Jozef's birth story. Part 1

We awoke to the alarm. 5am. Charlie always jokes that he's never seen me awake so early. He poked fun at me about it as we got out of bed. I smiled. I was cautiously optimistic that we would be having our baby that day. I had actually gotten a good night's sleep and didn't have painful contractions during the night! Starting labor in the morning after a full night's rest has long been on my birth wish list and it was looking like it might finally come true. I hate starting labor in the middle of the night because I don't like waking people up, yet laboring alone is emotionally devastating for me.

I’ve always had anxiety about the day my children would be born. With Azure, we knew the exact day she was conceived and so I figured that she would be born exactly 38 weeks from conception. I don’t know why I was so naive, but I insisted upon it. She was born 3 days later. And Vince was born 9 days late which was pure torture! Zeke was born 4 days late, but I kind of expected him to be born on Christmas day, which he was.

And so, this child was no different. The due date was July 3rd; knowing I’d go over I was really hoping for a 4th of July baby. At my 40 week appointment on Tues, July 3rd I was feeling super anxious. I hadn’t really had any contractions and I knew we weren’t going to be having a baby the next day. Our Dr asked what our plan was for going over. Did we just want to wait and see? “PLEASE NO!” I thought to myself. I’ve been down that road before and it was maddening.

I couldn’t bear the thought of still being pregnant over the weekend just waiting for things to happen on their own. Especially since my parents were flying out that Friday. Having someone waiting on me to have a baby is a huge contributing factor to my anxiety. We had already experienced that together with Vince's birth, 8 years prior when he was 9 days late, which is why I wanted them to come after the baby was born...

Since I’ve been a 3 time VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), a planned induction has never been an option for me. Cervidil and Pitocin (to start) put too much risk on the cesarean incision. But even if it were an option, there is so much judgment and shame around planned inductions from the “natural” birth community. And unfortunately, that is what I was indoctrinated with during our first pregnancy 12 years ago.

So, when Dr. Hudson asked us what our plan was- I asked her what our options were with me being a VBAC. What she said BLEW ME AWAY!!