The Birth Story of my Fourth Baby

Birth is such an empowering experience for me. I love reading and listening to birth stories, so I thought I would share my own birth stories, starting from my most recent to my first birth story. Today I want to share the birth story of my fourth baby. I hope it encourages you to trust how your body was created to birth.

It seems that all of my babies like to take their time in arriving earthside, because all of them except one (who was induced early due to small gestational size), have come past their due date.

During this pregnancy, I realised, sometimes with frustrated tears in my eyes, what a blessing it is that each of my babies have made it to full term, in complete health. I know this is not the story of many babies, so I write this with much gratitude to God.

I plan on blogging about all of my births in the coming weeks, but since my fourth baby, who was just born a little over two weeks ago, is fresh in my mind, I decided I would start with his birth.

Before I get into it, let me just preface by writing that if birth has not gone the way you have planned or hoped, let my story of my four births be a reminder that you are not in control. God has designed birth to be a natural process in which your body and your baby decide when the baby is ready to be birthed.

I did everything under the sun to try and kickstart my labour so that my fourth baby would come a little before his due date, and nothing worked. It was a humble reminder to me that I can make my own plans, but ultimately that God has the perfect date in mind for when my baby is meant to come and I must surrender to that (even with a swollen belly and desperate pleads for my way).

Looking back at all of my births, I know the end of each pregnancy comes with emotions that you do not expect to surface, a tired body you try anything to revitalise and mental battles you face daily. It can be exhausting and frustrating, but when they place that pinky, bare and crying baby on your chest, the journey it took to get to that moment, was well and truly worth it.

Here’s the birth story of our fourth baby, Ezra.

The night before

It was my son Leon’s 2nd birthday on the 21st December. This was one of two days I did not want our second son to be born (in addition to Christmas Day). My prayer was that Ezra would come on a different day to Leon’s birthday and before Christmas Day.

We went out for a low-key dinner with just the five of us, celebrating Leon’s birthday. Throughout the later stages of my pregnancy, I experienced fainting and near fainting episodes due to various factors like low iron levels, the heat and dehydration. I had to monitor this because at times, the fainting episodes came on so suddenly. It was one of those near fainting episodes again, as we sat down to eat our burgers and fries. I could hardly breathe and felt light-headed.

Once we finished our dinner, I asked my husband to take me to the car where I could focus on my breathing and rest, while he took our three children to window shop. Once I felt a little better, I decided to record a video of myself on my phone talking about how I was feeling three days past my due date. I look back at that video and laugh, because I was clearly very tired and ready to have this baby. And little did I know, I would have Ezra within 24 hours after I recorded that video.

It was exactly 1.30am the next morning that I woke up needing to pee for the fourth time that night. Once I got into bed, I experienced a big contraction. It was sharper and longer than any other contraction I had experienced in the days before. For about an hour and a half, I laid in bed and felt more contractions come on. I fell asleep at 3am knowing that labour was most likely beginning.

The morning of

It was a Sunday. We were getting ready to go to church that morning. The contractions had slowed down once I fell asleep, as expected. When I awoke at about 6.30 that morning, it was not long before the contractions began again. I started tracking them on my contraction app. They varied in frequency and length, which is how my third labour was.

I hopped into the shower, still expecting to go to church with the rest of my family. However, my husband noticed that I was contracting more than usual and encouraged me to rest and stay home. Reluctantly, I listened. It is like when you acknowledge that labour has begun, you are afraid that it will not progress and you were making it all up in your head (anyone else experience this?).

When my husband and children were out of the house, I decided to make a plan in my head that I would tidy and vacuum the house and then reward myself with rest.

Once I finished cleaning, I sat on my exercise ball and watched a Levi Lusko sermon. After about 20 minutes, I laid on the couch and had a little cat nap.

I messaged my husband just after midday saying that Ezra will most likely be here by tonight and to contact his sister, who we arranged to look after the children while we went to the hospital.

