Aidan Jeremiah: Part 3, The Birth

Ashlynne and Elise were at a friends house for the evening. The other children were going to stay with my father in an upstairs bedroom where we had placed the extra mattresses for the night so they could get some rest(natural birth tends to be ummmm....noisy).

Within a short while my midwife and her assistant arrived at our door. As upset as I had been a couple hours before, I felt an overwhelming peace and calmness at her arrival. It was time for the kids to sleep I hugged Brinton then Julianna and I let them know they would have a baby brother by morning (hoping that was the case). When I came to Liam, my baby, I held him, hugged him. He was very clingy and unusually attached to me as if he knew that he was about to lose his spot as my youngest child. I reassured him that I love him. I sang him a little song and we cuddled for a minute. Then I watched as my sweet Liam toddled out the door as my little baby...the next time I would see him he would be a big brother.

When the kids had left, we went about preparing for the birth, making sure we had everything necessary, checking vitals, etc. We chatted for a bit and then it was time to rupture my membranes. It was the weirdest sensation, waters gushing, my lack of control in the matter...

"So now what?" I asked.

"We wait."

MORE WAITING. Yay me! (insert extreme sarcasm)

We visited for a long while, contractions came and went, nothing really timeable or worth recording but they were there. Soon the contractions became much more consistent. Each time I would have one my midwife gave me several drops of the herb Cottonwood Bark. It has this really bitter, stinging taste, but it helps in bringing on the contractions. After drinking all the castor oil I did earlier that day I'm not sure anything could taste worse.

It was 11:30pm, it was getting late and we were all getting tired. It appeared that it would be some time before active labor really kicked in and we decided we could all use some rest. We had air mattresses in the living room for the midwife and her assistant. I was becoming more uncomfortable and decided to stay seated in the recliner chair we had placed by our bed. Jeremiah stayed right next to me.

...and then everything was quiet...

Sitting in the dark, quiet room I began to hear the rhythm of my laboring body. The beginning , the rise, the peak, the fall of each contraction...over and over again. Closer and closer. I dug deep down inside me and gathered my strength. I breathed. I moaned. I sang my birth song through each new contraction that now seemed to come faster and more consistently. I was afraid if I didn't wake everyone up soon and let them know that Aidan's birth was near that there would not be enough time to prepare the birthing tub for my planned water birth. I nudged Jeremiah and asked him to go wake them.

Everyone began to move quickly. They inflated the birthing tub, and began to fill it. I continued to labor in the chair feeling calm and collected. I was excited. It was almost time. Finally it was time to step into the birthing tub where I would deliver my baby. It was 12:45am.

...and then I lost my nerve...

The only problem is that you can't lose your nerve when you are in labor. Once you are there it doesn't end until you've had a baby. Even now I can't imagine what came over me. I've had 5 children before this, 2 of them at home and yet I was scared! I mean really scared. I don't know if it was the pain or what, it was so incredibly wierd. I actually was having an internal war with myself as I knelt in the tub. I felt like Aidan was telling me "Mom it's time, I'm coming out now" and I was actually, literally shaking my head and telling him "No" I kept telling Jeremiah, I'm scared, I know it's irrational but I don't think I can do this, I'm scared. He offered up some wonderful words of encouragement but I just wasn't feeling it. I'm pretty sure I told him that I loved him but he needed to shut up.

...and then I felt Aidan pushing through...

I was screaming. Like really, really screaming. I had never screamed like that. I know it wasn't the pain because the water all around me was soothing. It was warm, I felt weightless, I felt protected in that big tub. It was fear.

I slowly felt my body pushing my baby out. I tried not to but the feeling was so overwhelming. As he crowned he twisted and turned his head in such a way that I screamed "GET HIM OUT! PLEASE HELP ME! PLEASE!" I'm not sure if I was screaming for Jeremiah's help, or for my midwifes help, or for my Heavenly Father's help, I just knew that I couldn't do it any longer. I just couldn't.

...and then he was out...

All of a sudden I felt all the pain just wash away. My eyes were blurry from the tears and my glasses were splashed and foggy from the water. I reached down into the birthing tub and grabbed for my baby although I could not see him clearly. As I lifted him up out of the water and into the world he began to cry. He was beautiful. It was 1:17am on Sunday, September 26. I held him in my arms and everything just stopped. For several minutes it was just me and him. There was things happening all around me but all I saw was Aidan. I realized I hadn't checked to see if he was actually a boy, he was. I held him in the water for a long time just gazing at this beautiful little person that I had just been blessed with. He rooted around looking for something to eat and nursed right away.



When the time came to step out of the birthing tub I turned to hand Aidan over to Jeremiah and noticed that our little guys umbilical cord had a true knot in it!! Based on statistics true knots occur in about 1% of pregnancies. Actually, true knots lead to an extremely high risk of fetal loss and are not generally detected prior to birth. What a miracle our little Aidan's birth had been. The fact that his birth was so quick and without any complications whatsoever was indeed a miracle. I was amazed.



I stepped out of the birth tub and into the shower for several minutes. Jeremiah held Aidan skin-to-skin for warmth and had some bonding time with our newborn son. I was so glad that they would have this quiet time together before Miah had to leave for the week. I feel so incredibly lucky to have married such an amazing, supportive husband and father.

When he was finally ready to part with Aidan for a moment we weighed and measured our little peanut, he was 7lbs 11 ozs, 21" long. I diapered him, dressed him, and swaddled him. He quickly fell asleep so peacefully.



It was well passed 2am, maybe even 3am. I was so exhausted that I could hardly keep my eyes open. My midwife was giving me some instructions for the next several days and I was nodding off to sleep, I apologized profusely but my eyes could not stay open any longer. She left a short while later and I snuggled up to my husband on one side of me, next to our newborn baby boy on the other and I slept....for an hour. Aidan woke me up wailing, poopy, mad, and ready to eat. The name Aidan means "Little Fire" and in that moment as he demanded to be nursed I KNEW we had given him the perfect name.