My journey didn't start three weeks ago though. 37w 2d is when it all started. Tom was still in Louisiana not excepted to come home til the following week. That Wednesday afternoon I started having contractions. I was Skyping with my mom. I had been having them off and on for weeks so I thought nothing of it til they weren't going away. I decided to start timing them. After an hour of consistent contractions I texted my midwife to let her know. She instructed me to time for another hour and see how things were. So I did. Nothing changed. I started to panic a little because it was just Kait and I and I wasn't prepared. My wonderful momma helped me calm down and get me back in the mindset I needed to have. My midwife told me to continue timing and to check back in a couple hours and if they hadn't stopped to take a bath and see if that calmed them down. I decided to make dinner and finish homework with Kaity. Cleaned the kitchen, got Kaity to bed, and took a bath. Still they continued. She decided she was going to come check me and see where I was at. She got to the house around midnight. I was 50% effaced and a +1. My cervix was so far back we couldn't tell if I was dilated or not. We then decided it was time to get Tom home. After getting everything squared away with the Red Cross, Tom was on his way home by the next morning. By the late morning my contractions seemed to slow down a bit so we all decided to get some rest. Tom got home late Thursday night. We made arrangements for his unit to pick him up and brought home and they totally dropped the ball. So at 1:30 AM I had to drive all the to the airport and get him. Once he was home though I was finally able to relax and all my worry went away.
For the next six days I continued to have contractions. They would get super consistent for hours and then just fade. It was quite frustrating and exhausting. Sleep became nonexistent and I had horrible restless legs and feet that kept me up as well. We did just about everything under the sun to get things moving along but little man was obviously still pretty cozy.
May 25 I lost my mucus plug, but still no other progress.
May 26 I went to my chiropractor. She was most likely the key that unlocked the door lol!
Contractions picked up that afternoon around 3 PM and didn't let up. I called my midwife and her and her intern got everything together and were on there way over. (They live on the complete other side of island so they were overly cautious about getting to me. Traffic here is horrible). Once they got here she checked me again and decided they were staying until this baby came! We called my doula and she came as well. Oh and my friend/photographer did too.
We really thought we would have a baby by that morning/afternoon but nope. I labored a lot of the night in the birth pool.
The next morning May 27 everything was still the same. We decided to let my friend/photographer go home to get some rest since we were all up most of the night. We ate breakfast, went for a really long walk, came home and rested a little while. Tom and I went and found some stairs and every ten steps I did a squat or if I had a contraction I would stop and squat. I did that ten times. After lunch we decided to have a dance party to help get my contractions up and consistent again. I used my birth ball. It was actually really fun :) and it worked some too. I did a few different exercises on the ball. After that my midwife started tincture shots. I did one every hour. They were to help keep my contractions steady and help them get stronger. I continued to labor through the evening and night. By late night my contractions were really strong. I tried to sleep but I couldn't. I went back and forth laboring from bed to the living room with my ball and night long. My midwife checked me again in the middle of night and the baby had moved back up a little. She couldn't figure out why or why she was having such a hard time finding my cervix. I started to get really defeated. I was having such strong contractions and completely exhausted but nothing seemed to be changing. She told me at that point it was my choice what we wanted to do. I could go to the hospital if I wanted to or stay home and see how things went. I wanted to so badly to accomplish my goal. I didn't want to give up unless in was absolutely necessary. I told her I just wanted to stay home and do this. I will admit after that I started to doubt myself. I had been laboring for so long and just didn't know if I had it in me to go on. The pain was so bad and the thought of some relief was tempting. I laid in bed trying to figure out what would be next for me. This is where my fitness strength came into play. I learned a long time ago how to train my mind. How I could control my thoughts and tell my body what it needed to do. And that's exactly what I did. I told my head that I could do this. That I was strong enough and I would make it to the finish line. I worked really hard for the next couple hours to not use energy in making any noise or movements during contractions. I rested as best as I possibly could. I eventually asked my intern if she could rub my back with oils. The pain in back was the worst! Between her, Tom and my doula they kept me as comfortable as possible.
May 28....We decided to send Kaity to school since we kept her home the day before. When Tom got back I wanted to go back in the pool. I had moved into the phase of labor where I wanted no talking or at least minimal. The water felt amazing! While in the water I really started getting the urge to push. I got the go ahead to just let my body do what it wanted so I started pushing every contraction. After a few pushes I moved the baby down some...right on my tailbone....OUCH!!!! My midwife wanted to do one more check to see my progression and check baby. We went to my bed and got me all set up there. After she checked me she found one reason things had been taking as long as they did. I had scar tissue on my cervix from when I had Kait. It was making it harder for me to completely dilate. So she used some oils to help with that. At that point we decided to just stay in the bed because I could move around more and be in different positions. I think I tried every position there is lol. Another hour went by and it was time for another check. She finally felt my water bag bulging (I had come to the conclusion my water was never going to break because apparently eating as well as I do made my bag extremely thick and strong) and asked me if it was ok if she just broke it. At that point the dream of my water breaking on its own didn't matter so I said yes! But my water didn't just break....it exploded!!! Haha. It went all over my doula the poor thing. Once we got that over with my contractions were just back to back, I pushed for about two and a half hours. The baby ended up posterior and kind of got stuck at my tailbone so my midwife had to help lift his head during a push to get it above the bone. With my doula behind me, Tom at my side encouraging me and cheering me on and the best midwife team we delivered my precious boy right there in my room. Tom caught him and laid him on my chest. At 12:35 PM Parker Thomas Frounfelker made his debut. It was the most beautiful moment in my life. I held him for at least an hour just loving on him and allowing him to latch on his own. We delayed cutting the umbilical cord for two hours. I ended up having to take two tincture shots to stop my bleeding. Because of how long my labor was I had quite a bit of bleeding and it wouldn't stop. After I drank those the bleeding slowed down. After we got cleaned up Tom got Kaity from school and she was able to meet her baby brother. Her and Tom then cut the cord. Then Parker got weighed. I was completely shocked when they told me he weighed 8lbs 1.5oz and was 21in long. I didn't believe them!
So there you have it! I'm so happy we were able to do this at home. I wouldn't change a thing or the team I had.
I also chose to encapsulate my placenta and I'm so glad I did. It helped in so many ways.
At three weeks old Parker weighs 10lbs and is breastfeeding great! I have lost 20lbs and so ready to be able to workout again.
I hope you enjoyed our story. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy as well.
*Professional photo credit goes to A Little Love Photography
