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My Wild Pregnancy and Free Birth Part 4: The Birth
122 Plays3 months ago
Welcome to part 4 of my wild pregnancy and home birth story where I am telling you all about the birth itself! This labor and delivery was my best one yet, and I’m excited to share the story with y’all. I hope by the end of this episode you’re encouraged that birth can be beautiful, peaceful, and comfortable.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to the eat like a mother podcast where we take complicated topics surrounding hormones and metabolism and make them simple and applicable to your daily life as a woman. I'm your host, Kasti Welfell.
00:00:25
Speaker
My hope is that you walk away feeling empowered to start taking radical responsibility for your health and lean into this body God created for you. Are you ready to eat like a mother? This podcast is meant for educational purposes only and is not meant to be taken as medical advice.
00:00:43
Speaker
Please consult your physician before making any dietary or lifestyle changes.
Mini Series on Wild Pregnancy
00:00:47
Speaker
Well, welcome back to this week's episode of the podcast. Today is the next part of my mini series, all on my wild pregnancy and free birth.
00:00:57
Speaker
And if you are just now tuning in, go back and listen to the prior three episodes, all on the planning and preparation and prenatal care that came with planning for a wild pregnancy and executing an intentional free birth.
Birth Story of Kasti's Daughter
00:01:14
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be talking about the actual birth itself, and I'm just going to be telling you the birth story of my daughter. My hope is that my story gives you more confidence to go into a natural and physiological world.
00:01:30
Speaker
birth. I hope you feel empowered to take this information, listen to this story, and go and take radical responsibility for your birth. No matter where you choose to birth, whether you choose to birth in a stream, in the forest, or in a hospital setting, I want you to know that birth can be beautiful and magical and wonderful and it does not have to be the scary thing that the movies and television and everyone on the internet and their mother says that birth is. Birth can actually be a wonderful and transformative experience and this is my third birth and my first free birth and I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is one of the most life-changing experiences
00:02:16
Speaker
a woman can experience so i want to give you a little bit of an idea of how that went for me so for annie rain this is my my third born my daughter this day was pretty much a really normal day i had known that i was getting close to labor for a few days at this point and i had had a few really close calls in the weeks leading up to this birth where i would feel some really strong contractions consistently for about a minute apart, but then nothing came of it.
00:02:49
Speaker
So the day that she was born, I knew that labor was getting close because I had had these signs of labor happening, even though it never came to fruition.
00:03:00
Speaker
And around 38 weeks pregnant, I got into this like mental zone and bringing my baby into the world was literally all that I could focus on. And I was ready for her to come.
00:03:13
Speaker
This pregnancy, as I've discussed in prior podcasts, was by far my best pregnancy yet. I felt amazing pretty much all the way through the pregnancy. Towards the end, I started to get a little bit more tired than normal where all I wanted to do was pretty much hibernate.
00:03:30
Speaker
If I didn't have to leave my room, i didn't because honestly, i just didn't want to. I really tried to lean into my intuition going into a free birth and it just felt right that if I felt like I needed to lie down or sleep more or stay in my room,
00:03:45
Speaker
I would do that. And I'm sure there's probably some research on animals and giving birth in the wild and something like that, that talks about this. Like maybe people observe this in animals.
00:03:58
Speaker
I don't know. But this just, this just made sense for me. And so those last few weeks, I really just spent it resting, hibernating, and really just focusing on the fact that my baby was going to be coming any day now.
Pre-Labor Activities
00:04:14
Speaker
So the day before she was born, I had like a sudden burst of energy. So the weeks prior, i' had really just started to feel pretty tired. I was doing a lot of resting. I wasn't getting out of the house much.
00:04:27
Speaker
But this particular day, the day before she was born, i just had so much energy. I deep cleaned and scrubbed every surface of my house. vacuumed like a mad woman, dusted the whole nine yards.
00:04:40
Speaker
My house was spotless from top to bottom. And around 2 p.m. that day, my husband had left on an errand and me and my oldest, Sparrow, were in the house finishing up the kitchen.
