A NOTE FROM A MOM
MOMMY'S TIME OUT
19
Birth Story by Carey Yaruss Sanders
Today, Quinn is 3 weeks old. I am her mother, Carey. She was born in the bathtub at home. It was the most surreal, profound, intense day of my life. It was the most pain I’ve ever felt, more than I ever knew I could handle. It was the most beautiful experience I could ever imagine, and the most proud I’ve ever been.
My plan was to work through August 1st, which was a Friday. I thought it would be great to finish out the work week before I went on my 12 week leave. My due date was July 31st, and on that day I was feeling tons of kicking and movement- a contrast to the relatively quiet baby I’d been feeling for the past couple of weeks as she ran out of ‘womb’. At 4:30 pm, I went to the bathroom and noticed that I’d lost part of my mucous plug. I texted my husband Gabriel right away to tell him about that and that she’d been “kicking up a storm”. He responded ‘Maybe tonight”. I wrote “who knows?” and he wrote “I do!”. Little did I know that he *did* know, and that Baby Quinn had no intention of letting me finish that work week out after all. Apparently, right after that text conversation, my sweet hubs ran out to buy a birthday cake and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for me.
When I got home, I went to lie down in bed for a little bit- as I’d been doing for the last 2 weeks or so. As much as it was great to be going about my regular days at work, it was quite exhausting and I really looked forward to taking my shoes off, putting my feet up and resting for a bit at the end of each day. It was 6:33 pm and about 2 minutes after I laid down that I was suddenly aware of soaking wet underwear. I sprung up and giggled as I ran to the bathroom explaining to Gabriel, “Ummm, I think my water may have just broken!”. I texted my boss and my co-worker to tell them that coming in tomorrow did not look likely. I texted my doula, Ryan, and my midwives, Jessica and Haddie, to tell them that this might be the big day. Ryan was teaching a class and said to keep her posted. Jessica and Haddie (aka: the dream team) had delivered 2 other babies within the prior 48 hours and advised me to try to rest. Jessica said it may not have been water breaking but possibly just more mucous plug, and that if contractions started and got to between 3-5 minutes apart for a minute long each to go ahead and call or text them again at that point. At 7:30 pm I lost some more mucous and started feeling crampy and having some diarrhea. I was pretty darn sure at that point that labor was beginning, but I still wasn’t totally convinced.
Gabriel and I decided we should just go ahead with our normal plan for dinner and he went off to pick up some spicy Chinese food in the hopes that it would kick labor into high gear. Looking back, I think it’s pretty funny that I thought this was a good idea given the cramps I was feeling, but oh well, It did end up giving me the energy I’d soon find out I would be needing in the next 14 hours. It was also pretty perfect, that my fortune in the cookie that night was “Good things are coming to you in due course of time.”