After Lady Baby we had no intention of having another baby. I had said maybe one more, but I only meant it half heartedly. We already had three kids, and that seemed like plenty. Of course life happens when you’re out making other plans. Let me introduce you to my favorite mistake Last Baby.
When I found out I was pregnant it was because my period was hours late not days. My period is reliable. She comes every 28 days between 1pm and 4pm. Around 8pm I decided to take a pregnancy test. I thought maybe my cycle had changed, but I had a spare test hanging around and I might as well take it to be sure. When I saw the positive line I threw the test on the floor, regained my composure and looked at it again. When I told Hubbs he didn’t believe me. Even after I showed him the test he went out to by another double pack to make sure I wasn’t kidding.
I had no intention of EVER having kids two years apart. I would always stare at the Moms lugging a toddler and infant carrier into Target and cringe. The thought of having two babies was awful enough but a wave of terror came over me when I thought about birth. This is when I learned that 72% of people having abortions since 2008 already have a kid. I wasn’t pro choice until I had my own kids. It’s really easy to say abortion is wrong when you are sitting on the other side kid free and spending your money on newport box and caramel lattes. For me being that dreaded Target Mom would have to do, because terminating a healthy pregnancy would have haunted us. Plus baby snuggles are my favorite thing on Earth, and maybe just maybe Lady Baby being the middle child wouldn’t be the worst thing.
At my first OB appointment we talked about the plan. No epidural was obvious. I told the Dr. I wanted to hypnobirth. My Dr. is open to all things crunchy so he didn’t blink an eye when I said it. Having a plan was not making me any less anxious about birth. Sooo many people kept asking why I just didn’t ask for a sections\ since I had one already, and my last birth was a hot mess. Im kind of glad they did though, because it made me realize that everything that happened with Lady Baby was because of medical interventions. If I would have had her alone in a birthing tub in my living room her birth story could have been completely different, and that realization started to take down the walls.
I did my preparations for 14 dollars and the monthly payment of my premium Spotify account. I bought a Hypnobirthing book first. I can honestly say I never read the breathing parts. The beginning of the book did remind me though that woman have been having babies for millions of years, and we we know how to do it. I also kept telling myself that my Grandmother had 7 children with no running water or electricity in a ghetto in Portugal. If she could do that then I could suck it up and do this.
The next thing I did was look for Hypnobirthing meditations on Spotify. I found one by Michelle Leclaire that I liked, although I fell asleep EVERY time I did the meditation. Towards the end of the pregnancy I did the meditations once a day. I made a 7cm playlist that was full of John Legend and India Arie. I then made a transition stage play list full of DMX and Trapt. I was feeling as prepared as I was ever going to be. At 36 weeks I ended up in the hospital for high blood pressure. While I was there I started having contractions, but after feeling 8cm contractions these just felt like a dull ache. I was dilated to a 2 , but after hours of no progress they sent me home. They also did my strep b test,and lots of other ones to find out why I was contracting so early. At My Ob the next day I found out I was positive for strep b and would have to get antibiotics during labor. To do that I had to be there at least 4 hours before I had the baby. There was the wrench in my plan.
This beautiful story will have to be finished later. The Arel house is awake. <3