Birth Story #2

Another punctual little boy!  Both of our sons decided to come as scheduled on their due dates despite little to no previous warning all day long.  This little one waited until dinner time to begin making himself known.

If you read Birth Story #1 then you know that my labor was a fast and furious 8 hours that came on without warning at midnight and progressed quickly from there.  Since it was my first birth and I was doing it naturally and out of the hospital, I had no idea what to expect as far as the pain.  I had prepared mentally, physically, and spiritually.  Still, nothing can quite prepare you for your first birth.

With a second birth I found that there was a lot more anxiety as my due date approached because I knew exactly what I was in store for and I didn't want to face that pain again.  

I comforted myself in the weeks before the birth by reading second time birth stories.  Almost every second time mom reassured the reader that the second time was significantly easier and faster than their first.  I clung to this reassurance hoping that my 8 hour labor would also be cut in half.

As we sat down to dinner I began to feel contractions, however they were not that strong and only occurring every 20 minutes.  There was a big snow storm expected, so I decided to let my mom and midwife know about the contractions, just in case we were going to need them.  Apparently everyone else believed that I was going to go into labor faster than I did, because both of them decided to head over to the house.

Sure enough my contractions got stronger and more frequent.  It was a much different labor than the first because I did not enter a "twilight" zone this time.  I was completely in the moment and able to talk like normal between contractions.  I kept expecting this to change, but it never really did.

Contractions did get more painful, but the baby quickly descended the birth canal and I began to push with all my might to get him out.  It didn't take long for our baby boy to greet the world.  In under 4 hours from my first contractions at dinner that night, I was holding my son in my arms!

The experience had been less than half the time of my first labor and was much less drawn out and painful.  After the birth, all of us in the room talked and joked like nothing had happened.  I was surprised at how much easier I could move around this time and how much faster I was recovering.  Thank God for muscle memory and for reminding us with each labor that our bodies were designed and created to birth our children.