Haddon’s Birth Story

I have put this off for far too long. I would like to preface this post by saying that I haven’t wanted to share my experience because I don’t want anyone to be off-put by my story. Each birth is unique and just because mine was a certain way, doesn’t mean yours or anyone else’s story will be the same.

Our second child, Haddon James Barnhart, was born on Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 12:45am. He weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. He was born at the same birthing center we had Nora at, Natural Beginnings, in Austin, TX. He was born without medication after about eleven hours of labor.

On Monday, August 12th – two days after my due date, which was August 10th, I sat down to feed Nora lunch. I had a horrible headache come out of nowhere and I was feeling nauseous from it. Around 1pm, I realized I was experiencing rhythmic back pain. I began timing my pain, because when I was in labor with Nora, I had almost exclusively experienced back labor. By 2pm, the surges of pain were almost exactly 10 minutes apart and would last for 1 minute each time. I decided to call Zach at work and ask him to come home and help me put Nora down for her nap. He came home immediately – another perk of living less than 10 minutes away from the church.

I still wasn’t sure if I was in labor or not, because with Nora, my water had broken and that was what started my labor. This was all so different and foreign, like the whole pregnancy had been. Once Zach arrived home, he began religiously timing the contractions and by 3pm he decided to call Ms. Carla, a friend who is more like family. He asked her to be on stand-by because we were going to call the midwife and see what she said.

At this point, I was feeling pain every 5ish minutes and it would last for 30-45 seconds each time. I was very calm though – the complete opposite of last time – I was pacing and practicing rainbow breathing (which is where you visualize a color and an object that is that color until you have gone through all the colors of the rainbow). Bridget, the midwife, said to come on in because we didn’t know how long it would take to get there with Austin traffic and it being so close to 4pm. We called Ms. Carla back and prepared to leave when she arrived.

What I didn’t expect was to be so emotional about leaving Nora while we went to the birthing center. I knew it wasn’t possible for her to come with us, but I was very upset about leaving her and broke down. We hugged and kissed Nora goodbye and told her we would bring her back a little brother. The traffic was awful and sitting was so painful for me. But I kept doing my rainbow breathing. We left at 3:30pm and arrived almost exactly an hour later.

They took us back to check me and I thought for sure that they were going to tell me it was a false alarm to go back home. I was so calm and while I was feeling pain, it was nothing like I remembered it being with Nora. I know Zach was thinking the same thing too, but he brought the bag in this time. I was 7cm dilated and 70% effaced when they checked me, so it wasn’t a false alarm and it seemed to have moved pretty quickly. I was glad we had gone on and come in.

They put me on the monitor for awhile to check on little man. This wasn’t fun, because I had to sit. They couldn’t get a good read on Haddon either, when the midwife had checked me, she had touched his head and I think it freaked him out because he was going crazy moving. After what seemed like forever, they took us back to the birthing center. Since we were the only people there, we were able to be in the big room again – where Nora had been born. That was really special to us.

It was the strangest experience. We calmly unloaded our things while the water was running for the birthing tub. Zach put on our playlist and set up the diffuser. I was able to use all of my essential oils I had planned for this time. We even took a picture in the room. I was like who are we and what is happening? Then we waited…

I labored in the tub for a while which was much more comfortable this time than it had been with Nora. The midwife kept asking if I felt the urge to push and how I should just let myself if I did. I kept saying I didn’t though, which was strange. I labored in all kinds of ways, thinking surely I was getting close…By 8pm, I asked if they would check me because I felt like I wasn’t progressing. I was 8 cm dilated and 90% effaced. I was 100% frustrated upon hearing this news.

Bridget, the midwife, said we had some options. She said she could stretch my cervix the rest of the way and/or she could break my water. I didn’t want her to do either of those things, I really wanted Haddon to come in his own time and way. So I said I would wait and tried pacing while in labor to help speed things along. At midnight, I was 100% frustrated and exhausted. So I asked to be checked again.

