Lainey Rae's Birth Story | Meekly Loving by Sydney Meek

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This birth was COMPLETELY different than my first (I’ll link Dolly Jean’s birth story here). This time I had done my research, worked with a midwife, and was planning a natural birth at the birthing center. If you’re pregnant or planning to have a baby anytime soon — I highly suggest reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth! I wish I had read it before my first pregnancy, but this time I felt much more prepared, knowledgeable and empowered by the whole process. Thankfully, my labor was also super quick, so this blog post should be pretty short.

SATURDAY MAY 21, 2022

1:45 A.M.

I woke up to contractions 5 minutes apart. I’d been having contractions all throughout my second and third trimester, but the pain had never woken me up before. I started a note in my phone when I realized how close together they were and thought that this might actually be for real!

2:45 A.M.

My midwives go by the 5-1-1 rule (contractions 5 minutes apart, lasting one minute, for one hour) so I was about to text to let them know I might be in labor when my water broke! I had never experienced going into labor naturally before, so this was all new to me. My midwife said to come on in, so we made a few calls to find a friend to stay at our house while Dolly slept (p.s. thank you to all our friends who put us on their “emergency contact” list and were ready to answer a middle-of-the-night phone call from us)

3:30 A.M.

We finally arrived at the birth center. When my midwife checked, I was already 8cm dilated and contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, so she called an assistant to come in and help while we got the bath tub ready. I wasn’t set on having a water birth, but the thought of a warm bath sounded like it might relieve some pain, so I was all for it.

4:30 A.M.

Around 4:15 my midwife asked if I was feeling the urge to push, I said yes, and her head was already close. After only a few more contractions and pushes, Lainey Rae was born at 4:33!

Over the next 10-15 minutes, I delivered the placenta and rested in the tub while we waited for the umbilical cord to turn white, cut it and then got into bed. I feel like everything happened so quickly, I was in disbelief that she was finally here. We then had our “golden hour” of uninterrupted time for nursing and skin-to-skin, then my midwife came back in to check our vitals, help me to the bathroom, made sure I could eat and drink, then we made it home by 7:30 — just in time for Dolly Jean to wake up and meet her baby sister!

Shoutout to the First Coast Midwifery team for taking such good care of us — Sam, Caity, Sharon and Maya. This whole experience was even better than I imagined, and truly showed me the way that pregnancy and births should be handled.