Category Archives: Essential Oils

Every child and every birth is unique. I’d been told this many times by several people but I’m one of those people that likes to plan things and birthing babies, especially on their own time, is far from predictable. Little brother was no exception.

I had been nauseous more with this pregnancy than the other two and extremely tired in the beginning but thanks to a supplement from my chiropractor the rest of the pregnancy I felt much better and had more energy than I had in my previous pregnancies. Unfortunately my first midwife from our previous homebirth was pursuing other interests so I had to choose a new midwife for this birth and around 36 weeks I had to switch midwives again due to several concerns we had with her. Thankfully after this hiccup, things with our new midwife went very well. On that note let me just say, trust your gut instinct, do your research, pray and ask questions. No matter the type of birth or something completely unrelated, it’s never too late to make changes if need be. Deep down you will know what choices you need to make for yourself and your family.

Friday, October 10th, our 3rd sons due date came and went without any sign of labor. Knowing little dude’s personality now and his name meaning peace, this is no surprise. He’s been a laid back guy from the get go. Saturday morning around 7:00am I had gotten up to use the bathroom and then laid back down. Shortly after that, my other sons were calling me to help them with breakfast so I got up again and when I did I felt a decent amount of fluid trickle out. I was thinking it was odd that I might have peed my pants since I had just gone to the bathroom. Then I realized this was probably more than a weak bladder, this was what we were waiting for! I texted my midwife to let her know and she asked if I needed anything or wanted her to come and asked what color the fluid was that was trickling out. The fluid was clear with no sign of infection or meconium so I told her I was good and that I’d let her know if things started progressing. Sometimes these things can take awhile and I preferred not to have someone sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Not much changed throughout the morning. I would have a contraction and trickle here and there but nothing more. That afternoon my midwife came by to check on me and the baby and by then I was starting to wonder why things hadn’t picked up. With our last birth things had progressed quite quickly so this was very different. Meanwhile my husband had decided to run some errands and take our other two boys with him so I could rest and since I had some pretty strong regular contractions for a bit he decided to take them to their grandparents thinking we would be having a baby by that evening. Not so though. Throughout the night I would have contractions here and there and was starting to get anxious wondering what was taking so long but my midwife was checking in periodically and said the baby’s heartbeat was good and my temp was normal so there was no cause for concern. She did suggest I take some supplements including vit c and garlic ect to help keep my immune system up which I had already started doing on my own earlier in the day as a preventative. Although my water was leaking, this was not an immediate emergency. Running straight to the hospital can actually put yourself and baby at a greater risk of infection. 90% of the time, labor will start within 48hrs of your water breaking. Plus our body will continue making amniotic fluid. Unless you are showing signs of infection or your baby is in some kind of danger there is no reason to speed up the process. It’s also best to avoid vaginal exams if possible because this pushes bacteria into the cervix, however this is usually the first thing they want to do at the hospital and with the increased risk of infection, they will have to put you on a time limit. Usually this is 12hrs-24hrs at the most.

The next morning my husband and I did start discussing what we would do if nothing progressed. As long as baby I were doing well we really had another 24hrs or so before needing to talk about making other arrangements but we wanted to plan ahead just in case. We decided to take the rest of the day while the boys were still at their grandparents to make it a day of relaxing and unwinding since I was starting to get uptight with everyone asking if anything was happening 😉 We decided to stop by our midwife’s assistant’s house to let her check everything over again and everything was still good. In fact I had a contraction while I was there and the baby’s heartbeat did not show any signs of stress. We headed to eat dinner and by this time I had several regular strong contractions in the car on the way. After dinner we got back to the house and our assistant brought by a bag of supplies and gave me some Clary Sage essential oil for my belly and diffuser. My contractions really picked up in strength after that and by then my bro in law had brought the boys back home and while getting them tucked in bed I had to stop to rock my hips and breathe a couple of times. By this time it was after 9:00pm and my birth team and I were thinking it might be time to fill up the pool. I had to stop several more times again to concentrate on my contractions and by 10:00 or 10:15pm I started feeling the urge to push and decided to get in the pool. I was having some pretty strong contractions to push but wasn’t feeling like much progress was happening. After quite awhile of this, my midwife and I decided to do a check and could feel the cervix was still partially across his head. My midwife had me get in some different positions to try to help move him down including sitting on the toilet but he still wasn’t budging much. By this time I was starting to get pretty tired and frustrated because I had been pushing for close to 1 1/2hrs at this point so I got back into the pool and leaned back instead of squatting and it actually felt like a decent position which hadn’t been comfortable for me with my two previous births. I started pushing with all my might as my midwife pushed back on the cervix. I finally could feel him progressing down although it was taking all my strength to move him. After about 15min of this, little mans head finally crowned and we could see he had his arm above his head which was probably what had taken so long for my labor to become regular since his head wasn’t completely engaged.

Although this birth was more drawn out than our previous births, I would do it the same way all over again. He was worth the wait and we loved being able to relax and enjoy his first sweet moments with him and his brothers in the familiar surroundings of our home sweet home 🙂