00:04:52
Speaker
She had recently gotten some princess dresses for Christmas and this day she decided her aerial dress was the one that she would just rock for the day. Naturally, as we cleaned the kitchen and made our afternoon snack, I put on the Little Mermaid soundtrack, but not the Disney version, the original Broadway version, because of course that's so much better.
00:05:13
Speaker
I had this Broadway version going and obviously i had to of course give her a full performance complete with all the choreography and pizzazz you can think of.
00:05:25
Speaker
We laughed and sang and danced
Managing Early Labor
00:05:28
Speaker
and laughed some more. And once I had finished my honestly stellar performance, I started to feel contractions kick up again and be pretty strong.
00:05:37
Speaker
My husband got home and I told him that we would be having a baby in the next 24 hours. To which he responded, sick. And we kept on with the day. So that evening we did our normal evening routine. After dinner, we got the kids ready for bed.
00:05:54
Speaker
And as I was nursing my two-year-old, I was just, you know, perusing Facebook Marketplace in the manner that I do. when I came across an awesome set of lamps on Facebook Marketplace for free. And if you follow me on Instagram, I am kind of like the queen of free stuff on Facebook Marketplace.
00:06:11
Speaker
And we had just moved into this house. We didn't really have any furniture and we needed lamps for our master bedroom because it's completely against my religion to turn on an overhead light. So of course I immediately messaged the woman and asked her if I could go pick them up that evening.
00:06:28
Speaker
She said yes. And I sent my husband on the task. And it was really funny because like right after he left, I was nursing our two year old and I had texted him that contractions were starting to kick up and they were pretty regular. They were about a minute apart.
00:06:44
Speaker
And he was like, oh, crap. Do you need me to turn around? And I was like, nah I think we'll be fine. They'll probably slow down when I'm done nursing. Just get the lamps.
00:06:55
Speaker
Don't be chatty. Come back. And of course, once I finished nursing my son to sleep, I got up and the contraction slowed down. The house was already clean, so i decided to do some things to keep me busy, keep my mind off of the fact that I was pretty sure I was in labor.
00:07:10
Speaker
and the only thing that I could think of to do to keep me busy was record my newest free webinar, Assess Your Thyroid and Metabolism at Home for Free, which you can sign up for below in the show notes.
00:07:22
Speaker
Oh, I had been working on the information and slides for a few weeks on this webinar, and I really wanted to get it recorded and edited before the baby came. And what better way to halt your procrastination than by being an active labor.
00:07:37
Speaker
So I sat on my birthing ball and recorded. it literally took me twice as long to record the webinar because I would have to stop between contractions, but I got it completed.
00:07:49
Speaker
And now it was around 8pm and my contractions were still only like 10 to 15 minutes apart. My husband and I spent some time together, made sure we had all of our Just in case plans aligned, we blew up the birth pool, got the room all set up, making sure we had all of our supplies together, which I'll also link in the show notes, just the list on Amazon, the things that I bought for the birth.
00:08:13
Speaker
It really wasn't a lot of stuff, but they were the things that I felt most necessary to have on hand. And it was really helpful have all of them on hand. So anyways, our babies woke up around 10 PM that night and my husband went to go lay back down with them and get them back to sleep while I kept laboring.
00:08:30
Speaker
At this point, the contractions had slowed to like 10 to 15 minutes apart, but we're still super strong. So around 11 o'clock I texted him Hey, i don't think we're having a baby tonight. Get some sleep. It'll probably be tomorrow.
00:08:43
Speaker
I'll come wake you up if things change. So he went to bed and i stayed up for a little bit longer. I watched a movie and just kind of like tried to see if things picked up anymore, but they didn't.
00:08:56
Speaker
So I went to sleep and slept through most of the contractions. But the next morning I woke up and pretty much had no desire to get out of bed or do anything but work through contractions.
00:09:09
Speaker
So that's exactly what I did. My husband brought me all of my meals and snacks in bed. I moved really just around my room, watched movies like the new Wicked movie, which I probably should not have watched at very severely pregnant because I legitimately cried my eyes out.
