Our Unplanned Home Birth

Welcome Serafina Elizabeth Aratari who was born via our unplanned home birth!

I’m so excited to share our birth story with you today.

Miss Serafina entered our world 1 week ago today, July 13, 2022, at 4:50 am weighing 6.2 lbs and 19” long. Her name means fiery and she has certainly already lived up to the meaning of it.

I think in order to tell this birth story, I have to start a few days prior when we went to the hospital for some false labor. If you follow me on IG, you may have heard this part already, but I wanted to include it in the birth story as I think it’s important.

PRE TERM LABOR

So last Saturday, June 9, my mom and MIL threw me the sweetest baby sprinkle. It was such a special day with some family and friends. I felt great all day and didn’t think labor was imminent. See the reel of it HERE.

That night before going to bed, I felt some minor contractions, but nothing major. I thought they were just Braxton Hicks. I went to bed and felt fine. Around 1am, I started feeling contractions more consistently. I kept track of them and they were about 5 minutes apart. I called my doctor and they told me to go to the hospital to be checked out.

We got to the hospital around 2am and they put me into a triage room to check to see how far I was dilated and to monitor the baby and my contractions. I was about 3cm dilated and my contractions had kind of settled down a bit. They also gave me a shot to help the baby’s lungs develop since I was 36 weeks 2 days. The shot is 2 doses so the 2nd would be given 24 hours later.

Since I have a history of early labors, they wanted to keep me for a bit to see what would happen. They ended up putting me into a postpartum room around 9am where I could just relax and walk around. There were no monitors on me or anything, but if contractions got worse or my water broke, I was to let the nurses know.

Around 1pm that Sunday, they took me to triage again to do a non stress test on the baby and then they were going to send me home. A non stress test is when they hook you up to the monitor to track the baby’s heart rate and you push a button every time you feel the baby move. After the test, they noticed that when I would have a contraction, her heart rate would dip a bit and come right back up. Because of this, they wanted me to stay overnight for more monitoring.

We stayed the night and they monitored the baby. They noticed that when I was laying on my side, her heart rate would do the same thing so they had me lay on my back which seemed to help. They also said this could just be her kind of normal state since you aren’t usually hooked up to a monitor during your pregnancy. My contractions had pretty much gone away at this point.

Monday morning, they gave me the 2nd dose of the shot and they decided to check me again. I was 4cm dilated and 100% effaced. They moved me to a postpartum room again and took me off the monitors. They wanted to keep me for a bit to check my cervix later in the day to see if I was making any progress. Around 4pm, they checked me and I was the same as the morning so I had made 0 progress and my contractions were completely gone.

They decided I could go home, but they wanted me to have a very low tolerance for any sort of contractions. We got home on Monday night around 6:30pm. We were exhausted, but glad that the baby and I were ok. We had such a whirlwind of emotions from wanting to stay to wanting to leave and back and forth.

So Monday night came and went with nothing eventful. I had no contractions and felt completely normal. I thought this was all just a false alarm and she would be born in the next couple weeks.

All day Tuesday, I felt the same. No contractions, no pressure, nothing. I went about my day, went to bed, and fully expected to wake up Wednesday feeling the same way.

Well Tuesday night around 3:30am, I woke up and could not go back to sleep. Pregnancy always makes sleeping a little more restless at the end for me, so I didn’t think anything of it. I got up to use the bathroom, laid back down and tried to go back to sleep. I felt a contraction, but it wasn’t anything too bad so I didn’t think much of it. A few minutes later, I thought I felt my water break so I got up to check in the bathroom, but I wasn’t quite sure. I do know the feeling of my water breaking because it broke with Dominic. I laid back down and around 4am, I definitely knew that my water had broken. I woke up John Paul and told him that my water broke so he got up and started grabbing our bags. I had him get some laundry out of the dryer that I wanted to bring with me to the hospital while I got my toiletries together downstairs in our bathroom.

I called my doctor at 4:12am and they called me back at 4:18am and said to go to the hospital to get checked out. I had called my parents in between and they were on the way over to stay with the kiddos.

John Paul heated us up some leftovers because I have learned my lesson of not eating before being in labor! As I was eating, my contractions were getting a lot stronger, but not too, too bad.

I went upstairs to use the bathroom and get dressed. As I was in the bathroom, I felt a lot of pressure and yelled down to John Paul, ‘I think I’m having the baby’ and he said ‘No, you can’t!!!!’ HAHAHA! We have been laughing about this now.

I called my mom and asked where they were and told her that I thought the baby was coming. She said call 911 and we will be there in 5 minutes. I really did not want to call 911 because I was so nervous about having the baby at home. This was not expected at all. I had basically gone from nothing to full on labor in a matter of minutes. Also, I knew that this was a TOLAC (trial of labor after a c section) and all the risks that come with it so I knew a delivery at home without my doctors could be really dangerous. I had all of this running through my mind, but I was trying not to think too much about it.

John Paul called 911 at 4:33am and explained what was going on. They told him to have me lay on the floor and that they would be there soon. They had him stay on the phone with them until they arrived. My parents got to our house several minutes later and my Mom came into the bathroom to see me and she told me her head was crowning. I told my Mom that it hurt and my hands were shaking. She helped to calm me down and breathe.

Around 4:40am, the EMTs arrived and my Mom went downstairs while John Paul was holding me up. The EMT had him kneel to support my back. The baby’s head was pretty much out by the time they arrived. (Around this time, Dominic woke up and opened his door which he NEVER does, he always calls for us to come get him. John Paul quickly grabbed him and brought him down to my parents. He didn’t see much, but asked my Mom why the guys were here, LOL! Giulietta slept through the whole thing!) I was having contractions and I pushed once while sitting up and nothing really changed. The EMT had John Paul lean me back a bit and on the next 2 contractions, Serafina basically came flying out. It was like one big push and she was out! She was born at 4:50 am! It was surreal.

They got out the little nose sucker and I heard her cry which was just amazing! Even my Mom said it was kind of special that she got to hear her first cry! John Paul cut her cord and they wrapped her in a foil blanket to keep her warm and handed her to me. Everyone called her a marathon baby! I handed her to John Paul so they could get me onto a wheelchair and stretcher so they could bring us to the hospital.

John Paul was driving separately so I made sure he grabbed my phone and hair tie. We did forget my shoes and my wallet, but we never needed my wallet at the hospital and luckily I had packed socks in my bag so I just wore those the whole time.

I’ve never been in an ambulance before so this was certainly an interesting time for my first experience. I was able to do skin to skin with Serafina and she was nursing like a pro! The hospital is about 15-20 mins from our house so it wasn’t a long drive, thankfully because I was still having contractions from the placenta.

They brought me in through the ambulance entrance and up to the labor triage room. They were not expecting me to be there with a baby! They knew I was coming in for a labor check, but didn’t realize that I was also the Mom who had her baby at home! The nurses were shocked and couldn’t believe it. They got us into a labor room to finish up with delivering the placenta and checking on me and the baby.

Thankfully, everything was completely fine! We were both healthy and doing really well. I didn’t have any tears so no stitches were needed.

I could not believe what had just happened! It was truly amazing that my body knew exactly what to do. I’ve always said there is no way I could go through labor without an epidural, but Serafina proved me wrong. I don’t even remember being in that much pain. I remember my labors with Dominic and Giulietta being so painful and needing the epidural. Obviously, this labor was a lot different and much faster so I had no choice, but it wasn’t as painful as my other labors.

My labor was so insanely fast. I wouldn’t say contractions were that bad until around the time I was eating which was probably around 4:20/4:25 so about 30-35 mins of labor is all it took for our little girly to be born! Isn’t that wild?!

All the nurses and doctors were saying how calm and collected I was. They said they expected a Mom who seemed more scared and traumatized. I kept saying that it was an out of body experience and that I really didn’t have time to think about things because it all happened so fast.

That night there was also a super moon which means that the moon was the closest it will be to Earth all year. The doctor said that the moon was supposedly seen best at 5am in Rochester. SO wild considering Serafina was born 10 minutes prior.

It was truly an unreal, unexpected, and crazy labor. I am SO thankful that all was well with Serafina and I. I could never, ever have imagined this being her birth story. I knew I wanted a TOLAC with her, like I had, had with Giulietta, but I was fully prepared for whatever would happen as long as we were both healthy and safe. This was NEVER in my realm of thinking though. It’s definitely a fun beginning for our little Serafina Elizabeth!

I will say the EMTs were all so nice! The EMT who delivered the baby said, “I am here to play catch for you” LOL! I never got any of the EMTs names so they remain a mystery, but they were incredible. They said they have only delivered maybe 6-7 babies and most are done in the ambulance or in the hospital lobby. I don’t remember them saying they had any home births.

The nurses and doctors were also amazing! They all wanted to hear our story and they said we were the talk of the maternity ward. They don’t have many at home births so they were all excited to hear how it went down. They were all so proud of us and what we did!

Looking back a week later, I’m still kind of in disbelief. I look at our bathroom a little bit differently now. It’s a little nostalgic as it’s the birthplace of our daughter. The tee shirt I was wearing when she was born was cut by the EMTs so that we could do skin to skin and somehow, it managed to stay perfectly clean (although the floor really wasn’t too bad—hardly any blood!). We’ve washed it and I kind of want to make it into a little keepsake or something.

Thank you for reading this really long birth story, but I didn’t want to forget anything or leave out any details so that I can go back and read it again when it’s not as fresh on my mind. If you have any questions, please reach out! I love reading birth stories so I hope you enjoyed ours!

Thank you for all of the congratulations, well wishes, prayers, and love we have received. We feel it and appreciate it so much! Our family is so grateful to you!

Happy 1 week to our Serafina Elizabeth—we love you baby girl!

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XO
-LA

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