Reese’s Birth Story

August 8th, 2012 was a super typical day in the Godfrey house. When Matt got home from work, we went to the park to walk. When we got home from the park, I made supper. When supper was made, we sat down to eat. I remember Matt saying the blessing and when I opened my eyes and looked down at my food, my first thought way “I cannot eat that. Gross.” It was a meal I normally liked but I just felt off so I told Matt I was going to go sit on the couch for a bit. 

The rest of the night was uneventful. I had a little bit of bloody show but having convinced myself previously that I was NOT going to be THAT girl that was all like “Oh my gosh I’m in LABOR” when I wasn’t, I played it off and sent a quick text to my midwife. It was probably something like “Had some bloody show. It’s whatever.” In my mind I’m trying not to freak out. This baby isn’t due for nine more days so surely this wasn’t it. My midwife responded quickly asking if there had been any *eh hem* activities of the marital sort going on recently. Um yep. That’s embarrassing. So that was it. Not baby time after all.

When I went to bed that night, I had some pretty intense crampiness along with lower back pain. The lower back pain was nothing new. I had experienced that the whole time I was pregnant. It was the way it came in waves and would actually wake me up once I finally fell asleep that had me a little curious. When Matt woke up, I told him about my night. Still trying to be cool about it all, I told him to go to work. I got up and showered for the day. If I was going into labor, I wasn’t planning on looking a hot mess. The pain in my lower back got more and more intense as the day went on. I lost a small part of my mucus plug around 10 am. Is this real life? I called Matt and told him he might want to come home. But this was only after my oldest sister told me that’s what I should do.     

Matt came home and was so excited to ask me about the phases of labor and what I was experiencing so far. He was already the picture perfect “husband coach” as our Bradley instructor called it. We decided to go for a walk in our neighborhood since the contractions were still about ten minutes apart. This part of the day was really one of my favorites. We just walked back in forth in front of our little house and talked about how our lives were about to change. No one was around. Just the two of us. Looking back, I realized it was the last time it would have been our family of two. It was the calm before a storm of change and we just rested in it as long as we could. 

The hours flew by and before I knew it. my contractions were consistently five minutes apart. Now this is the part of the story you may be thinking that we grabbed our hospital bags and headed for the baby factory. Well, we did not. We decided as soon as we found out I was pregnant that we wanted to have a home birth.  I can talk more about that later but in a nut shell, I was low risk throughout my whole pregnancy, which made me a perfect candidate to have my baby in the comfort of my home. We hired a midwife who specializes in home births and took classes to prepare for an out of hospital birth. 

So let me stop and answer a few questions… Yes, it is safe. No, I didn’t have any pain meds. Yes we would go to the hospital if there was an emergency. 

Ok, back to the story. My midwife got to our house around 5:30. She was ready to check me and I was terrified I was going to be at like a 2. To my surprise, I was already at a 7! Yes!!!!! I was still only experiencing back labor, which to be honest, is the pits. I knew we were getting close. 

We changed to my bed and after adjusting positions a few more times, we finally found one that worked. Labor is described in a lot of different ways but maybe one of the most accurate pictures is that you are having an out of body experience. I knew everything that was going on. I remember my legs felt shaky and I remember just feeling so tired. I thought at one point I had looked at my midwife and suggested that maybe it was better if the baby just stayed in my tummy. So if she could make the contractions stop, we would just try this again another day. I remember feeling like I was yelling during each contraction but then afterward, everyone kept talking about how quiet I was. It was the most focused I have ever been. All I could think about was wanting the contractions to stop. I didn’t feel strong or prepared. I felt week and unable. It was a moment of pure vulnerability. 

I’m super blessed to have two incredible sisters who have already had four babies of their own at home. One was holding me up from behind while the other held one of my feet up. One was bringing me water to sip in between contractions, while the other was whispering how strong I was and how amazing I was doing. I can’t even describe how precious it was to have them there. I understand when women say they want to experience labor and delivery alone, but having the support of my sisters who had walked this road in the not too distant past, was totally invaluable to me.

At this point, it’s nine o clock. My water still hasn’t broken and I’ve been pushing for over two hours. I was so tired. All I kept thinking was “I can’t. I can’t”. All everyone else kept saying was “You can. You can.” We finally started to make some progress and I got the hang of the whole pushing thru the contractions thing. Only took me two and a half hours to get that down. 

Geez. 

I got a really great push in and she started to crown. This was the moment I was most afraid of. I still didn’t quite grasp how something so large was going to come out of something so NOT large. The strange thing was that as she started to crown, I don’t remember the pain at all. I felt the most amazing relief. Unlike anything I’d ever experienced. 

This was the birthing high. 

Out comes the head and before my midwife could even get in a word to stop me, I pushed with all my might and out she came. I knew I only had one more push before I felt I was just going to collapse so I gave it all I had. Matt caught our baby girl and then handed her to me. All I could do was just cry and I kept saying “hi! how are you? welcome to the world.” 

Time passed and it was time to cut the chord. Matt did that too. What a man. I got up and wobbled myself into the bathroom to shower and then returned to assess the damage. All I have to say is praise the Lord for my awesome midwife. Good. As. New. 

I got a victory dinner of chick fil a (duh) and just got to sit in my bed and snuggle my sweet little girl. It was perfect. 

I wouldn’t change anything about the arrival of Reese Taylor. Did it hurt? You’d better believe it. Was it worth it? Absolutely. The feeling of empowerment is something you can’t even begin to explain. When every thought in your head is telling you that you can’t do something and you do it anyway, something changes. It spills over into other areas. The feeling that you were brave enough to accomplish such a huge insurmountable feat doesn’t just stay in the confines of baby having. I am a different person than I was before I gave birth. I’m so grateful to my sisters and my husband for being the ones to say “yes, you  most certainly can” when everything in me was telling me I couldn’t. 

August 9th, 2012 will forever be one of my favorite days of all time. A seven pound, ten oz bundle of love stole our hearts that day. Everything changed when she got here and we are so grateful that God saw fit to allow us to be her mom and dad.