Share your story with ICAN to be featured on our Instagram and Facebook! All cesarean and birth-after-cesarean stories are welcome: the difficult, the triumphant, the still-processing, and the stories which haven’t yet been shared. Sharing your birth story can be freeing, healing and profoundly powerful. It can bring others hope, comfort, and reassurance that they are not alone on their birth journey.
Submit your story HERE: https://airtable.com/shrJOtXla9O9MVBaj
Autumn shares her HBAC birth story. Thank you for sharing your story for all to read!
“March 2nd – I had woken up after having a few random contractions through the night. I woke up around 7am to nothing but my back was hurting like period cramps pretty much on and off all day. Around 2:30 pm I started feeling contractions. I decided to make me and the kids a pizza while we waited for my husband to come home from work. My husband got home around 3ish. Contractions picked up a bit once he got home, like my body and baby knew, “Okay you don’t have to be solely in charge now, let’s do this”. When I was up and moving they were every 2-3 minutes lasting about a minute. If I was just relaxing they were every 5 minutes lasting about 40 seconds. Our neighbor asked us if we wanted to let the kids play outside for a bit, which thinking it would be a bit still, I said of course. I decided to take a quick shower first though around 4. At 4:30 we all went outside to let the kids play. I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes at this point. I ended up going into my basement because I couldn’t socialize and needed to breathe through them at this point. I called my mom/doula and had 2 contractions on the phone with her and she said, “Yeah you sound like you’re in it right now, let me know when you leave”. I called my midwife next and let her know what was going on. As the next contraction hit I knew we had to go. So I opened the door and called my husband and told him we needed to get going that things were getting intense fast. So he told everyone it was time and they had to leave and got the kids ready. I threw my cold drinks in our cooler bag and grabbed my birth ball. My husband threw it all in the car and we got on the road around 5:15pm. I texted my photographer, midwife and mom and let them know we were headed out. We got to my midwives house around 6pm.
At this point I completely felt like I was at my breaking point and done. I would moan “low” through my contractions. I held my son for a bit through a couple of them while my team got the birth book started and everything ready and set up. I moved into the living room and tried leaning over my birth ball but that HURT more so I just stood and rocked over the back of a chair. I ended up putting my headphones in and throwing on some meditation music that had lots of low tones. I was getting good breaks in between contractions but when they hit it was HARD and I would moan or growl through them. At some point my dad came and picked up our soon. Our daughter stayed with us and would hug me or rub my belly.
Around maybe 6:45pm I was growling and grunting through contractions and there was a lot of pressure. My midwife asked if I was pushing and I said no, she and my mom chuckled to each other because they knew I was. But I said no because *I* wasn’t. It was my body. Finally I had enough and stripped down and got into the pool around 7pm.
As soon and I got in my contractions shifted and each one my body was pushing my baby down and out and I could feel all the pressure of his head coming through my birth canal. I broke for a bit saying how I couldn’t do it and just needed a break to breathe. My mom told me I was and had to. My husband reminded me that I was and that this was the point of him coming. My daughter said to me, “Mommy you have to push the baby out now. He has to come out, you can do it”.
A few more contractions and the ring of fire happened and I yelled, “It burned!” (LOL). I felt down though and his head was right there behind a bag of waters. Another contraction and his head was out, with my waters breaking right before. There was a pause before the next contraction to push his body out. Fetal Ejection Reflex is so strong and so crazy! Baby boy S was born at 7:10pm.
We sat in the tub for a few minutes before getting out and moving to the bed. On the bed we delivered the placenta. I did consent to a shot of Pitocin because I was having a little trouble delivering the placenta. Once it was out everything was fine though. No tearing and no hemorrhages. Our daughter was with us the whole time and cut the cord once it was white. It was such a fast birth and took me by surprise especially because of how quick I went from, “Okay I’m laboring” to “Okay he’s coming” and because I was so aware between contractions of what was going on. Baby S is perfect though. 10/10 APGAR weighing 8lbs 6oz and 22in long with a 14.25cm head. He is the calmest, happiest baby we’ve had. “
Congratulations, Autumn and family, on your newest addition! Thank you for sharing your story!
