I met Daesha early in her pregnancy when she found out she was finally pregnant after several fertility treatments and waiting for so long for this good news! This was Daesha’s first pregnancy, though she had an amazing adopted son, and she knew she wanted a natural way to bring her baby into this world! Her pregnancy progressed beautifully and as expected, she went over 41 weeks pregnant which is very common for first time mamas! She handled the lateness of her pregnancy so well and decided at 41 weeks to have her membranes stripped to see if that would help push her into labor.
The 48 hour window for labor to start after a membrane strip passed and on Thursday, I received a text from Daesha that she was contracting more consistently and felt she may be in early labor. I went to bed that night anticipating I would be woken up only to find things had spaced out by the morning and her doula went home. She continued to contract about every 10-20 minutes throughout Friday and when the sun went down, things seemed to pick up again so we got excited that active labor might soon arrive! Once again, I awoke Saturday morning to no phone call and a text that things stayed consistently at every 10-15 minutes apart. Her contractions were painful and strong at this interval and I could tell she was getting discouraged. We decided to have me come and check her cervix to see where she was at and we were pleasantly surprised she was 5cm dilated! This was a change from 3cm dilated in the office earlier in the week. She was encouraged to hear her body was doing something even if it was slow. I encouraged her to rest as much as possible and we hoped labor would pick up again. Things stayed about 10 minutes apart until the sun went down and then things seemed to get slightly closer about 7-10 mins apart. Once again, we prepared to get called in for a middle of the night birth and went to bed early. Around 6am, Daesha called and was very discouraged that nothing had changed dramatically and she needed to do something. We decided to do another cervical exam and I found her to be 6cm this time! We were getting somewhere but the process was slow. Baby sounded amazing and we decided as a team to break her water to help increase her labor and contractions. Once the water was broken, I gave specific instructions on when to call me in and I left them with their doula to labor. Within the hour, her contractions increased dramatically and about 3 hours after her water had been broken, I was called back in. When I arrived, Daesha was in the pool and laboring beautifully. I could tell she was exhausted but I hoped baby would arrive soon. Within a few hours, Daesha was feeling the urge to push but couldn’t focus that urge so we decided to do a check and I found her at 7cm. We were making progress but it was clear baby was going to take his dear sweet time! Daesha was so incredibly strong and I could not believe she did not once talk about giving up or going to the hospital for pain management when so many probably would have given up! By approximately 5:30pm that night, we decided to do another check when Daesha knew that something had to have changed for her to want to stay home. When I checked her, we were all relieved she was finally 9.5cm and very close to being ready to push! It was hard for her to feel the urge to push since it had been present since she was 7cm so we decided to work together as a team to help her focus her pushing efforts. Daesha moved all over the place while pushing between her bed, standing, walking, pushing in the pool and finally ending with pushing on her couch! She kept a positive attitude through all of it as she brought her little one closer and closer to meeting her! Finally at 9:21pm on 3/12/17, Daesha gave one last pushing effort and we got to meet little Kiran! We finally had our reason for why the labor and pushing was so long when Kiran delivered facing up towards the ceiling instead of facing down! Now all her hard work and effort had paid off and we knew she was right where she needed to be to successfully deliver her baby vaginally! What a precious moment this was to watch this family welcome their newest addition to their family! Welcome to the world little Kiran, I was so incredibly blessed to be present for your arrival, thank you!