00:09:27
Speaker
Anyways, at this point, I was in denial that I was in active labor and I was doing everything I could to slow down labor, which meant I didn't do a lot of movement much of the day.
00:09:39
Speaker
The main reason I was trying to slow it down was because I wanted to have the baby after my kids went to bed. My two-year-old is in a stage where anything new makes him extremely emotional and I didn't think having a screaming toddler would really be the vibe that I was going for in a free birth.
00:09:55
Speaker
So I spent most of the day laying around. I used my loom box during every contraction because it was so freaking soothing. I hydrated a ton with salt water and milk as well as my Nora tea, that's nettle, oat straw, red raspberry leaf, and alfalfa, a mixture that I drank most of my pregnancy.
00:10:17
Speaker
And then I just rested as much as I could. As contractions started to kick up, I realized that we really were going to have a baby soon So i decided to distract myself even more by now editing my newest webinar. Around four o'clock, I texted my husband and told him things are starting to get more intense. I was still able to speak three contractions and they were still only five minutes apart.
00:10:43
Speaker
at this time. But when he came up into our room, probably to bring me another snack or some milk or something, he saw that things really were truly starting to pick up. And he quickly started filling up the birth pool, did dinner time with the older kids, and then went to go lay them down for bed around 5 p.m.
00:11:02
Speaker
And at like 5 30, I texted him, you know, are they going to sleep? Can't wait to labor with you. Really looking forward to laboring with you Probably because things were starting to get really intense because not even 10 minutes later, i texted him yo, i'm I'm getting in the water.
Support During Labor
00:11:20
Speaker
To which he responds, are you in transition? i didn't think I was in transition, which looking back, I was absolutely in transition, but I got in the water and the water was cold.
00:11:33
Speaker
So i texted him and was like, hey, water's cold. really could use you in here. The water's not deep enough. Are they asleep? You know, just, I'm just, I can see it looking back at our text messages that things really were starting to pick up.
00:11:49
Speaker
And it's really funny because like my grammar went out the door, my spelling went out the door. i was just trying to text him and let him know where I was at, but things were were pretty intense.
00:12:00
Speaker
So when Ollie, our two-year-old fell asleep, my husband and our four-year-old showed up in our room around 6 p.m. And legitimately, as soon as I saw them, I burst into tears and physically felt my whole body relax.
00:12:15
Speaker
I didn't realize how much tension I was carrying laboring alone and felt so much relief when they arrived in the room. They immediately went to work doula-ing. My husband warmed up the water in the pool then went to work as the best doula, midwife, husband, i don't know, a girl could ask for.
00:12:35
Speaker
During contractions he would apply pressure to my sacrum or do hip squeezes which if you don't know what this is, if this is your first time birthing, Look it up online. It is so magical. They are the things that I crave the most with all of my labors. Every single time I've given birth, hip squeezes or sacral pressure are like magic miracle workers when it comes to pain and intensity.
00:12:59
Speaker
And this being our third baby, my husband has kind of mastered those movements. So he was applying pressure to those areas and then between contractions he would rub my forehead, my shoulders.
00:13:11
Speaker
Tell me how awesome i am. four year old, she was the best. She would rub my arms and just say things like, good job mommy. You're doing great mommy. I love you so much mommy. it was awesome.
00:13:23
Speaker
One of the sweetest things I have ever been a part of in my entire life. She was so pure and so attentive and I love that she was there and seeing birth happen and she had no fear in her heart.
00:13:36
Speaker
Something about seeing myself through my four-year-old's eyes in those moments pretty much gave me all the courage and everything that I could need to do what I needed to do.
00:13:47
Speaker
Now, like I said, i didn't realize that I was already in transition when they entered the room, but I think my husband recognized it. I was convinced that I still had a long way to go laboring, so I just kept trying to pace myself.
00:14:01
Speaker
30 minutes after they entered the room, I felt like I needed to get out of the birth pole and sit on the toilet and labor there for a bit, so that's where we
The Birth Experience
00:14:10
Speaker
went. And two contractions on the toilet, and my water burst.
