As soon as I heard Southern Indiana was getting a birth center, I knew I wanted to deliver there. Even though it meant traveling from Louisville, Kentucky, across the river and into the next state, that was preferable to me over a hospital birth. I was pregnant with my second and anxiously awaiting its opening, however, it kept getting delayed until it was too late for me to deliver there. Queue unexpected pregnancy nine months after my second was born, I knew where I was going to go. 

My pregnancy was pretty textbook, low-risk and on track with everything. The biggest complication was the pandemic which started when I was about six months along. It was a relief to already know I was delivering at the birth center, where policies weren’t as subject to the weekly/daily changes that were coming faster than anyone could process. Also because it was a separate facility, there was less risk of contamination from COVID patients, as careful as the hospital was being to avoid spreading germs. He was due July 7, but my other boys were one and two weeks early. It was no surprise to me when I started feeling regular contractions Sunday morning on June 28.  They were regular, but spaced out and light enough I knew it was going to take a while. I told my husband, and then we got ready to go to church, which had just started meetings in person again. After church we called my parents to let them know to start making plans to travel from St Louis, MO, but it was still going to be a while.

Contractions kept getting harder and closer, and then would lessen and space out again. They never completely went away, so I knew I was still in labor and patiently waited. Monday I had an appointment with my midwives, I let them know what was happening and then went home and waited some more. We called my mom again, and let her know she could start the four hour trip our way, but no baby yet. She got there early evening, and after visiting with her a bit, I knew my labor wasn’t going to progress as fast with distractions. I went to my room to lay down, which is what helped the most with my other two deliveries. The contractions kept getting harder, but not much closer together. By Monday night they were getting to be as much as I could handle on my own, but still about eight minutes apart. Finally around 11 pm I felt the baby shift and force his way down, and had four contractions harder than I had yet. I told my husband it was time to go, we gave last minute instructions to my mom, called our doula, and headed out. 

There was a little anxiety about driving downtown, because of some protesters who had shut down the bridge earlier that day that we needed to cross to get to the birth center. Although we saw people walking around with signs and in groups, all the violence was over by that point and we were allowed to cross the bridge without incident. We arrived at the birth center around 12:30 where I was checked and told I was 7 cm dilated, but the baby was still very high. I got in the tub and started laboring there, hoping for a quick delivery like my second birth was. Hours later I was sick of the tub and being wet, so I started trying other options. I sat on the toilet, tried a few positions, and finally ended up laying on the bed. The contractions kept getting harder to the point I was sure I was in transition, but stayed there for hours more. Every few minutes I would have to fight my reaction to tense up against the waves of pain, and purposely relax everything I could. Around 4:30 (I think) I couldn’t do it anymore, I was as exhausted from not sleeping the past two nights, and I was literally begging God to make the baby smaller. I didn’t have the strength to fight myself through each contraction. Suddenly I realized I had fallen asleep and stayed in a hazy sleep state through the last contraction. From then on I focused on staying asleep and ignoring any contraction I had. I was able to kind of get in a short nap, pretending to myself that I wasn’t feeling these contractions. 
Around 5:00am my body woke me up pushing (rude). As the next push came along, I leaned into it to help, and felt absolutely nothing move (oh crap). I kept at it, pushing every time I felt my body push, and at 5:09 am my biggest hunk of a boy slid into the world. The midwife was so super gentle, going along with my pace, and never forcing anything on me that I didn’t want. She caught my boy and immediately placed him screaming on my chest, where his head was already rooting around for something to latch onto. He latched with a perfect latch (it got more challenging later on), and he stayed there for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile the midwife waited for the cord to be clamped, delivered the placenta, and watched my bleeding. After an hour or two, they measured and weighed the baby, and found he was a whopping 9.2 lbs, and 22 1/2 inches long. He was a full two pounds and two inches bigger than my next biggest, which explained why my 5’2 frame had a harder time with his pregnancy and delivery.

We stayed in the birth center several more hours, rested, ate food, and I had a bath to get cleaned up. Our baby never left our sight and we were together as a family the whole time. I never minded the two-day hospital stayed after delivery, so I didn’t want to go home right away, but by 12pm there was nothing left for the midwife to do, so we headed out. We stopped to get Culver’s on the way home, and then introduced Micah Oliver to his two older brothers. That night we all slept very soundly in our own beds. 
I loved delivering at the birth center, and would do it again had we not moved away from the area. The care and time the midwives gave us was so much more personal than the hospital births we had. I enjoyed freedom to move and labor as I wanted, and didn’t feel obligated to deliver on the bed on my back like hospitals prefer. And this was my easiest recovery, despite being my biggest baby.  

Birthed at Tree of Life Family Birth Center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on June 30, 2020.