not ready, just surrendered: Braylen Kai's birth story

We put on the hypnobirthing playlist to fall asleep to every night when I was around 32 weeks pregnant.

I started eating dates everyday when I was 35 weeks.

At 37 weeks, I added raspberry leaf tea twice a day.

At 38.5 and with some steady contractions going, I put 2 tablespoons of castor oil in my smoothie. It wasn’t as bad as I had always been told, but it also didn’t do much for me.

After my 39 week appointment, I went home and pumped until I got a contraction, paused, and started again until I got a few more. 

I drank all the water. We had all the sex. I walked laps and laps around our indoor mall. Squats. Cat-call positions on my hands and knees. And prayer, a whole lot of prayer. When you are very pregnant and your varicose veins are very swollen and you have five other very busy children to keep up with, the last few weeks of pregnancy are a long, long wait. I was so very ready to have this baby.

And I’m not saying you cannot prepare your body for labor, or that there is nothing you can do to get ready. I am saying that no matter what you do on your own, babies just don’t come until they are good and ready. 

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On Saturday, February 20, I called my parents and asked them to come watch our oldest five so that Alex and I could go for a walk. It was Braylen’s, our sixth, due date, and while my contractions were nothing more than they had been for several weeks, I was so physically and emotionally spent that I needed a break from the kids and some fresh winter air, and a walk was the perfect excuse for both. Alex and I ended up walking just over 2.5 miles, until the contractions were good and steady, like they usually got after a walk.

But this time, on his due date, they didn’t stop when we got home. 

Around 6:30pm, we checked into the hospital, where the admitting nurse told me I was 3cm dilated and 90% effaced. She was… not gentle in her checking efforts, and I cannot say I was sad about the shift change at 7:00pm, when Emily - who would become our angel of a nurse - walked in and introduced herself. By 9:00pm we were back in a labor and delivery room, I had my IV antibiotic for Group B strep (which I have been positive for all five of my births) and I was in the bathtub letting things progress slowly and steadily. 

Around 10:30pm, Emily checked my progress and I was between 4-5cm dilated. She called my midwife, Lisa, to update her, and within an hour Lisa was at the hospital to check on me. What Emily and Lisa did so well from the beginning of my labor was to remind me that my body knew exactly what to do. Things were not moving quickly, but they were moving. My contractions were consistently 3-4 minutes apart, strong but not too painful, and I was still feeling very in control of myself (i.e. I was not a feral animal, yet). I wanted to stand and squat and bounce on the birth ball to keep things going, but Emily encouraged me to just lay down and rest until the first dose of antibiotic was done, and then we could reassess. 

So I did. And with consistent contractions I still slept on and off for nearly two hours, breathing and remembering the instructions from my favorite doula (who could not be with us during this birth) to keep my forehead relaxed. “As soon as your face starts to wrinkle around your eyes and forehead, relax them.” 

It sounds strange, but worrying about my forehead wrinkles actually got me through the rest of my labor.

A little after 2:00am, I got my second dose of antibiotic and with it, the green light to have the midwife break my water. Once she did, contractions started getting stronger, and quickly. I got back in the bathtub and found the most comfortable position to be on my hands and knees -- so that is where I stayed for the next two hours. Alex got in the water with me, and every time I had a contraction, he pushed my hips together and all I can say is how in the world it took us five labors to figure out how amazingly helpful that is I do not know. I breathed, he pushed on my hips, I kept my forehead wrinkle free as much as I possibly could, and I swear I could feel Braylen slowly slowly slowly making his way down. It felt like he and I were working together. In an hour, I told Alex I was starting to feel a ton of pressure and to grab Emily, our nurse.

“You’re at 8cm, Katie, let me call Lisa,” were basically the best words I’d ever heard.

I don’t know exactly what time they came back in, and I was so focused on the forehead wrinkles that I didn’t do much chatting with them. But things were moving fast at this point, everyone could tell. Lisa asked me if I wanted to stay in the bath or get back in bed, and I told her as long as I could get back on my hands and knees I’d get in bed. She was so calm, so reassuring, so soft spoken and measured. “Absolutely. Your body will tell us what to do.” The exact right thing for her to say in that moment. 

So I climbed in the bed and -- because you don’t always lose all your dignity in labor -- I immediately requested my black cotton bra. I have nursed five babies, friends, and when you are on your hands and knees with no bra, well, let’s just say that fact is very obvious, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. Once the bra was back on, I could focus on the forehead wrinkles again.  

I knew Bray was so close, because with each contraction I felt like I could not possibly do one more. I’m not an expert, but in my three experiences with unmedicated births, it really is at the point that your body is so close to giving up that you are also so close to having a baby. The most incredible joy and relief is right on the other side of the most unbearable pain. As I groaned and tried to keep breathing and begged God to allow Braylen to come soon, Lisa stood on my right side and gently kept her hand on my lower back, repeating over and over again, “You’re doing great, Katie. Your baby is doing great. Your body knows exactly what to do.”

Alex was still pushing on my hips with each contraction, and when I felt Bray’s head crowning (and maybeee let out a good yell), Lisa quietly replaced Alex, and I heard the chorus of three people -- Alex, Emily, and Lisa -- encouraging me to keep pushing. It took two minutes and three of everything-I-could-give pushes, and Lisa had our baby boy in her arms. She cleared his mouth of mucus, and then said, “Katie, here’s your baby!” I was still on my hands and knees, and not wanting to waste a second getting Braylen into his mama’s arms, she handed him to me right through my legs, then she and Alex helped me roll onto my side and squeeze him close. 

Understatement of all understatements: this moment is miraculous. The unbelievable pain that was there just moments before is gone. The little person that has been kicking and hiccuping and growing inside your belly is now crying and moving and breathing outside of it. It is unlike anything else in the world.

Braylen Kai made his arrival on February 21, 2021, at 4:17am. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 ounces, and was 20 inches long. I think back often to the day I found out I was pregnant, how unexpected and impossible that reality felt. How not ready I was for another baby. And then he was there, in my arms, right when he was supposed to come, and a dozen times a day I asked him if he knows he’s a miracle, and tell him that he is my reminder that you don’t always need to be ready, you just need to be surrendered.