Ella's Birth Story

We celebrated Ella's 6th birthday last Friday. It was on the same day of the week as the day she was born...the Friday after Thanksgiving. I did not get the pictures organized, but wanted to go ahead and get her story recorded.

Six years ago, my mom, dad and sister came to Jacksonville, FL to spend Thanksgiving with us. I was due to have my fourth and last baby the next week. My mom and sister had planned on staying for a week to help when the baby came. Everyone arrived late on Thanksgiving Thursday, so we decided to have our big Thanksgiving feast on Friday.

Thursday evening, John and my dad took libations in the form of Bushmills Irish Whisky. This is one of their favorite rituals. I jokingly told John he was going to be sorry if I ended up going into labor that night.


As we went to bed, John and I discussed him getting to Wally World by 5:30am to get the gameboy that was going to be on sale starting at 6:00am for Alex for Christmas. This was our first experience in the crazy world of day-after-Thanksgiving shopping. Never before had it mattered...but this was a $25 gameboy for crying out loud! The alarm went off around 5:00am. John took off at 5:30, and I fell back to sleep. At about 6:15, John walked in the bedroom. I was so excited, I said, "What color did you get?" He burst out laughing and proceeded to tell me that when he arrived, he went to the electronics department and asked a lady standing in line if this was where you get the gameboys. She said yes, but told him the line started back there, and pointed. John looked up to see a line of about 200 people. The lady said she had been there since 2:00am, waiting in line. Needless to say, John did not wait in line, and said he'd rather spend whatever a regularly priced gameboy cost instead of hanging out at Wal-Mart waiting in line.


As I was falling back to sleep, I had a contraction. It surprised me, but I went back to sleep. I had another contraction around 7:30, woke John up and told him I just might be starting labor. We decided not to tell everybody, as it could be preliminary and I might not go into actual hard labor for a couple of days. As the day progressed, we all pitched in to get our feast prepared. We were doing the whole shebang: turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, casserole, pies, etc.

I continued to have contractions throughout the day, but they were very spread out. Some of them were intense, and lasted for a good minute and a half , but they were only happening every 45 minutes to an hour. I continued with my day, hanging out and cooking with everybody. I have one really distinct memory during that day: I remember sitting on Max's little toddler bed in the kids' room talking with Alex. He was having some sort of issue. I had a contraction or two during our discussion and told him what was going on and that I might be otherwise occupied for the rest of the day. He was excited to know the baby would be coming and was able to let go of whatever was bothering him.

This was my mom, dad, and sister's first time ever witnessing a home birth, and we felt the less time they had to worry, the better. We decided not to say anything during the day. At about 5:30pm I realized the baby was going to come. By this time, my contractions were pretty strong and were happening more frequently. We called the midwife. She was in the checkout line at Target, and said she would get to us as soon as she was done.

My dad was in the kitchen. He was organizing the table and getting everything ready for dinner. As I leaned on the table having a pretty strong contraction, I said, "Maybe we should just have a buffet sort of thing instead of a sit-down affair." He looked at me, his eyes got wide, and he said, "Why?" I broke the news that the birth was going to happen and that I had been in labor all day. My dad got a little panicky and wanted to know what to do. I told everybody to eat and enjoy. I had a second helping before I had to leave the table. At this time my dad and John started getting the birthing tub ready. As they tried to get the water from the hot water heater to the tub, we realized there was a problem. They could not get the water out of the heater through the spicket. We had not done a test run, so were unprepared. My dad really needed something to do, so he started trying to heat up water.

While everyone else finished up, I went over and sat in a glider rocker that had really helped me get through Max's birth. I was now in heavy labor. My dad and John were still trying to get the tub organized, but I knew there would not be enough time. Things were pretty hot and heavy. My mom and sister were hanging out with the kids and kept checking up to see how things were going. As I moved into my well-established pushing position, transition hit. I said, rather poignantly, "I didn't think it was going to hurt this much." At that moment, the midwife walked in, put her hand on my shoulder, and Ella came into the world. The midwife held up three fingers and mouthed the words "three minutes" to indicate she had been at the house for exactly three minutes before the baby was born. It was 6:20 in the evening.

As hard as it was, I loved giving birth to Ella. My previous midwife, who was also a dear friend, believed we needed the birth experience and all that comes with it. She felt that in birth, we went into the spirit world to get our babies and bring them to us. I feel that the struggle of birth was necessary for me to walk my path of motherhood. I am very grateful for Ella's incredible birth and everything she has brought to my life.