Fergus’s Birth Story – 12/17/2024

** I just want to start by saying that every labor and birth is different; every mom has different wants and goals for birth, and that this is about my personal experience birthing my second child and may be graphic for some readers. With that being said, let’s get into our story.

While Fergus was born on December 17th, our story truly starts on December 11th when I turned 38 weeks pregnant. The first and second trimesters had flown by, the third trimester felt like it was dragging on and by this point I was constantly exhausted and in pain from my body growing and adjusting to carrying my child. We’ve been seeing a chiropractor for Seamus for several months now and I bit the bullet and made myself an appointment. Needless to say, walking out of that appointment I felt like a whole new woman. My body was so out of whack from basically back-to-back pregnancies and it being around a decade since I’d seen a chiropractor. Chiropractic work is very beneficial for pregnant women and when a woman is as far along as I was, it can trigger labor. When I go into labor, my body goes through prodromal labor first. With Seamus I experienced it for 6 weeks and with Fergus it was just under a week. 

Monday morning rolls around, I’ve been inconsistently contracting for days and trying to rest as much as possible, and I wake up to more contractions and my bloody show starting (basically blood tinged discharge but nothing crazy). Throughout the day my contractions were around 10 minutes apart and I continued having small amounts of bleeding. After I finished working in the morning, I opted for a nap and contractions fizzled out afterwards, so we took Seamus for a short walk where he mostly ran around, and Sean chased him. After eating dinner and winding down for the day, I was spending some time on my yoga ball as contractions had started again around 4pm (when we called our support person who was coming to watch Seamus while I labored) still about 10 minutes apart.

At almost 7:30pm things made a drastic switch. Contractions were coming 2-6 minutes apart almost out of the blue, were lasting between 30-60 seconds, and became more intense than before. I was still able to talk in between contractions and during for the most part. And hour later and contractions were still coming at the same interval so I called my midwife to let her know that it seemed actual labor was starting. I was starting to have to breathe through the more intense contractions but otherwise was feeling fine so we agreed to call her again when I was “in the labor zone” since she lives only 10 minutes away. Our support person arrived around 9pm and we chatted for nearly two hours while I continued rocking on the yoga ball. 10:45pm we tried laying down and going to bed. With the position change, contractions got more intense and after half an hour I gave up and knew there was no way I was going to sleep before this baby arrived. At this point we still had no clue how dilated I was and we were fully expecting to labor through the whole night and well into Tuesday. I elected to get in the warm shower at this point while Sean began filling the birthing pool. Again things felt like they were picking up more but I could still talk in between contractions and was able to continue utilizing the “j” breathing technique to relax baby down. It was around 11:15 when I hopped in the shower and at 11:35 I told Sean I wasn’t sure if it was getting to that point in labor or if I was just tired but I wanted him to call the midwife. He continued getting the birth pool set up after trying to call and there being phone issues since I did not think the timing was as urgent as it was. Contractions continued to get more intense and it was becoming increasingly difficult to even breath through them and up until around 11:50, low moans were helping to get through them. That’s about when I thought to myself “I cannot keep doing this for several hours. This is so intense I think I might burst.” It was also at this time that just breathing/moaning was not getting me through. I began fervently praying from the heart out loud through each contraction. I prayed through my fears that something could be going wrong or that I wouldn’t be able to complete the home birth I’d dreamt of. I prayed over and over “Lord, watch over me and my baby. Keep us healthy and help me to have a safe delivery. Lord, please keep my baby safe and help me to bring them earth side.”

At midnight, my water broke. Despite still being in the shower and having water running down me, there was an unmistakable feeling of the bag of water dropping through my cervix, popping, and a large gush of fluid. I yelled for Sean who had stepped out of the bathroom to check on the birthing tub, saying my water just broke. He practically flew into the bathroom like a bat out of hell. In that moment we looked at each other and I think we both realized that this baby was coming whether our midwife was there or not. Then I felt the head beginning to descend further into my pelvis and an immense amount of pressure in my pelvic girdle. I told Sean “Turn off the water and get in here because you’re catching this baby.” I was on my hands and knees already and there was no way I would semi-comfortably be able to move because one of my legs had already fallen asleep. I could feel my body sliding my baby down with about the same timing as contractions had been, however, I could no longer feel the contractions coming. Our support person, bless her for being the amazing woman she is, heard me yell for Sean and popped her head around the corner to see if there was anything she could help with. Sean, trying to remain as calm as possible, told her the baby is coming and asked for the towels and to try calling the midwife again. 10 minutes after my water broke, she’s on the phone with an on call midwife just as our second son was crowning and emerged into the world right into his dad’s arms. I had expected to feel the burning of the ring of fire and while I did experience some stretching, it was mostly overcome by the pressure in my hips from him making his way through. With Seamus, I ended up with an epidural thinking we were going to need a c-section so I didn’t feel any of his delivery. Being able to feel every single detail of Fergus exiting my body was a surreal feeling to say the least. 

Immediately after delivery, I was able to adjust my position to sitting and take our son from my husband. Up until this point, we still didn’t know whether we had another son or a daughter. If I’m going to be completely honest we were convinced we were having a girl just based on how different my pregnancies had been. To say we were surprised would be an understatement, but we still are absolutely enamored with Fergus. My placenta delivered almost immediately after sitting and an hour after Fergus was born, the on call midwife arrived to assess us both and make sure everything was looking good post-delivery. My main goals for this birth were 1. To have a safe delivery 2. To not tear again and 3. To experience the fetal ejection reflex. Not only did I have an incredibly redemptive delivery from my first, but I also checked all three of these boxes. Now that I’m a couple weeks out from having Fergus, I can confidently say that this recovery period has been vastly easier than my recovery after Seamus although newborn sleep is still exhausting although I feel more rested than towards the end of pregnancy.

If you’re interested in Seamus’s birth story, you can read it here!

As always, thanks for reading!