00:14:16
Speaker
Now you'll have to excuse my French, but the next thing I said was, oh shit, my water broke, my water broke. I panted that breathlessly, but I felt so much relief when my water broke and I felt a little bit of hope because both of my other kids were born relatively quickly after my water broke with them.
00:14:37
Speaker
But again, i was still not convinced that I was going to have this baby anytime soon. So we made our way back into the water. I did maybe three or four more contractions in the tub when I felt like I needed to get back on the toilet.
00:14:51
Speaker
I felt like I needed to poo. and I really didn't want to poo in the tub, which the beauty of birth, right? Now, when I got on the toilet, I felt a huge contraction which turned out to be the fetal ejection reflex because before I knew it i hear my husband say we have a head we have a head to which I repeated we have a head we have a which was another huge relief because that meant that she was coming out the proper way we didn't see any cords wrapped around her neck there were no limbs presenting
00:15:24
Speaker
So I knew that I could truly breathe through the next contraction or so to deliver the rest of her out of the body. So with the next contraction, her little body came out and I brought our baby girl right up to my chest and she cried immediately. This was my first baby to do so.
00:15:42
Speaker
She also pooped as soon as she came out and we were so excited. We were already checking things off of our list of things that we needed to see happen after birth. And the next hour went by pretty fast. My husband and I worked together like a well-oiled machine. I had had a video going.
00:16:01
Speaker
i didn't actually get a video of her being born because it was on a tripod facing the birth pool and I ended up delivering her on the toilet.
Post-Birth Care and Education
00:16:10
Speaker
But I still have the audio of that time and it was cool to listen back and hear my husband and I talking to each other and communicating to each other during this time because we really worked together exactly as planned. He had his eyes on me, checking my vitals, watching my color.
00:16:26
Speaker
I had eyes on baby, ah suctioning her nose and throat, listening to her heart and lungs, watching respiration, watching color. i would, you know, every now and then ask my husband to get me something, you know, get the stethoscope, get the suction bulb, get whatever I needed to make sure that she was clearing out everything and, and progressing well and in my opinion she was a textbook birth everything checked out she aced her apgar she latched immediately which she was also my first baby to do this we waited until i delivered the placenta about 40 minutes later before clamping and cutting the cord my placenta y'all this was the biggest placenta yet it weighed almost four pounds it was
00:17:11
Speaker
huge and beautiful and healthy and and it was really fun to take the time at this point to show Sparrow where the baby lived for those 10 months she was inside of me.
00:17:22
Speaker
This was like peak homeschool, right? Like she got to see all the placenta and the cord and the veins and the vessels and everything. We just, we used it as a homeschooling opportunity at this moment.
00:17:34
Speaker
We also checked to make sure I delivered the whole placenta and we're certain that everything came out as it should. And I think I actually enjoyed this golden hour more than any of my other kids because I wasn't being poked and prodded. i actually and extremely private and was always super overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of everything the midwives would be doing after birth.
00:17:58
Speaker
So it felt nice to take things at my own pace and tend to myself and my baby on my own. And there you have it.
Episode Conclusion and Preview
00:18:08
Speaker
my free birth and wild pregnancy you've gotten over these past couple of weeks of podcasts.
00:18:15
Speaker
It was perfect and a better experience than I could have ever imagined. And 1000% would do it again. And next week, you can stay tuned because I'm going to talk a little bit about our postpartum experience.
00:18:28
Speaker
Because not only was this my best pregnancy and birth experience yet, but it was also my best postpartum experience. I prepared a ton more for this postpartum this time around than I did for the actual birth And I feel like it really paid off. So stay tuned for next week as we chat all about postpartum and everything that came with that and what I did to feel like I actually had a really great postpartum experience with my third baby.
00:18:55
Speaker
Thanks for listening and I will see you next week.
00:19:02
Speaker
If you found this podcast helpful or encouraging, would you mind leaving us a rating or review? I love hearing from you. So be sure to shout us out on Instagram and tag me at Cassidy dot well bell.
00:19:12
Speaker
And we'll be sure to shout you right back out. Let's get this message to as many women as possible until next time, friend.