Ayla's Birth Story

Ayla Mae was born Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 1:17 p.m.  She was 7 pounds and 19 inches long.

Jake and I had gone to bed late, around 11, which seldom happens with us especially on  a Saturday night.  We don't like to be groggy at church, but this Saturday our 3 year old had a fever of 101 prior to bed time.  He had fallen asleep on our bed and we decided not to move him because he felt so yucky.  So Jake slept in his bed.  At 1 a.m. I woke up to go to the bathroom and noticed a little show.  This excited me because with our first it happened at 3 a.m. and he was born the next day at 9:30 pm.  If it were not for the accompanying wetness that kept dribbling I would have gone right back to sleep, but I suspected contractions would begin soon.  After deliberating with myself thinking that Jake would need to sleep I held off telling him until 1:30. How nice of me to give him an extra half hour sleep. haha!

I decided to call my mid-wife.  Certain intuitions in me thought that I'd have the baby before noon. Perhaps I was just being hopeful.  Our midwife said to try to get some sleep and call her in the morning.  She acted as though it was nothing.  2 a.m. came and so did the contractions. They were clockwork contractions every 10 minutes right to my hips! Because they were so clockwork I knew it was real and this baby was coming. I felt much urgency to get our 3 year old to my mom's, but Jake said we should wait until morning.  I'm thinking "the baby isn't waiting for anyone!  Who knows how long the labor will take?"  I did not want to assume a long labor, who does?   So at 4:30 am I called my mom because she usually wakes up about then on weekdays. Jake's dad came at 6 a.m. and brought Berrit to my mom's.

Jake and I just stayed in the bedroom mostly. Every time I would get up to walk around a contraction would come.  This told me that they could just as well be 4-5 min apart if I'm moving around!  I called the midwife at 7 a.m. and she says to check back at 11.  At this point I'm worried that she doesn't seem urgent, and I feel very urgent that this baby could come soon, but I also trusted her experience of delivering over 2000 babies.

By 10:30ish the contractions started to hurt more. Some would say this is where true labor began. (?!) Whatever.  So we're still at 10 minutes apart and randomly sometimes 7 minutes.  At 12 noon they really started to get hard and I'm whining to Jake to call the midwife.  He dials her at about 12:30 and I'm  practically crying on the phone saying "I need you!!"  She says she'll start off in 15 minutes.  That means she'd be here in 45 minutes and I'm freaking out on the inside.

Jake runs the tub and after seeing how I was screaming and groping for relief he calls the midwife's beeper. This tells her to drive faster. I get in the tub and at this time I have the major bearing down pains and I know the baby is so close. Jake calls her number again.  I guess by this time she said she was just down the road. Later we learned she was going 90 on the highway.  Apparently if you like driving fast you should become a midwife!

I push more (thankful for the warmth of the water) and the baby's head comes out.  Jake says something to the affect of "This would be a great time for her to get here!" and she walked through the bedroom door, took her coat off and immediately starts coaching me and asking Jake for supplies.  The  baby comes out and she puts her on my chest and a warm wet towel on top of her.  I'm supremely relieved and very suspicious if we have an Ayla or a Korban.  Our midwife tells me to look and I discovered I had a little girl!  My heart melts and I just breath and cry and talk to my little girl and I wait for her to cry and she does. After about 10-15 minutes of letting the cord pulse she clamps it and Jake cuts it.  She wraps Ayla Mae in a warm dry towel and hands her to Jake.

At this time I wasn't paying attention to Jake or Ayla because I know it's almost placenta time.  I did glance over to see her eyes open staring at her daddy and a huge rush of happiness just flowed through me!  Jake told me later that he did cry at seeing his little girl and it was like a different part of his heart opened up to have a little girl. It means something different to have a girl to protect as a father.

Then the placenta was delivered and our midwife actually showed us what it looked like. She showed us where the baby was sitting, like one of those hammock hanging chair things. Then she helped me out of the tub and onto the bed.  I nursed Ayla for the first time and gained a little energy before tidying up.

Some family visited that night knowing that visitors really encouraged me and I realized that all the family January birthdays were in the room!  Me, Ayla, Jake's Dad, and my mom.

Now she is almost 3 weeks old and growing very well. SO many people have given her lots of girly things and there has been so much generosity with people knowing Jake is on unemployment. It is really encouraging and inspiring to see the love, sometimes even sacrificially.  I have had some breastfeeding difficulties, but we are glad to see a light at the end of the tunnel with that! She is a very normal little baby and we are so grateful for our health and to have had her at home. We would do it at home again should God see fit for us to have another little one.