Shay Allens home birth
April 21, 2024
6 days after his “due date” (like his big sister).
Before I go on I would like to preface this with a little background of how I got pregnant with him to begin with, as well as the fact that God was so present throughout the entire day, and I’m going to explain each of those gestures as I tell the rest of the story! This whole day was such a redemptive labor, delivery and post care birthing experience compared to my covid-hospital birth with Rehn. I have a blog post on that too if you wanna read that here.
Back in June of 2023, I conceived, and we found out on the 4th of July. July 8th began that miscarriage. I won’t go into it all because I actually already have a blog all about it here - but little did I know about 10-13 days after my miscarriage was fully over we had conceived again! So Shay(which means “gift” is our little rainbow-surprise baby and we are so thankful for him. He and Rehns’ due dates are a day apart.
4:21 am
I woke up to my first contraction — this was also one of my first indicators that “this is it! Today’s the day”. Now, Rehns birthday is April 20th (4/20) and ever since she was born I almost always see the clock during the day when it turns 4:20. It’s the weirdest thing and has been the joke in our house because of how often I see it. This morning I saw it at 4:21 which was also the date and the day after Rehns birthday. It just felt very fitting and something only God knew would indicate any type of peace and excitement. Anyway, my Midwife had told me to look out for 1 minute long contractions that increase in intensity — she would also stress to me that minutes apart don’t really mean much, so don’t let that be an indicator.
I laid in bed through the contractions until about 6:30 and told Jake I think today’s the day. He called his Mom and she took Rehn for a little overnight stay. When Jake left to drop her off at his Moms house I just sat in silence on my medicine ball, opened the window in my dining room and listened to the quiet morning and the birds singing. It was probably the most at peace I have felt in a long time.
8:30am
Jake got home and we started getting things put where they needed to go. Inflated the pool, put a shower curtain liner and new sheets on the bed, got the midwife things all together and made them accessible & just listened to music. I listened to a couple playlists
playlist 1
playlist 2
10:45am
All the while i’m contracting and they’re slowly growing in intensity. I had a smoothie and we turned on The Father of the Bride 2 and just sorta worked through more contractions. Then we decided to get some fresh air, so I brought out my ball to do hip circles on and we soaked in the sunshine until my midwife got to the house.
12pm
My midwife got there and we just sorta sat and discussed what was going on, She asked how I felt about going for a walk with Jake, so that’s what we did! This was another cool difference from our first birth experience where we weren’t even allowed to leave the hospital room for any circumstance — so to be able to go on a walk on a really nice 70 degree and sunny day with my Husband was just so special to my heart. We didn’t eve walk a full block and I ended up have about 8 contractions from the time we left to the time we got back.
1pm
The rest of my birth team got to my house & they started on the herb pot for postpartum recovery/a bunch of prep, and after that we all just sat, them on the couch and me on my ball and we just talked! While we were talking my birth story with Rehn came up and I asked Jake “What time was Rehn born again? 3:50 right?” and we joked about how funny it would be if they had the same birth time.
3pm
My midwife said “You haven’t been to the bathroom in a while, have you? How do you feel about going pee and then laying down on your bed for a little bit?” — Which, i’d like to just say how wise my Midwife was throughout this entire process. Every single time she suggested I switch up what I was doing, it always ended with furthering my labor and increasing the intensity/closeness. Anyway, I went upstairs and before I even peed my contraction was much more intense than any of the previous ones. I laid on my side on my bed and transition immediately hit! I would get a contraction that lasted a minute or longer and they were under a minute apart. Now, my first birth I had an epidural & pitocin which didn’t give me a good indication on what labor actually felt like and what transition looked like — the pain is real, but I did notice that it was faaaaaaaaar quicker naturally than with the epidural and pitocin.
My midwife let me contract about 10 minutes before she told me it was time to get into the pool. So I got into the pool and almost immediately I felt like I needed to push. I started out facing my husband and my midwife was behind me, I pushed maybe 7 times in that position & then she had me turn over to face her and I pushed another handful of times. His head came out, but my midwife said his shoulder was stuck. She tried a couple more contractions in the water but couldn’t manipulate how she needed to so she said “Okay Hun, you’re going to climb out of the tub and get on your hands and knees on your bed”; I remember thinking “yeah right!!” and the words that came out of me were “ I can’t” and she said “you have to, you’re not getting back in the water”… so miraculously my husband and doula pulled me out with my Sons head sticking out of me and I got onto my hands and knees, my doula grabbed my left leg and lifted it up - my midwife waited for my next push and when I began shes shoved went inside of me, twisted(or at least it felt like a twist but regardless she did what she needed to do to reposition him),and there he was!
She had Jake go over and blow on his face to get him to cry all while I stayed on my hands and knees. She slid him through my legs and I reached and grabbed him. we delayed chord clamping and I laid flat on my back to birth the placenta,
i tore very minorly & we decided not to suture and heal naturally.
I laid skin to skin for over an hour with him & Jake got to sit by my side the whole time. I got up to go to the bathroom with my midwife and Jake got to be skin to skin with little Shay while i did that.
Then we laid down and didn’t get back up! It was such a night and day difference from the hospital that way. I remember looking at Jake once everyone left and said “isn’t it wild that we get to just be home and rest now”?
He was skeptical at the beginning of a home birth (as i learned everyone really is)but by the end of it all he said “i feel like we were robbed of this time with Rehn.”
I was just so impressed and grateful for the calmness and wisdom my midwife had & because of that i felt like even though it was the most painful thing i had ever done, it was the most peaceful and beautiful experience i had ever had.
