- Daddy holding Sorcha less than an hour after birth
Our little girl Sorcha Skye also arrived about 6 weeks ago on March 20. She weighed 7 lb 5 oz and was 19″ long. Turns out she didn’t want to be born on St. Patrick’s day after all (her estimated due date). I was having fake contractions for several days, early in the a.m. where they’d be strong enough to wake me up, and then once I was awake they’d go away. I wanted to get things moving so the midwives recommended acupuncture and said that they’ve noticed it helps shorten early labor for the moms who have tried it. So I went on Tuesday, and then again on Friday for treatments. It was really relaxing and felt nice energetically, and I figured if nothing else, that made it worth while. On Saturday morning I woke up at around 4 am having contractions again, only this time they didn’t go away. I timed them for about an hour and during that hour also lost the plug and had bloody show- so I knew this was it. I thought I should probably try to eat something but I couldn’t bring myself to (which turned out to be a good thing later since I spent a lot of quality time with a big dog dish if you know what I mean).
After letting Jeremy sleep as long as possible I finally woke him up around 6am and he timed the contractions for me for an hour, they were averaging 6 minutes apart and lasting for 30 seconds to a minute. We decided to take a shower and something about that made everything go even faster. I started having contractions every couple minutes and told him he had better call the midwives. When they got there I was in active labor and dilated to 8 cm. I definitely found my rhythm and spent most of it on my hands and knees back and forth. I got in the tub for transition which helped ease the pain some, and started pushing there, but ended up delivering on the birth stool.
Sorcha was born at 12:12 pm after a little more than 8 hours of labor. I didn’t expect it to go this quickly but I was glad it didn’t go on any longer. I don’t know how much of it can be attributed to the acupuncture, but my early labor was almost nonexistent. We did hypnosis for birth as well and all of that preparation helped tremendously with handling the contractions.
There was a little excitement after she was born where I passed out a couple of times from dehydration and blood loss. But the midwives were fabulous and knew exactly what to do. I was fine after drinking about a gallon of gatorade and resting on the floor for a while.
We are really enjoying getting to know our baby, she’s very laid back and we love her to pieces.
Jeremy was a great birth partner. I couldn’t have asked for a better one, he really was great and helped me so much. I didn’t even have to yell at him. 
I spent most of my labor with my eyes closed, my hands covering my face. I think there is just so much going on that you have to cut off some of the sensory stimulation, so closing eyes was the easiest.
My awesome team of Midwives- Sunita, Suzanne, and Lindsey.
All in all it was a wonderful experience despite ending up with a 3rd degree tear and passing out. The midwives knew what to do and were able to handle everything just fine. They were totally prepared with oxygen, smelling salts, pitocin, and sutures. I’m very grateful I got to have this experience at home, I can’t imagine having to get in a car during labor, that would be one of the most unpleasant experiences ever.
And of course we love our little Peepers as we like to call her, she did a great job coming out. Such a good girl!