This time, I was only 8.5 cm dilated and still only 90% effaced. I decided I couldn’t press on with Haddon taking his sweet time. I was worn out but in too much pain to sleep. I asked her to break my water. To say this was painful is a massive understatement. It was excruciating. I almost immediately threw up multiple times, although I hadn’t eaten anything since that morning. Apparently my body tries to throw up whenever I’m in hard labor. The pain was unbearable, my rainbow breathing wasn’t helping now.

I felt like I was dying. I wanted to die. I couldn’t stay calm to breathe properly. They offered me nitrous oxide, which I don’t think works on me, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t able to breathe to make the mask work. I had a cold and couldn’t breathe out of my nose and they kept wanting me to leave it on my face to make it work but I felt like I was suffocating.

Contractions were hard and fast. My back was killing me. I just wanted the pain to stop. One of the worst parts was the midwife and nurse weren’t telling me what was going on, I guess because of my screaming in pain. I had no idea how far or close I was to being finished. My body started pushing and I couldn’t control it even though I wanted to. I screamed out that I wanted a c-section. They didn’t laugh out loud, I’m sure they were inside, but they said that it was too late for that – he was crowning. And less than 30 minutes later, Haddon was born.

He was strong, crying, and beautiful as they laid him on my chest. He had beautiful long fingers and toes – his nails were so long. He had a head of dark hair. He wasn’t massive like they had predicted. His little cries sounded just like a kitten. He wasn’t covered in vernix like Nora had been, he was relatively clean.

I thought the euphoria would set in like it had with Nora, but it didn’t. I was still in so much pain. They gave me some medicine to ensure I didn’t hemorrhage like I did with Nora. They cut the cord once it had stopped pulsing and we put myrrh oil on his stump to aid in healing. Then we waited on my placenta. Again, it didn’t seem to want to come. The massaging was so painful to get it to release. I handed him off to Zach for them to try to clean me up a little, which was easier said than done.

I was shaking so badly, I was convulsing. I felt so weak and still in so much pain. I asked to hold Haddon while they stitched me up, I had another 2nd degree tear, which I expected with how quickly it had all happened. More pain, so much discomfort with the post birth cramps – they don’t lie, it is worse the second time. I agreed to take some ibuprofen, if that tells you how much pain I was in. I also smeared geranium and lavender over my stomach to help with the cramping.

Haddon latched like a pro and nursed well, but I suspected he’d had a tongue tie like Nora did since it’s hereditary. We watched them weigh Haddon and do all the necessary checks an hour or so later. He was so small and perfect, I couldn’t believe he was finally here. We were able to anoint him with frankincense oil and pray for/over him, just the three of us. This is something we started when Nora was born and is a really special part of the birth experience.

We let our families know that he had arrived, but it was so late/early, especially since everyone back home is on Eastern time. Then I was able to take an herbal bath, I was very excited about this because last time, I wasn’t able to due to the fact that I’d lost too much blood. Zach held Haddon and did skin-to-skin time with him, which was really neat because I could just soak and watch them together.

Around 4am we finally swaddled him and laid him down in the bassinet. He were exhausted and fell right to sleep. I don’t know if it was exhaustion or adrenaline (maybe both) but even though I rubbed oils all over me and laid down, I couldn’t sleep. Around 5am I successfully went pee on my own – which is a requirement before you can leave. I just wanted to hold you, so I went back to bed with you in my arms.

Zach woke up when you had a little spit up and we decided to go home. We were anxious to get back to Nora. Haddon was a trooper and fell asleep for the whole ride home, which was a stark contrast to Nora, who screamed the whole way home. We stopped to get breakfast because I was starving. When we arrived home, Nora was still asleep. Ms. Carla was an angel and had not only stayed the night on our couch to take care of Nora, but had also done our dishes and our laundry!

We woke Nora up and introduced her to her brother. She didn’t get it at all but it was really cute at the same time to see her try to figure out what this little baby was. Her and Piper were both very curious (Piper was probably thinking “Oh no! Not another little person!”), little did they know that their worlds would never be the same.

We felt – and still do – that God had blessed us so much with another healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. We love our little boy more than we could ever imagine and are incredibly thankful!