Within two hours, my family was home, my parents had come to drop off something and my sister-in-law had just arrived. It was about 2.30pm when I called the hospital to say that I felt it was time for me to come. The midwife said I knew my body and if I think I should come, then to come.

By this point, contractions were 5-7 minutes apart. I felt like I was breezing through them, but felt anxious that at any moment, my waters could break and that it was go time.

I forgot to mention that I had my tens machine on at this point (if you haven’t tried a tens machine, please do yourself a favour and hire one for your next labour).

I said my teary goodbyes to my daughters (our son was having his nap). My eldest daughter cried with me as we had a heartfelt hug.

At the hospital

We arrived at the birthing unit just after 3.30pm. My midwife, Hannah, was as lovely and as calm as can be. She, knowing it was my fourth baby, gave me the space we needed. She even asked me if I wanted an internal, to which I responded no. I felt like I might feel defeated if I knew how far along I was progressing.

Over the course of the next two hours, I varied my positions by bouncing on the exercise ball, leaning against the bed, giving my legs a break and sitting on the toilet when I felt the urge to poo.

I played some Christmas music for a little while and then decided the quiet provided a refreshing change of atmosphere.

For the first time, it was just my husband and I in the birthing room. I’ve always had an additional family member in the room with me. It was really peaceful.

My husband predicted that Ezra would be born at 6.30pm. I predicted 8pm. I was also slightly nervous that if my labour did not progress, that they would send me home. My contractions did ease when I arrived at the hospital, but they quickly ramped up again.

Every now and then, Hannah would come and place the heart monitor around my belly to hear Ezra’s heartbeat and she would place her hand on my belly to feel a contraction, but that was the only monitoring that she did. I loved the non-invasiveness of this labour.

The birth of Ezra

A little earlier, Hannah asked if I would like to hop into the bath. Initially I did not feel like it. But a little before 5.30pm, I decided I would like to hop into the water. It was like I subconsciously knew that Ezra would be here soon, because it was soon after that things progressed quickly.

The bath was delightful. I loved how relaxed I felt and how the warm water made my contractions feel less intense. Hannah, my husband and I had some nice conversations in between contractions and then all of sudden, my waters broke. I remember how intense that contraction was and the expectation I had that my waters would break in that moment. Unlike with my last labour, where my waters were a browny colour, my waters this time round were clear.

Within a couple of contractions, I felt the urge to push. Before I knew it, Ezra’s head was crowning. I remember Hannah asking Aash, my husband, if he could see the head and noted the hair on Ezra.

This was the confusing part about my labour, but for some reason, I struggled to push out the rest of Ezra’s body. I don’t know if it was because Hannah assumed Ezra was in distress or for some other reason, she called the emergency button and without me knowing, a couple of other midwives came rushing in. They lifted my body up above the water and helped me pull the rest of Ezra’s body out. This was by far, the most painful part of my labour.

Ezra struggled to breathe at first, so after they placed him on my chest, Hannah quickly took him and patted him down. Then, after a few moments, we heard his tiny cry. My baby with the chunkiest lips and full crop of hair, was here.

That moment of elation, relief and emotions as high as the sky is like no other moment in this lifetime, even the fourth time round.

My husband was right; Ezra arrived at 6.34pm. My active labour was 44 minutes long! I prayed for a quick labour and that is what I got!

The sun rays were gleaming through the window, like a literal golden hour. It was just perfect.

Unfortunately, as soon as I stood up out of the bath, a huge gush of blood escaped my body and quickly filled the bath. Soon after, I laid on the bed and Hannah placed a pad under me. She weighed the pad later on and noted that I had haemorrhaged. I had to stay overnight for monitoring. While I was tired and faint, that was the only complication that had occurred from Ezra’s birth.

He weighed just under 3.6kg (our biggest baby!) and was 54cm long!

He latched onto my breast straight away and fed like a champion. His birth was truly the cherry on top of all my births. To God be the glory!