It’s A Boy! | Alder Grey’s Home Birth Story | Part 1

and just like that we had a baby. 

This birth experience was a completely different experience than I had with Edith and it was much faster (for the most part). Let’s get down to the chain of events …

Wednesday July 30th – Alder’s due date. Now unlike Edith who had two due date options Alder’s due date was more of a sure thing based on the circumstances of this pregnancy. Since the previous Thursday I had been experiencing a lot of Braxton Hicks Contractions and some cramping and low back pain but nothing too crazy. I had my 40 week appointment in the morning and at this point discussed with my doctor what the options for moving things along were because I was just so ready to get this baby out especially since we are moving August 16th. She suggested trying another round of acupuncture this time with one of the doctors in her office and so I immediately said yes and we set up an appointment for that afternoon. I went in for my acupuncture at 2pm and also had a cervical check and found out I was 2cm dilated and 70% effaced. I had my treatment and started to feel some light cramping by the end of my treatment.  I spent the remainder of the day resting in hoping that the acupuncture would work.

Thursday July 31st.  I had some light cramping through the night but woke up Thursday morning still pregnant but by 8am I started to really feel lots of low cramping and back pain. I let Neil know but told him there wasn’t a rush to come home and that I would keep him up to date on things.  Finally around 2:30pm I asked him to come home after his last meeting of the day because I was really starting to feel some more intense cramping and inconsistent contractions (side note Neil’s work commute right now is about 30-90 minutes depending on traffic so that is why I wanted him to head home). I kept having contractions and cramping and by 8:30pm decided to call the midwife to give her a heads up. I then went straight to bed. Cramping and contractions continued all night intensified a bit but were still farther apart.

Friday August 1st. Since I was still having contractions and cramping I asked Neil if he would want to walk down to get coffee and stop for some breakfast. We headed out at 7am (we are earlier risers here) and by the time we were walking home I was having to stop during contractions which were now 3-4 minutes apart.  We went straight home and I started timing contractions and after about 8 contractions found that I was having contractions 2-3 minutes apart lasting for 1 minute or so in duration. We called the midwives and they were all (we had 2 midwives and a student midwife) here by around 9am.

To be continued…