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THIS IS KARA’S BIRTH STORY. 💕
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I wish I could say this day started like any other, but it didn’t. It felt different. But let’s back track a bit, shall we?
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On my due date, November 4th, I thought my waters had broken and contacted my midwives. They had me come and get checked, and they concluded it was just some pre-labor leaking. Cool. I went about my day and even saw a chiropractor.
A day passed, and I was still kinda leaky, but it was hardly anything. I went to bed on the night of the 5th wondering how long I’d have to wait for my baby. I heard a voice like a whisper say, “November 7th” and felt a calming peace come over me. “Okay.” I thought, “November 7th.”
November 6th, I woke up feeling weird. I knew I needed to get ready for this baby. My back was aching in intervals, but I ignored it, made a run to Target with Jason to get all the last minute things I needed. When I got back to the house, my parents had arrived with a trailer full of the rest of my stuff from the move. We went to the storage unit and put it all away, still ignoring the waves of pain I felt in my lower back.
That evening, I felt a gush. I hit up the midwives that my waters had definitely broken— not like in the movies where you turn into a human waterfall— and they told me that if baby didn’t come by the next morning we’d meet in the afternoon to check things out. On November 7th.
I busily started cleaning my room, built the bassinet that had been waiting in the garage for a week while listening to my Hypnobirth tracks because HOLY MOLY this back pain had turned into clear contractions. It was after 9pm.
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Around 10pm, I put Jason to bed, but he asked me to “stop making those noises” because suddenly I couldn’t stay quiet during these crazy feeling waves. So I took the massage gun and my pregnancy pillow and moaned my way to my sister’s room, hoping I’d be able to rest there.
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From that moment on, it was just me, jasmine, and this baby. She used the massage gun during my contractions (expansions) and played peaceful music for me. She even tracked my contractions for me so all I had to do was breathe. I still didn’t realize I was really in labor because my midwives had mentioned that the back pain I was feeling could be from baby being positioned on my spine, so I was focused on getting her turned around. Around 11, the contraction app told us to “go to the hospital” which would be the birth center down the street. I knew I wouldn’t survive the ten minute car ride since I couldn’t even sit down anymore between contractions. Jasmine called the midwives, who told us to come in forty-five minutes. “Okay,” I told myself and my baby, “we can do this.”
Jasmine, my doula and peace guru, read me birth affirmations and even played one of my hypnobirth teacher’s videos. “I can handle any turn that my birth journey takes.” That’s the most important affirmation, according to my extremely wise teacher. I kept that in my mind.
At some point I realized I wasn’t going to make it to the car, let alone the front door, so my next thought was, “I need to get to the tub. If I can get in the shower, I’ll feel better, and I’ll be able to make it.” So I made my way across the room, only to stop in the doorway to the bathroom.
Jasmine called the midwives again, letting them know I wasn’t going to make it and that I thought the baby was coming. Quickly, they pivoted.
“We’ll come to you. Tell her to breathe and not push.”
The waves of intensity rippling through my lower back had changed to a strange pressure down below. Suddenly, my body took over. It pushed.
Jasmine yanked me out of my shorts. Suddenly there was a towel under me on the floor. She really was a sight to behold.
“They said to breathe and not push,” I remember Jasmine reminding me softly.
“I'm trying,” I whispered back, “my body’s doing it on its own.”
I sank to my knees, mentally preparing to catch my daughter on the floor of my sister’s bedroom.
Everything else became background noise. The phone call from the midwives. Jasmine racing out of the room to turn on the porch light. It was just me, my body, and my daughter. “I can do this. I can do this.” This was my affirmation of the night, whispered to myself for the last few hours. “I can do this. We can do this.” I felt what I can only describe as a small bowling ball being pushed through a hole that didn’t exist, and I relaxed into it. I surrendered, breathed, and in the next moment, my daughter was on the floor in front of me. Perfect, wailing, red and squishy. All mine.
“Look what you did!” Anita, the master midwife, was here. She was in front of me, jasmine next to me, my baby Kara in front of me, laying between my knees.
Everything after was a blissful whirl. The placenta, the peace of laying on the floor holding my sweet, messy baby. I could’ve stayed there forever. But my back was starting to hurt, and Kara had pooped all over us.
After cleaning up a bit, she was measured and weighed. 8 pounds and two ounces. 21 inches long. She was still attached to her placenta, so we snuggled into bed with it by our side. When it was time to finally sever her ties with her squishy home, I asked my hero of the night, my sister turned doula Jasmine, to do the honors.
We’d done it. We really did it.
Kara Jasmine Denise was here. And she was absolute Queen. A tiny slice of heaven with raven hair and intelligent dark eyes. A million answered prayers swaddled together in a tiny human body. She was and is DIVINE.
Warning: if you don’t want to see me half naked, don’t click the video. But I swear there‘s no video footage of the actual birth, just before and after. The audio is amazing, though.