on the floor and got down on my hands and knees to work through the pain. The exact details get a little fuzzy at this point, but I know Justin came back to connect the hose for the pool, I told him I didn't think there was time, and I felt like pushing. Neither of us ever thought what happened next would be happening!
At 2:29, he called Shanna back. "She says she needs to push." Shanna replied, "Ok, I'm right around the corner." Meanwhile, I'm still on the bathroom floor, yelling to him, "Justin! Get behind me. You have to catch her!" Justin maneuvered his way around me, the bathtub, and bathroom door, somehow without falling on top of me. "I see a head." he said to Shanna, who is now on speaker. She talked him through the next steps...
2:32 PM -- After two or three big pushes, our Juliette Faith was born. Peaceful and quiet, she slowly peered at us, and let out the sweetest little whimper. Shanna told Justin to lay her on my chest, make sure the front door was unlocked so she could come right in, and to wrap Juliette up in a towel. Eyes wide with shock, I held my baby girl for the first time right there on our newly tiled bathroom floor. No photographer capturing the precious images I'd envisioned for nine months. No soothing, warm water birth, surrounded by my girls who were so excited to watch their sister be born. Just an instinctual position, with my husband there to support me and catch our baby, and most definitely God.
It's funny, early on in my pregnancy, I talked to Shanna about how crazy it would be to have to deliver alone without a doctor or midwife to help. (I had recently seen a video online of a woman giving birth in the car while her husband drove her to the hospital.) She told me "you know, when things go like that and it's that fast and perfect, you know everything is okay. It's just perfect." And that's exactly what it was. Perfect. Totally unbelievable in the moment, but so incredible and empowering. It wasn't how I planned, but we wouldn't change a thing.
A couple funny things:
1. The birth pool--
I bought it from a local woman who had given birth last December. She'd planned a water birth, but due to precipitous labor, never got to use it. Birth pool-2. Water birth-0. I'm reselling it now with the warning: "you probably won't get to use it".
2. The midwife's concoction--
She says it works but she has NEVER seen it work THAT fast.
All of my babies have been fast, but I think Juliette's birth was a record. We definitely never imagined Justin would have to deliver her. I guess she figured since she was "late", she needed to hurry.
3. Hand pumping a birth pool that would never be filled with water-- poor Justin...he and Lillie worked hard airing up that pool. And then he rearranged our whole room to make it fit by the bed. He'd planned a play list with my favorite music and was going to light some candles to make my water birth as calm and relaxing as possible. It was pretty humorous to lay in bed for the afterbirth by a blown up, empty pool.
4. Wanting to look decent for giving birth--
I got in the shower thinking I had time to wash my hair, fix it, and put a little make up on so that when Juliette was born, I wouldn't feel too gross for a few pictures. When Shanna walked in to help me down the hallway and to the bed, I was stark naked with damp, messy hair, no makeup, and meconium on my leg. (But I was holding a beautiful, healthy baby and had some pictures taken anyway).
5. Doctor Justin, aka Doctor Daddy--
No explanation necessary. He's taken his legendary role in Juliette's birth very seriously...correcting the kids when they leave off the "doctor" title and even referring to himself as a fellow doctor to the pediatrician. You handled the situation perfectly, Honey. Thank you. 💜
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| Juliette Faith September 1, 2019 2:32 pm 7 lb. 13 oz 20 inches long |
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| 1 Day Old |
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| 4 Days Old |
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| 7 Days Old The floor where it all happened |
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| 8 Days Old |
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| 22 Days Old |
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| One Month Old |
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