Maccabee Bernard’s Birth Story 
Mac was due on May 26th. We are firm believers in babies cooking until they’re ready. But at 42 weeks my midwife and I decided to try and get things going. As I had prodromal labor and Braxton hicks for weeks.
My “inner” cervix was still almost completely closed and hard as a rock. But my midwife attempted a membrane sweep. From there we went to a nurse midwife that placed a foley bulb.
With being so closed, it was near impossible to place the foley. But after four attempts (OUCH)- it was placed. I had time-able and hard contractions for the next 6 hours. We set up the birth pool and told my mom she’d probably be picking up Boaz that night.
Then I took a nap and everything stopped. It never started again and I had to remove the foley myself. Which means I never dilated to a four for it to fall out.
We were wildly disappointed, but I still held on to hope that Mac would come when he was supposed to.
At 42+2, I started having timeable hard contractions again, threw up and lost my mucus plug. This time I felt like I absolutely KNEW baby was coming. But as soon as I laid down to go to bed that night, everything stopped.
On the morning of 42+3, I woke up with Ben. I was ready to be done. My thyroid had crashed and was attacking my eye again. So we feared that the baby was getting the thyroid antibodies. My midwife also said that her only clients who had gone past 43 weeks were ones with pronounced thyroid issues. She was more that comfortable with us going until 44 weeks, as long as baby was faring well. But she warned that with my thyroid issues, it might truly be 44 weeks until baby came. As my thyroid wasn’t strong enough to produce the hormones to get labor going.
(This is raaaaare!!!!!)
After a lot of tears, we decided to be induced that night. My midwife spent 4 + hours on the phone with Wilson Hospital trying to get me in. But the doctor that was working, told her no over and over. Even though I was the healthiest patient around.
I think it was because I was a home birth transfer with my own agenda and common sense. Some docs hate that 
At the same time, I know two nurses at Wilson well. So I was texting them about what we should do. They both agreed I should just walk in and ask to be admitted. The sweet nurse had called the ones on shift and told her I was coming. So they (the nurses) had a room already prepared for me when I arrived.
They quickly admitted me and called the Doctor in. I was already having consistent contractions (as I did every day) and I was a four so she couldn’t deny me. The doctor told me all the ways I could be endangering my baby from the choices we were making.
Ben and I had a good laugh after she left.
They started the Pitocin as low as it could go to see if my body would take over. While my body was contracting “on time”- they weren’t hard enough to get baby here. So we continued to turn it up over the night.
Pitocin contractions finally picked up around noon the next day. At this point I was going on a week of barely any sleep. The night before Boaz pulled an all nighter. So I was absolutely exhausted and doubting that I could do it.
I knew my cervix was changing, but at every check I had barely dilated past a 5. I kept holding off on anything that could help with pain until I absolutely NEEDED it- hip squeezes, tens machine, or Claire!
From 12-3, things had gotten hard pretty quick. The back contractions were in full force. Ben was either squeezing my hips or I was using a tens machine.
By 3pm, I had started to doubt that going natural was physically possible due to exhaustion. Ben was squeezing my hips and the tens machine was on. We started doing a circuit of positions to try and get Mac to drop.
Finally after a hard circuit, I told Ben I needed him to call Claire in. I could hold on another hour and then I wanted her here. She arrived around 5pm and I cried. Because I knew if Claire was there she wouldn’t let me get the epidural and I’d be able to get my natural birth! She immediately brought in the feminine and soft energy that I needed. She immediately got to work putting me into different positions.
After about an hour, the contractions had gotten exponentially harder and I was exhausted. The doctor came in to check me and Claire suggested I didn’t get checked. As she thought I was still coping too well and that I hadn’t progressed yet.
My cervix was completely thinned but I was still a 5. So I begged everyone in sight for the epidural. In my mind, I had hours to go yet. Instead, they moved me to the shower to help with pain relief. Ben stripped to his underwear to squeeze my hips and Claire was holding the shower head.
I had a resurgence of hope that I could do it after the hot water washed over me. But that resurgence of hope didn’t last long. As the shower threw me straight into transition! I didn’t believe I was anywhere close to being done, as I had still cracked a joke and I was smiling at comments they were making. I thought to myself, “if I’m smiling- this isn’t hard enough to get the baby here”.
I tried to pee in the shower but I couldn’t relax enough to. Claire suggested I moved to the toilet. I immediately rolled my eyes and said “I’ve heard enough birth podcasts- that’s not why you want me to sit on the toilet”. But I’m a people pleaser and I wanted this baby HERE- so I did as I was told.
I spent a few contractions there and then moved back to the shower. At this point I was in the trenches of transition (which I didn’t know as I hadn’t experienced natural birth).
I instinctively dropped to my hands and knees. Then I let out a few words I hadn’t said since high school and my body started bearing down. There was a loud SMACK. Then whole bathroom gasped. My water had broken all over Ben like a water balloon! Everyone was shocked, including me! I was terrified the baby had just hit the floor. As soon as that happened the nurse moved into the shower to check me. She claimed I was only a 7-8.
But my body was pushing all on its own. Ben could even see that my hips had shifted and Claire told him that meant that the baby was coming soon. It didn’t take long for the nurses to call in the doctor, as there was no telling my body not to push. The baby was coming no matter what dilation I was at.
As soon as the doctor came in, she told me I had to get out of the shower if I wanted my birth team around me. As we currently had 3 of us in the shower and 2 others standing in the bathroom. There was no possible way to fit her in there! I told her I wasn’t moving. But I also wasn’t having Ben or Claire leave my side.
So they both helped me walk to the bed. On the way there, I dropped into a squat. My body was still pushing all on its own. Later, I was told that the doctor had dropped to the floor to catch the baby. I climbed onto my hands and knees bracing the back of the bed.
As soon as I got on the bed, Ben came into my ear and whispered how I could do it. He told me how I was so close to meeting our baby. We had almost done it. He moved immediately back to squeezing my hips to alleviate the pressure of the baby being in my birth canal.
I was finally back in my thinking brain since I had a mission to accomplish. I began pushing with my contractions. Before each contraction, I’d call on Momma Mary to help me. Claire was at my head reminding me to breathe as the baby descended. I was shaking so badly from the adrenaline that I couldn’t move my legs into the perfect pushing position, so she did it for me.
After one or two pushes, Mac was already crowning. His head popped out and then went back in. Fear coursed through my veins as I thought of all the stories I had heard of women pushing for hours. Then I immediately said out loud, “My prayer was that I wouldn’t tear. The baby is stretching me so I don’t tear”.
In one contraction, I pushed and Mac’s head came fully out, I bared down even harder and his whole body was born!
The chord was wrapped around his neck three times. Which was a shock to all as his heartbeat never fluctuated once, even with Pitocin contractions.
Ben was still squeezing my hips as Mac was born. So in no time at all, he called out that it was a boy and shouted his name. They helped me flip to my back so I could hold him and he let out the sweetest cry.
Ben and I both lost it- as we had DONE IT. 42+4, a Pitocin induction and we achieved our dream natural birth!