Our Birth Story - Welcome Juniper!

On Friday, February 24th, 2023, one day after our “due date,” I woke up at 6:30am to cramping and bloody show. The day before I thought I’d be pregnant for weeks still, so I was definitely surprised by the thought that I might be in labor. Joel messaged his employer letting them know that he likely wouldn’t be working and then fixed us a big breakfast.

I decided to take a bath to get more comfortable and to see if they slowed down in the water. Nope. So we called our midwife Sarah to let her know that it might be baby day! Joel texted with our rockstar doula Hannah Dilly and birth photographer Emily Croff (who took all of the photos below, soo good!).

We stuck to our regular pregnancy morning routine of watching For The Love of Kitchens in bed while eating our eggs, but my usual fascination with their obsession of making things look old was dulled by the consistent contractions that continued to grow as we watched.

I had decided months ago that I wanted to bake a cake to bring to the hospital while in labor to celebrate and share with the nurses. Such a fun idea, right?! So while Joel took care of a few business things I waddled to the kitchen to get to baking. It seems I waited too long though because I was stopping every 3-5 minutes to breathe through a contraction. Eventually I popped the chocolate cake in the oven, right as Joel was wrapping up his PTO request for paternity leave, and he came to join me in our bedroom as I labored on the exercise ball.

This was the sweetest part of our labor, just the two of us working together in rhythm with my surges. After about an hour or so of active labor Hannah and Emily both arrived to our house. Hannah jumped in to offer massage and counter-pressure for me as Joel had a quick lunch and packed the car and Emily captured our story. The cats both stuck so close to us as I labored, curious and concerned. Rigby even had anxiety diarrhea on our bedroom floor, I wasn’t sure how they’d respond but finding surprise cat poops wasn’t part of our plan. Lol. Thankfully Joel was superman and took care of it all.

After observing my labor patterns for about twenty minutes or so, Hannah pulled Joel aside and told him it was time to go to the hospital and meet our midwife Sarah there. Things were obviously building and getting stronger.

I’m recalling my birth story from seven weeks afterward, so my reflections are from a healed and rested state. Even just a few weeks out is so wild to see my pregnant shape in these images. Now, forgetting much of the pain of pregnancy and cherishing the little girl it brought me is a lovely perspective, but the body I see in these images reminds me of my strength and power and love. In some ways it’s hard to see, but in other ways I can’t look away. How incredible and how hard.

For a second in the car my contractions slowed down, and I thought maybe we made a mistake going to the hospital already, but just a few blocks from home they picked right back up. Even having multiple contractions while getting out of our car and heading into the hospital. This baby was definitely on her way!

We arrived to the hospital around 3pm. Skipping triage, Sarah checked my cervix to get a baseline, and I was already at 6cm! Wow! Things were definitely going as I had hoped. Actually Joel and I had taken a birth class that gave us the homework of dreaming up what our ideal birth circumstances were, and so far we had ticked so many of the boxes. Daytime. Laboring at home. Friday. I could hardly believe it. The only thing missing was the cake…

After a brief time on the monitors making sure baby’s heart rate was doing well, the first thing I knew I wanted to do was get in the tub. Hannah and Sarah had gotten it all set up with pretty mood lighting and warm water, and I labored in the water with Joel’s support for a long time. It really helped me cope and focus.

Then they encouraged me to get out and change positions right as I was reaching transition. Everything I had heard and witnessed about transition was true for me, it hurt! I distinctly remember telling Joel, “Next time I’m getting an EPIDURAL!” It was the hardest work of all, but I also knew somewhere deep inside that it meant we were progressing well.

Having Hannah close by to offer hip squeezes and hook me up with the TENS machine were incredibly helpful too. I clung to every encouraging word, we were getting closer to meeting our baby!

I was around 9cm, yet my waters were still intact. I remember wondering if I should ask Sarah to break them since she said they were bulging out of the cervix… Then switching to hands and knees as I labored on the floor, they ruptured on their own. Praise God!

However there was meconium in the water, which at our hospital means NICU is called to be on standby just in case baby needs a little help after birth. Knowing that they’d be there to check Juniper over definitely gave me peace of mind.

After pushing in the bathroom and on hands and knees on the floor, I climbed up into the bed for “throne position” to push using the grab bar. This was definitely the position for me! Using gravity and staying mostly upright served me quite well.

I pushed in this position for about 25 minutes as I heard my girl squad cheering me on and telling me they could see her hair! Sarah narrated what she could see between every push. When she told me that baby’s eyebrows were visible, that was all of the motivation I needed. I could reach down and feel her head, she was right there!

Woah!

Holy cow!

Juniper Prudence is here!

She let out a big healthy cry right away, so I was thankful NICU didn’t need to rush in. I could hold sweet Junie so tight, soak her in, and try not to think about delivering the placenta next…

Juniper needed a little help from the suction and CPAP to clear her airways, but otherwise she was doing just fine. They weighed her in at 8lb 6oz of total squishy cuteness.

The fuzzy hair, the wrinkled belly, her bright wide eyes, and giant feet. All so perfect!

So in total transparency, I’ve left out a few photos here, choosing not to share them online. The delivery of the placenta, the quick movements of the midwife and nurses as they responded to my hemorrhage, my pained face as I received a few stitches, the liter of blood I lost… These are all important parts of my birth story, and I’m incredibly grateful to Emily for capturing them for me to help me process my birth afterward and see my body’s strength and resilience. But it’s a lot.

Getting to see Joel as a proud dad holding our baby girl was a highlight of my whole life. He’s such a natural!

I can hardly believe that this is my family, my sweet Juniper, my steadfast husband. I’m so so grateful.

After a few hours in recovery, we were whisked away upstairs to the postpartum floor to attempt to get a little sleep. Everyone was so kind to us up there, but it was really hard to get comfortable and rest after everything the day had held. Joel and I chatted for awhile and took turns staring at her and sneaking in naps, updating family and chowing down on whatever snacks we had packed. There’s no way to really get your mind to wrap around the presence of a whole new human, but we tried.

We barely got any sleep, but Junie slept well in preparation for the next night of cluster feeding! My milk came in the following day, and she was a nursing champ. We had so many visitors and people coming in and out of our room while I sat on my ice-pad throne and Joel kept a constant stream of snacks flowing for me. It was a hazy 44 hours holding the biggest life change we’ve had to date, and we were so deliriously happy, very sore, and SO ready to go home together as a family of three.

Newborn photo by Emily Croff

Thank you again to our birth photographer Emily Croff, our brilliant doula Hannah Dilly, our amazing midwife Sarah LaGrand with Advanced OBGYN, the amazing nurses at Butterworth, and alllll of the lovely people that checked in on us or brought us dinner during our postpartum recovery period—those meals were game changers. It was a hard couple of weeks gaining my strength back, dealing with a nasty hemorrhoid (IYKYK, ugh), and learning the rhythms of caring for Junie.

Seven weeks later and I’m feeling better than ever. And I’m really excited about the clients I get to support this summer through their own amazing miracle birth journeys. Let’s do this!

This one I took around 2 weeks postpartum after I started feeling comfortable moving around. What a gift she is!