I would just like to start by thanking Cagan and Ali for allowing me the privilege of attending their sweet baby’s birth at home! Cagan and Ali have a unique situation as they are here all the way from Turkey! It was fascinating learning about them, their family and their passions! What an incredible blessing!
Cagan had your typical first mama labor with prodromal labor off and on for a few weeks and days leading up to the big day. These days were challenging and exhausting but Cagan handled them with such grace and beauty! I received a text shortly after 7:30 am on Tuesday saying that Cagan had been up since 3am with consistent contractions but they finally let up and she was going to rest. I asked Ali to keep me posted on what was happening. He texted me throughout the morning as her contractions varied from every 10-15 minutes to every 5-10 minutes. Today was a unique day for me as I was teaching my nursing students at the hospital and spent much of the day worrying about how I was going to get to Cagan and Ali before her baby came! Around 4:30 pm Cagan’s contractions were every 3-5 mins and Ali was asking for extra help because he couldn’t leave Cagan to set up the pool. I sent in my amazing helpers Ramona and Shelley and they were able to get to Cagan by 5pm and help get everything set up! At that time Ramona checked Cagan and she was 2cm (we chose not to tell Cagan because she had been laboring so long and we didn’t want to disappoint her!). I finished out my shift with my students and headed over to the house. Three minutes after I arrived, Cagan started grunting with each contraction. She reported pressure and feeling like she needed to push so we encouraged her to listen to her body. This pattern continued on for 3 hours where she would feel pressure and then nothing the next contraction. I finally asked to check again at midnight and she was 9.5 cm!! We were thrilled this journey was almost over for her! When I was checking baby’s position I kept feeling like he might be OP so we tried multiple position changes to help turn him and bring him down. Cagan was a trooper as we helped her into the pool, out of the pool, onto the birth chair, onto her knees and so on, I was so impressed with her strength as she had almost been at this for 24 hours with little to no sleep! She started pushing more consistently with each contraction around 2am and her water finally broke on the birth stool around 3 AM. Now the pushing began for real, she could feel baby moving down and was ready to meet her little one! I could see little Ata had thick dark black hair and he was ready to come meet mama! We encouraged her to push with each contraction and even in her exhausted state, she gave it all!! Finally after about an hour more of pushing, I encouraged a position change to the toilet to get her more upright. We slowly moved to the toilet and within 3 mins of getting there, Cagan pushed out little Ata with all the grace and beauty of any laboring mama! Little Ata was born at 4:03 am on 4/15 weighing in at 7# 7oz in OP presentation!! No wonder she had to push so hard and so long, she was amazing!! He was in her arms and we all cried at the relief of her labor! She had been in labor for 25 hours and was understandably exhausted!! She was able to breastfeed little Ata and rest well while we cleaned up, this birth was truly a marathon and she ran with such strength!