luca's birth story

On Sunday, a day past my “due date”, we spent the day at my mom’s house. The boys were riding bikes in the driveway, and no matter where I tried to sit to watch, I was incredibly uncomfortable. My mom offered to keep the older boys for the night so I could try to get some rest since we didn’t know when baby would make an appearance. 

Around 11 am the next morning I started cramping a bit, but nothing consistent. I got in the bath for a bit to try to relax, and texted my sister to give her a heads up that I thought labor might be starting. After about an hour or so in the bath, I got up and made some leftover tacos for lunch. A few bites into lunch, I had to use the bathroom multiple times. That’s when I knew I was really in labor. I let Allie know maybe she should head our way just in case things happened quickly again. She fed my niece lunch and got on the road. A couple hours later she picked up Jack from my mom’s house so he could be there for the birth. 

By 2:30 the cramps were around 8 minutes apart, but still not very painful. We hung out in the living room and things started to become more intense. Around 3:30 I had Andy call the midwives because the cramps were about 3-4 minutes apart at that point. The only position that gave me relief during them was leaning on an exercise ball and moving my hips side to side. The birth team arrived around 4:40 and I was adamant that we started filling the birth pool. They gave it a few minutes to see how my body was handling things & then everyone (Jack included) got to work filling the pool. There was hardly enough water in it before I insisted that I get in. 

After a few more contractions in the pool, my body was ready for baby to make their entrance. His head was halfway out & I felt like he wasn’t budging, so my midwife suggested I change positions. With a few more contractions, baby boy Luca was born at 5:36 into his dad’s hands. He weighed 10 lbs even and was 23” long. We stayed in the water until after I birthed the placenta, and then everyone helped me to bed to finish checking on Luca. Everything went smoothly, and I couldn’t have asked for a better support team for my birth!