The Birth of Theodore James

Everything about this pregnancy had been different. We were in a different state, a different house, my body felt so very different this time around. And yet, as we approached our “due date” I still somehow managed to trick myself into thinking that this would be the same. I believed I would start feeling contractions for the days leading up to birth and I would know when he was on his way. Brooks came before his due date, so naturally, this babe would, too. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way, now did it?!

Cut to Saturday, September 16, 2023. My mom and my best friend, Abiola – who would be wearing her doula hat again for this birth – had flown in on Wednesday and I was officially one day past my due date. We had been doing all of the things to help Baby begin his journey to join us – the Miles circuit, all the red raspberry leaf tea and dates (had even grown to love eating my 6 dates a day!), walking a ton despite the sticky heat and my very angry pubic joint, meditations, pep talks... we were doing ALL. OF. IT. I finally had enough by Saturday night. I was tired, sore, frustrated, feeling guilty and responsible for the lack of labor, and on the verge of tears at literally every moment. So, as a natural introvert and one who can quit in fits of frustration, I bid everyone goodnight and put myself to bed early. I journaled quite a bit that night in bed and found myself kind of throwing my hands up into an acceptance, which turned out to be a powerful mindset shift. I HAD TO LET GO. I had to sincerely stop trying and start believing that my baby knew when he was going to come. I could not control when this baby was going to arrive. I needed to be patient and surrender into the unknown. For anyone who has been in this situation, you are all too familiar with the emotional rollercoaster of the final days of pregnancy and the desperate want to make things happen. So, I went to bed having written: I am a zoo animal being watched. The sow at the state fair who is made to birth in front of onlookers... It feels really hard to hear my voice saying things like ‘My baby knows how and when to be born’ because of the building frustration. I don’t know what else to do besides say these things enough times that I start to believe them. So: I release my angst. I release my frustrations. I surrender to not knowing the divine timing of when my Baby will arrive. I surrender to the process.

Sunday morning came easily and lazily into our house. Bright and sunny. Abiola and my mom decided they would take Brooks out for the morning after breakfast and that we would all go to the Kansas State Fair that afternoon – there was a monster truck show that Brooks would love and it was the last day of the fair. We had our plan for the day and absolutely none of it focused on “getting the baby out” – it felt different.

Once Brooks, Abiola, and my mom left, we found the house peaceful and quiet. Jamie and I were able to talk and connect – emotionally and physically – which gave us a powerful reset. And, as we know, orgasm releases oxytocin which leads to contractions. We didn’t have sex explicitly for that purpose, though it was a much-desired side effect! We went out to go get coffees and on our drive home, I noticed that I had felt a few contractions that felt more familiar and serious. But they were so far apart and inconsistent, I didn’t think much of them. By the time we got home and settled in, I told Jamie that I didn’t think they would last once Brooks, Abiola, and my mom got home, so I didn’t want to tell anyone about them. And sure enough, when they came home for Brooks’s nap, I wasn’t feeling any contractions at all.

Well, as this day would have it, Brooks – the child who never skips naptime – decided to skip his nap. So, with hope that he would sleep during the 45-minute drive to the Kansas State Fair, we loaded into the car and headed out. During the car ride, I mentally recorded 3 contractions. 3. That’s not many at all. 15 minutes apart. No big deal, nothing to be concerned about. But, I did finally confess to Abiola as we were nearing the Fair that I was having intermittent contractions and they did feel different. She laughed and said something super supportive, as only a doula and best friend would, but later told us she would have NEVER let us drive to the state fair had she known (LOL, sorry Abiola!).

We parked, unloaded, got sunscreened up, and walked a block or two to the entrance of the fair. It was shaping up to be a HOT day – 93 degrees and sweaty. We asked a stranger to take our group picture at the entrance to the fair and walked over to a booth handing out free vanilla ice cream. As we were eating our ice cream – Brooks VERY pleased with it – things got… um… uncomfortable. Quickly. I was hot and feeling giant and waddling and wanted to sit down, but when we found a shady bench to sit on, I suddenly couldn’t sit very comfortably at all. At this point, contractions were happening. Not 15 minutes apart anymore. More like 6 or 8 minutes apart now. And requiring my focus to manage the discomfort. I was in denial, shock, or disbelief (some combination of all three of those emotions) and so we walked a little more to distract from the contractions, still somehow not believing that we were possibly quite close to meeting our baby. I kept thinking that we were at least 12 hours at the soonest or really a day or two from meeting this baby and just couldn’t think clearly about the imminence of a birth. I asked Abiola to take over timing contractions because I simply could not manage to time them. We made our way to get some corn on the cob and Brooks joyfully climbed on giant tractors while Jamie, Abiola, and I ate our ears of corn – me still in denial. We wandered over to some Kybotas that had a shady lot and by this point Abiola was fully in doula mode, helping guide my breathing through each contraction as I was leaning on side-by-sides and whatever UTV I could get my hands on to get through each contraction. The heat was miserable. In my head was the phrase “I need to get outta here” on repeat but it took me awhile to put it into words and voice them to Abiola and Jamie. I finally was able to say to Jamie “I need to go home. Now.” And we made a plan to head back to the car – a whopping 25 minutes into our time at the Fair! Since I was slow moving, Abiola and I started towards the car while Jamie let Brooks play on some more tractors and told us he would meet us there.

