Easton’s Birth

I worked up until I was 37.5 weeks pregnant. My last day was March 31, 2023. I was feeling good at this point; just the usual soreness that comes with being pregnant. I had booked the next two weeks as vacation to hopefully enjoy some time to read, enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, make meals, nap and get stuff ready for baby. Easter was also thrown in there. 

So I made it through my first week of vacation. It was so enjoyable. I crushed a book a day and didn’t do much of anything. I went to the midwife on April 6, and Simone said at my next appointment we could do a stretch and sweep to attempt to get things going if I wanted. Sounds like a plan to me. I would have been just over 39 weeks and I would have almost been through my 2 weeks of vacation. 

Fast forward to Easter weekend. Easter Sunday we went to the Chilled Cork Easter brunch with mom and dad. We didn’t get home until 130 so I said to Shane that we might as well just go for a walk and hope Holden naps in the stroller. He surprisingly fell asleep fairly quickly on our walk so we just continued walking since it was so nice out. I could feel random contractions here and there but nothing much. We walked about 4.5 kilometers. We spent the rest of the day outside. That night once Holden was in bed we went downstairs and watched Big Bang and both fell asleep on the couch. I woke up at 11 and we went to bed. 

From midnight to 3 am I was having pretty consistent contractions but was basically sleeping through them. At 3, I decided to get up and time them. I didn’t wake Shane up cause I could talk through them and they weren’t intense. I just walked around the living room and continued timing them. They were anywhere from 3-5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute. Around 5, they started to pick up a bit but I could still talk through them. I woke Shane up cause I had a feeling this baby was going to come today (this was April 10). He came to the living room and laid on the couch. He could tell they were picking up so he was getting a bit worried.  I told Shane he had time to shower and he called my mom to have her come over to watch Holden (I told Shane to tell mom she had time to shower, too….). After about 10 minutes of Shane being in the shower I told him things seemed to be picking up and he needed to get out of the shower. We came upstairs and Shane paged the midwives. This was at about 540. Simone said by the way I sounded, things were definitely going to happen, so to head to the hospital as soon as mom got to our house. Things really picked up from here. I could feel a ton of pressure on my pelvic floor and the contractions were intense and I couldn’t talk through them. I just did laps around the kitchen and was breathing through them. I kept asking Shane when mom was going to be here because I was getting a bit nervous with how intense they were and not being at the hospital. Mom got to our house around 5:50. During all of this chaos, Shane was frantically packing the car because we didn’t have anything fully packed or ready to go. Just as I was walking to the front door to get my shoes on, my water broke (this was at about 5:55). Yikes. And we are talking like in the movies. It was a tidal wave of water. Pretty sure mom, Shane and I all thought ummmmmm now what?!. So Shane called Simone back and told her what had happened and she said to stay put and for Shane to fill up the bath tub. Grrrreat. They told me I was a perfect candidate for a home birth since I don’t do any meds for pain management but I never wanted that mess in my house or to not be at a hospital, but here we are. Shane got the tub ready and helped me into the tub and things picked up like crazy. This baby was coming fast. Apparently Shane kept telling me to just wait, 5 more minutes, etc. that Simone would be here soon, but as we know, you can’t really hold a baby in once it’s coming haha. (And I don’t recall him telling me any of this haha) So without a midwife here yet, Shane delivered Easton solo. Thankfully, he came out crying and everything was good. As soon as he came out, Simone was pulling in the driveway. Praise the lord because no one knew what to do next. Simone came in and had me flip over (I delivered on my hands and knees just like I did with Holden) and delivered the placenta and then she told Shane since he had already done everything, he might as well cut the cord. My second midwife, Erin arrived and she had Shane do skin to skin with Easton while I was taken care of. Mom and Holden got to meet Easton shortly after which was super special. Holden had just woke up at 6 and by 6:10, he was a big brother. Holden was super excited. He came running down the hall to tell me there was a baby in the house (who knew haha) By 7, we were all loaded up and on our way to the hospital. 

Fun fact about home births, the placenta is left here. Simone asked Shane for a container and Shane not knowing what she needed this container for, brought her a small yogurt cup haha. He then came back with a Boston pizza container and that’s where the placenta went and then before we left for the hospital, Simone put it in the freezer. Again, who knew. So the current joke is that no one is going to accept leftovers or any food from our house if it’s in a Boston pizza container haha. 

They’re not kidding when they say your second baby comes faster, but I don’t think anyone expected me to be in labour for basically 50 minutes and not make it to the hospital. Clearly I didn’t haha. We are so thankful that everything turned out great and that we had Simone and Erin race to our house so we could have an unplanned home birth in the end. It wasn’t the plan at all, but turned out to be super special. Easton is the perfect addition to our family and we couldn’t be happier to have him here. 

My mom wrote down a little timeline of how quickly things happened: