My Home Birth Story: Welcoming Baby Celleste | Kira Jeffrey Photography | Charlotte, NC

Wednesday, April 10th 2024

It had been a long 4 days going after my “guess date” since I went early with both CJ and Adelaide – I had never made it to a due date before. It was a totally different mental game after that point. I tried to embrace the time, but I was getting more anxious and eager and bored with my abundance of time. Looking back now, I know I should have embraced it more because I miss those last days of pregnancy, but in the moment, I just wanted to meet my baby and find out who this tiebreaker was going to be! 

That morning, I started having random surges (as I was for weeks), but they were a little stronger today than previous days. Still nothing consistent, but I could just feel a difference. I was getting so anxious waiting for something more to happen. 

CJ and Adelaide went off to their morning classes. I noticed when we left the house for drop off and pickup, all activity/surges stopped completely and I got very discouraged that maybe this wasn’t anything real and I was going to be waiting a lot longer than I thought. 

After we got home each time I continued doing all the things that I had been doing, bouncing and rocking on the yoga ball, squatting, belly wrapping … 

We had decided to snag a last minute strawberry picking spot at Wise Acres for that evening at 5pm since I wasn’t sure we’d be able to make our reservation I had made for the 16th of April (naively thinking Celleste would certainly come before due date). While I was secretly hoping we might not be able to go that evening because I would be in labor, I was excited to get to have something to do. I remember right about 430p when we were getting ready to leave, I had a much stronger surge. I quickly took off my belly binding wrap because at that point I wanted to get through strawberry picking, and by then was just hoping any active labor would hold off until we got back. 

Sure enough, as soon as we left the house all activity stopped and I didn’t feel any surges the whole time we were out. It was an absolutely beautiful evening. We left the strawberry farm around 6:30p with over 32lbs of fresh strawberries hand picked! It was so much fun and I knew that all that movement and squatting in the fields had to be good for something, even if it didn’t mean baby would come today.

We got home a little before 7p and immediately started cooking dinner. We had prepped meatballs before we left so we could make a quick dinner when we got home and get the kids to bed.

By 7:45p we were finally sitting down to eat and I pulled out my phone to time things, just to myself off to the side because I was noticing more consistent surges. Still nothing very strong (Evan didn’t even notice for a while), but I was getting 30-40 second surges every 3-4 minutes. 

Around 8:30p, after I wolfed down a huge bowl of spaghetti and meatballs (which of course, later came up during labor). Evan and I were cleaning up in the kitchen when the kids were finishing eating and he noticed my phone in my hand. “Are you timing something?!” he asked. I told him things were pretty consistent for the last 30+ minutes and we started to get a little excited – that’s when I felt like I knew something was really starting. 

I texted my team at that point, my midwife and my doula, Andrea, a little after 9p telling them I was having consistent surges every 4 minutes or so for the past hour. Of course I told them I wasn’t sure how long it would be and it if was anything real (we were stilling getting kids down). The surges started getting stronger and I noticed I would have to stop what I was doing and breathe through them. After we got the kids down around 9:30p, we called my midwife and she determined she was going to head over and that it was go time.

At that point, Evan and I started doing all the last prep items to prepare for birth in our home. Getting the hose and birth pool ready, towels and mats out, bed sheets switched, etc. 

Everyone from my team – my midwife, her assistant, and my doula – arrived by 10:30p. I stopped timing surges at that point and was just breathing through each one. Things were ramping up, but nothing I felt I couldn’t handle yet. By 11p I started to get nauseous, which I knew was likely going to be a symptom of my labor (as it always had been). I hung out in our bedroom wanting to be close to the bathroom in case I needed to puke. I remember we told my midwife we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and she jokingly asked “meatballs?! What were you thinking?!” (Which now is forever a saying we use in our family.)

Everyone suggested I try to rest so I laid on the bed for 30-45 minutes, mostly with my eyes closed. Trying to just breathe and relax and remember all of our hypnobirthing to work through each surge. I don’t have much memory of this time… Evan said all 3 ladies (my midwife, her assistant, and my doula, Andrea) were in our bedroom at some point and for 10 minutes we all just sat in silence as they watched/assessed me. He said it was so peaceful how they were all able to silently hold space. Wherever I was during that time, I never even noticed.

Eventually, my midwife suggested I go sit on the toilet at that point to see if a change of position would help. I remember saying I didn’t really want to because things would get more intense every time I got off the toilet and she said “That’s what we want!” so I sat and labored in the bathroom for little while as things started amping up.

Thursday, April 11th 2024

Around midnight we started filling the birth pool and I moved to the living room. I rested on the yoga ball for a while through each surge which was definitely getting much stronger now. 

Throughout the evening, CJ kept waking up, calling out (he had had a rough lingering cough for a few days and was waking up a bunch at night). Evan had to leave me to go check on him a handful of times. I remember when he had gone and I was waiting for the birth pool to fill, bouncing on the ball – I had a big surge and I couldn’t sit up anymore – I had to lay on the floor next to the pool to work through it. Things were picking up and wasn’t long after that I puked up all dinner, as expected. I felt a little relief after that and finally the pool was ready for me to get in.

Immediately getting down into the water of the pool felt so good. The warm water and the semi weightless-ness was a perfect change in environment as things were progressing. Time became a blur and only because of the time stamp for the photos Andrea captured with my camera during some of the birth, do we know timing of how the evening went.

I labored in the pool for about an hour and things were getting more intense as time went by. Before each surge, I started getting full body tense shakes, especially in my legs, (which started in the bedroom earlier and progressively got stronger). It felt like a chill deep inside my bones that I couldn’t control, I tried to relax and breathe through them but the shaking would take over with each surge. It was very hard to work through and it made it really difficult to try and relax my body, because the tenseness that would come with the shaking I could not find a way to release. The pressure in my bottom started getting stronger and stronger and I knew baby was getting ready, just still wasn’t sure how long it would take. I remember saying “This isn’t fun.” and ” I really don’t like this!” during some of the peak transition times in labor. I knew I had always heard stories of laboring mamas having that moment of doubt, probably at this point in labor, and wanting out (ie asking for a hospital transfer/epidural, etc). I remember wanting to vent my feelings, but I wasn’t doubting myself or the process, I was just very much over this hard laboring.

By 1:30a Evan went to go get CJ and Adelaide up, because we had discussed them all wanting to be there during the birth if possible. Adelaide fell right back asleep on the couch at first after coming out, but woke up not long after so she didn’t miss anything. They were so interested and involved. CJ went to get their new big brother/big sister shirts to wear. They both were so sweet and encouraging. Adelaide came up to me a few times unprompted tell me I was “strong and brave and beautiful” as they rubbed my shoulders (the same words we repeat to her when she is struggling).

I remember I couldn’t figure out what to do with the bottom pressure (and shaking) that was so strong with each surge. I couldn’t breathe through them anymore and I couldn’t figure out how to release/relax. It must have been just before 2a when I felt some urge to “push” with the surge. My midwife told me “That’s it! Baby is playing peekaboo. Just do that again next time!” And that’s exactly what I did. With the next surge I released with the pressure, and with a big yell (the kids kept saying later how I was louder than the loud mom in one of the birth videos I showed them LOL ) – I felt the head emerge and the next moment, baby came out in one solid shot, very fast! Evan caught her with one foot in the pool and brought her up to my chest. He had said something about it being a boy! So I thought we had a boy for the first 30 seconds. With baby at my chest, at that point I was so overwhelmed and exhausted I couldn’t even use my arms to hold her for the first few seconds. Then I started to calm down and took her in my arms. She was so calm and relaxed and barely was fussing at first. It was then that Evan said he didn’t even get a good look between the legs (he realized he may had mistaken the cord as a boy part), we took a good look then and found out she was a girl! I was shocked, since I thought I was going to have a boy and the first 30 seconds had thought I had a boy in my hands. I was just overwhelmed and so happy. At 2:01am Celleste Anastasia had arrived. 

The moment we found out she was a girl!

It was about 30 mins or so before I delivered the placenta. I had passed one large blood clot before that and my midwife had mentioned I may need to get out of the pool and receive some pit. But luckily that was the only one that passed and no bleeding after that so I was able to stay in the pool to birth the placenta. I really did not want to get out of the warm water.

CJ writing Celleste’s Birthday on our calendar.

Unfortunately, I had to at some point… It was a cold walk to the bedroom, but we moved as a unit into the bed and got warmed up under the covers. Snuggling up baby so good, I kept massaging her back as my midwife had instructed. Because she came out so quick and fast, she didn’t get a good firm “squeeze” on her exit, so she had excess fluid still in her lungs. My midwife used a small breathing respirator to pump a few loads of air into her lungs to help her along. That was all she needed.

The kids got in bed with us and we all just rejoiced in the glow. 

Eventually Evan cut the cord and my midwife did her exam which is when we found out she was a whopping 8lbs 6oz. A whole 1.5lbs bigger than the other two!

By 5:30a, everyone was leaving and Evan got the kids back to bed and we all got some much needed rest. Celleste slept so hard the first day, it was a serious struggle to get her to try and wake to nurse. Celleste and I never left the bed the first day. The whole experience was such an amazing journey, I am so beyond blessed with how beautiful it all was… and still is.

I am so grateful for how amazing our home birth was for us. The whole experience was beyond what we could have hoped for. I thank God for bringing this perfect little girl to us to continue to complete our little family. The whole experience left me feeling so empowered and strong and blessed to bring this little girl Earthside surround by peace and love.