Shortly after we separated, and I was leaning on a golf cart or 4x4 or something that was for sale, a very sweet and nervous looking woman came over to Abiola and I and asked if we needed her to call the medical team over. I instantly panicked and said NO! I was NOT having a baby at the state fair, we were just on our way out! About this time, I got hit by another contraction while she asked if she could give us a lift to our car on her golf cart (a paid-for State Fair bonus privilege, by the way!). Had I not been mid-contraction, I would have politely declined, not wanting to talk to anyone at this point. Thankfully, Abiola graciously accepted this stranger’s offer and before I knew what we were doing, I slowly made my way over to her golf cart while she grabbed the keys. The ride to the car was quick – we had only been at the state fair for 25 minutes after all, and I wasn’t moving anywhere quickly – but uncomfortable! This sweet woman was nervously chatting and I was feeling every bump along the way. I started the car up when we got back and blasted the AC vents in my face as I stood leaning in the open door while Abiola called Jamie to see where he and Brooks were. Soon enough, they got back to the car and we quickly loaded up and headed home.

The 45-minute drive home was, fair enough to say, miserable. I was unable to sit all the way down, so I held myself hovering above the seat by the “oh shit” handle and the center console. Jamie held my hand the entire way and Abiola kept everyone in the car calm – specifically Brooks. I was so worried that I was scaring him with my labor sounds – at this point I was FULLY in active labor and making deep gutteral sounds with each contraction. Involuntary. About 10 minutes into the car ride, I closed my eyes to stay focused on my body and only opened them for little snippets the rest of the way home. It was surreal. I was a planned home birth – no intentions of having a car ride to the hospital in my birth plans – now driving in the car. I fully respect and honor every laboring person who has to journey to the hospital and to all those driving. Not. Fun.

Snippets I remember from the laborland car ride: Jamie and Abiola discussing quietly when to call Ginger -- the midwife -- and me shouting “NOW!”; Abiola being a perfectly calm and quiet doula helping me focus on my mantras and relaxing my body between contractions and me being physically unable to unclench my butt or relax any muscles between contractions; Brooks counting with me through contractions; Jamie’s hand holding mine; the exit off the highway and a feeling of “finally” only realizing we still had about 7 minutes to make it home; telling Jamie to run a stop sign despite oncoming traffic; seeing our midwife walking up the driveway as we pulled in, and our neighbor having a loud, drunk birthday bash in his driveway and feeling a deep desire not to be seen getting into the house.

In my brain, these moments of pulling into the driveway and getting into the house happened in super speed. We pulled into the driveway and Abiola helped me out of the car while Jamie got Brooks and brought him inside to my mom. Ginger walked up as I was navigating my way down and out of the car and said hello to us in the most casual and happy way. I remember wanting to talk to her -- you know, the usual pleasantries. But I couldn't manage more than a quick "hi" before another contraction took over as I stood upright. This one was different. I felt it instantly in my butt and instinctively crossed my legs as I leaned against the car to breathe through the intensity. Abiola was standing to my right and Ginger was standing to my left as I "ooooh-ed" my way through the contraction. When the contraction ended, I told them both I had to go sit on the toilet -- I was so confident that I was about to have the good system-clearing poo that often comes before labor. I didn't have this with Brooks and I had thought about it often in the late parts of pregnancy - this time would be different. I was so set on this, that I remember feeling a little annoyed in that moment that my midwife said, "That sounds like a baby is almost here!" It's funny thinking back to it now because I was clinging to this notion that I still had a lot of laboring left to do, which is why I felt so sure that this was just a poo, not my baby, despite ALL the very real evidence that indicated otherwise. The power of denial! 

