Mac enters the world via her Bad Ass Momma on May 10, 2013

This is the birth story of my beautiful 2 week 3 day old daughter.

I sat on the yoga ball as we watched,”Baby Mama,” and slowly, rhythmically continued my bouncing. A light hearted comedy that we knew would make me laugh seemed like a good idea since I had been slightly anxious to say the least over the last few days. Mackenzie Grace was now officially 5 days late and I was beyond ready for her to be in my arms instead of my exploding belly. Earlier that day I had met with Dr. Martinez in KC and scheduled an induction for the following Thursday. Definitely not my ideal situation, but everyone knew that it was necessary.  I had been having contractions for two weeks or more at this point, so the cramping that I was feeling during dinner didn’t make me think for more than a brief moment that I might be in actual labor. Somewhere around 10pm I started to question the cramping, it seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable. Still nothing more than a cramp, but not a fun cramp. I told Russ that I thought I might be in labor and that we should start timing them, I had an app on my phone and he started to record whenever I reported the waves. At 11pm they had been coming regularly every 3 minutes for an hour. I called my mom to come and stay with Gabe so that Russ and I could take a walk. When she got here we headed out. We only made it around the block once. I had to stop and hang on him at every contraction. I was ready to be back home. When we got home, mom left to get some rest and I got into the bath. I called Emily right before I got into the tub to let her know what was going on. I tried to call Stefanie and got her voicemail, but didn’t leave a message. After relaxing in the tub for about an hour I decided to try and go lie in bed and get some rest. That sucked. The pain was getting intense and the warm water took the edge off. I quickly got back into the tub and asked Russ to call Emily and Stefanie. Emily got to the house sometime between 1 and 2 and sat in the bathroom with me while I labored. It was uncomfortable and I had to breathe and focus during each contraction, but looking back, those were the easy ones. When Stefanie got to the house sometime after 2, she and Russ set up the birthing tub. I went from the bathtub to the birthtub. I was still in good spirits and laughing and talking between contractions. Around 3:30 or 4, shit got real. It was so intense. I writhed in the tub, flipped from front to back to my side. My body seemed to know exactly what position would help me through each contraction. My lungs expelled the air and sounds in a way that helped move me through the intense waves of pressure and pain that were pulsing through me. Emily and Stefanie helped guide me through the hours. Russ fed me coconut water, juice ice cubes, water, and cranberry juice. Emily fed me spoonfulls of honey to help regulate my blood sugar. At one point Russ made me a smoothie, with chicken stock, an ice cube mix up, but quickly brought me one made with juice only. As Stefanie moved me from the toilet to the tub I caught a glimpse of the clock. 6:15.  I was in hard labor, I was making noises like a bear during each contraction and was scared about Gabe waking up. I asked more than once about the plan for Gabe, so my team figured one out. My mom came over around 7 with Ashley to take Gabe out of the house so that I could labor without being afraid of scaring him. I was in the bathroom and Emily stood in the doorway as they ushered Gabe out of the house. Once he was gone we got down to business. I stood over the arm of the couch and worked with Stefanie to move Mackenzie down. Each contraction felt like bone shattering pressure. It kind of felt like my insides were violently dry heaving. My mantra became, “come on Mackenzie, we can do this.” I repeated it over and over. For some reason it made me feel so much better, and like I actually knew what was going on. I didn’t, but somehow my body did, it was really incredible.  I pushed harder and harder to move her down as I growled as loud as I could. I got back into the tub. Between contractions I fell into an almost trance like state of sleep. Russ said he watched as I would flip from growling on hands and knees to twitching unconsciously as I floated weightlessly on my back. I was feeling more and more like I was ready to push. Emily checked me and let me know that I had a cervical lip. Basically a small piece of cervix was stuck in between her head and her exit, not a great thing to hear when your body starts pushing involuntarily to move your baby into the world. The pushing was coming on more and more intensely and Emily and Stefanie wanted me to get out of the tub and into an “extreme side lying” position to help the lip to move. Basically that means that she wanted me to lay on my side and stretch my bottom leg out and pull my top knee all the way up to my chin. This is horribly uncomfortable position when you are having the bone shattering contractions that come with transition. I was still pushing with each contraction. It was not something that I could help, it was like my vagina was trying to throw up a baby, not pleasant. This was the one and only time that I felt panicked. I knew my baby was trying to get out, there was nothing I could do to slow her down. After all, this girl had always been on her own timeline.  After what felt like a terribly long time, but was really only a few minutes, the lip had moved and Emily told me I could get back into the tub. I refused, and quickly flipped onto my back. Stefanie sat on the couch behind me, as I leaned back and with one or two intense seconds, I pushed Mackenzie into the world. Emily told me to reach down and touch her head, I watched Russ’s face as I pushed and reached down to touch my daughter. It was so surreal, I tried to pull her head, not a good idea according to Emily! Following her expert advice I waited for the next contraction and pushed Mackenzie’s slimy body out of me. I pulled her slippery blue body onto me. She was perfect. I held her as they rubbed her little chubby body and gave her a few breaths of oxygen to help her to pink up.  She latched right on, a little piglet from her first moments.  She is here, and perfect and wonderful, and beautiful! And now… I am not pregnant and I did it, all natural, in my living room! Fuck yeah!

I hope I never forget that amazing feeling of holding my daughter and the gratitude I felt toward the people who believed in me to make it happen. Emily and Stefanie were amazing and Russ was the perfect partner. Thank you God for this amazing blessing.