So, we're still in super speed and I blink and we're through the house and in my bathroom. Everyone was moving quietly and quickly around me, in a total fuzzy blur. Abiola helped me sit down on the toilet and I get hit with the full force of a Pushing Contraction. There was no part of me that was actively working to push - my body had fully taken over and I was at its mercy. My entire abdomen tightened and I could do nothing other than witness what was happening. I watched myself from within as I made the loudest, most primal noise and my whole body pushed my baby down with all its might. (Jamie will tell you how he felt when he heard me make this sound through the wall as he was trying to quickly pee in the other bathroom and get back to being by my side haha!) The intensity was so all-consuming and it completely shocked me into the reality that I did not, in fact, have to poop, but rather, do the very simple and casual task of birth out a baby. In the middle of this giant surge of a contraction, I felt a pop like a rubber band snapping and a powerful surge of water released into the toilet. My waters did not passively “break”, but rather, they actively exploded. Ginger did the most subtle check and said, "His head is right there, Allison. If you want to move out of the bathroom, now would be the time." A polite way of saying, “let’s go, so you don’t have a toilet baby.” Jamie and Abiola had swapped spots at some point and so Jamie helped me stand and do an awkward wide-legged walk the two steps from the toilet to the bathroom door, where I said I wanted to get on my knees or all fours. I could feel our baby's head so low and gravity actively pulling him down. I could feel my body stretching to open for him. I could also feel panic at the fact that he was ready to be born. I thought we were going to have hours left to labor at home. I thought we were still far from this point, far from these big sensations. I found myself in all fours and completely internal. I was moving, surrounded and guided by my birth team, but I couldn’t focus on any of them. It was like looking at them from an alternate reality, through a portal or something. Disconnected. I felt their love and support – I noticed Jamie had put his birth shirt on (the same one that he wore when we welcomed Brooks earthside two years earlier) and Abiola had lit my protection candle – but I also was very much so in another world from them. Safe.

I was entering the deepest meditative/other-worldly experience of my entire life... you know the scene in Harry Potter where Harry almost dies and meets Dumbledore in the very ethereal platform 9 ¾? That's what it felt like. But instead of Dumbledore, I was having a conversation with myself. Out of body.

Jamie was kneeling right beside me, whispering in my ear, though I don’t know what he was saying at all. My body was taking over. My body was pushing with contractions and at first, I was fighting it. It hurt! I was not ready. I started talking to Baby, to myself. Talking myself through exactly what I needed to do to bring my baby into the world. I remember saying "I can't do this" and pleading for Baby to "go back in for just a little while longer" until I was ready. I remember reaching down to feel his head, to feel my labia and my perineum, to know how much I had stretched and to talk myself into opening even more.  And then, telling my body what I needed to do. I was trying to relax through the intensity, trying to breathe Baby down and out. At a certain point, it hit me that I could not hold back anymore. I had to go THROUGH to get to the other side. I had to...surrender. So, I did. I surrendered to the intensity, the discomfort of it all. I let my body push and I joined in, I face the intensity of the ring of fire, and slowly eased my baby’s head out, which was quickly followed by the rest of him being born. Ginger passed him through my legs as I sat back on my heels and picked up my Baby for the first time. I unwrapped the cord, which was over his shoulder, and scooped him into my arms as I cried. I rubbed on him and soon he was letting out his own cries, too. Jamie was on my left, Ginger off to my right, watching to make sure this new, fresh human was coming earthside just fine, and Abiola was in front of us. After a little while of studying his face and listening to his newborn cries clear his lungs, I needed to move to a different position and as I crawled over to sit on the floor beside the bed, I felt my body push again. Jamie handed me a bowl and I birthed the placenta with the warm, satisfying feeling of pushing a soft placenta after having birthed a big, chunky baby. We moved up into the bed and began to settle into the postpartum – nursing, obsessively and lovingly staring at this baby’s face, reliving the past moments leading up to this new human’s arrival. Eventually, Brooks came upstairs and climbed in our bed to meet his brother. To look at his tiny face and fingers. To hold him.

When we were talking about divine timing before this little human arrived, I thought so often that meant “ooooh the 16th because Brooks was born on the 16th and our house number is 1616” or “ooooh 9/18 would be a cool birthday” or some variation of the numbers of the day. I never thought about the divine timing of a stranger offering us a lift in her golf cart, or the fact that Ginger arrived at the same time we did, or the fact that I was in my house for less than 15 minutes before he was born. Divine timing, indeed. Any one of the many variables could have changed and he could have been born on the side of the road. Or at the State Fair! Or in the garage.

He officially came into the world at 6:02 pm on Sunday evening, September 17th. Once weighed in, Theodore James surprised us all at a whopping 10 pounds and 2 ounces. He took to nursing quickly and had an easy time finding a good latch – something that didn't happen so easily the first time around -- and I was so grateful for that. Jamie and I passed him back and forth, soaking him in. At some point we ate some food. He met his Grandma. He officially met Abiola. We texted family to tell them he had arrived – many didn’t even know I was in labor. 

Holy cow, we would say. That all happened FAST. We collectively took a deep breath and sighed relief.

And then, just like that, we began to settle into our lives as a family, now, of four.