The Birth of Sorrel

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

1 Kings 19:11-12

I keep starting and erasing this story. The birth of a baby should be pretty straightforward, one would think. But as any mother knows it never is. I feel like there are some important lessons that I'm meant to learn from the birth of our little Sorrel, but I haven't quite unraveled them all the way yet. Nevertheless, I'm determined to write this story down, lessons completely learned or not, so here goes.

I feel like I have to start with Moses' pregnancy. The pregnancy where I was SURE I was pregnant with a baby girl because  I had felt her and I just knew. I knew she was a girl and I knew what her name was going to be. Not the girl name we had had picked out for years and years. No, her name was going to be something different, her name was going to be Sorrel Jane. 

Well, if you've read Moses' birth story you know that he was in fact, a boy, and not my Sorrel Jane at all. (Still he was and is incredibly loved and adored as much as any baby possibly could be.) That fact that I was SO wrong about him really kind of rocked my world and had myself not trusting my intuition at all. Maybe I'll write more about that later, but suffice to say I went into this pregnancy with a very open mind. And when we decided to leave the gender unknown until birth I kept my mind even open-er. I still felt in the very inklings of my heart that this baby was going to be a girl but no way was I going to believe that again. I just tried to picture myself having a baby, no gender attached, so that I wouldn't be disappointed either way.

The pregnancy was fairly easy and straightforward all things considered, we moved halfway through it and I had to find a new midwife, which I did and she is amazing. The third trimester was HARD, definitely my hardest ever, but by the time  I got to the end I had prepared mentally to go to 41 weeks and beyond and  I was ready to handle that. I could be patient, I told myself, I had been patient before. Little did I know that I did not, in fact, even know the meaning of the word patient. 

My due date was July 2nd, and as I said, I was fine with going overdue. Let the baby come on the 6th or the 7th I thought, anything but the 4th of July. So when my water started trickling right after I got out of the bath on the night of June 30th, a Friday, I thought yay! this baby will probably be here within 24 hours. I told Leland I thought my water had probably started leaking, but we decided to just go to bed and hoped that labor would begin that night while I was sleeping. 

I awoke through that night often (as one does when one is 9 months pregnant) to no real contractions and nothing happening. My water continued to drip little drops, like a faucet left on, but nothing else happened. The next morning  I texted my midwife and let her know that my water had started leaking. She gave me instructions on preventing infection and we went about our day as normal. I made Leland stay home from a hike that Saturday because I was pretty sure  I would be starting real labor soon. We cleaned the house all day and nothing happened. Esther made a birthday cake for the baby (her special job) and we blew up the birth pool and still nothing happened. I started to get a little stressed and impatient about labor not beginning.  My midwife assured me labor would probably start that night and I agreed, so I went to bed hopeful. 

I woke up Sunday morning still pregnant. I went to church, even though  I didn't want to (there is nothing worse than going to church at the end of a pregnancy and everyone commenting about it) but I felt like I really needed that spiritual strength, not to mention I had been praying my heart out to go into labor so I figured the least I could do was go to church. 

So I did and still nothing happened. I took Moses and went home after the first hour (I'm good but not that good). I hoped that nursing him down for nap would start contractions, but alas nothing. I went to see my midwife Sunday afternoon. It had now been almost 48 hours since my water had started leaking and I could tell she was getting concerned. I was never worried for myself or the baby. I was more worried about how everything would play out, and scared of the unknowns of what a labor that started like this would look like. The midwife checked on me and the baby (we were all good) and did a swab to test if I was actually leaking amniotic fluid (I was). Given this information she suggested  I take some castor oil to get labor going. I am personally opposed to any and all "force your body to go into labor" methods, as it has never turned out well for me and my body in the past, but surprisingly, after praying about it,  I felt like this was the right choice. So that night  around 6pm  I drank the castor oil. She told me to expect labor to start around 6 hours after taking it. I was still pretty skeptical if this would even work, but I took it and then we had dinner and got the kids to bed. 

Around 8pm the effects of the castor oil started kicking in. Soon after I started having real contractions. They started 5-10 minutes apart and quickly progressed from there. I sent Leland to bed because  I figured it could still be a while. Around 11pm they were getting stronger and about 2 minutes apart. I knew logically that they were really close together, but they weren't that painful yet, so I didn't really know what to think. I decided to have the midwife team come over and I woke Leland up. I figured it had to be the real deal because what was this, with contractions 2 minutes apart and lasting a minute each, if not real labor?

The midwife team got there and of course things slowed down a little, but contractions were still intense. They started filling up the tub and  I kept laboring, mostly on my birth ball. During contractions my water leaked more and more confirming that it had indeed broken. I expected contractions to get more intense but they weren't. They were 2-3 minutes apart again. They were definitely strong but not transition strong. I wondered if  I was finally going to have one of those magical pain free labors that some women talked about having? (Spoiler alert: no)

Since I felt confused about where  I was at I decided to ask the midwife to check me. Based on my past labors  I expected to be at a 7. She was a little hesitant to check since I did have broken waters and we had to be careful about infections. But since  I had been in active labor several hours she did, and then  I got the worst news of my life,  I was only 4cm dilated! I was SO disappointed. In hindsight I really regret that cervix check.  I honestly wish she would have just lied and told me  I was a 6. My attitude completely changed after that and I was so deflated. Contractions immediately slowed down. They told me I could get into the tub anyways and maybe it would help things pick up.

When I got in it felt great. Too great because all labor stopped. I got out after a while. I think they asked me if  I wanted to do anything to get labor going again, but  I didn't. I felt tired and sad and I just wanted to sleep. So around 4am we went to sleep. We all thought maybe labor would start again after a few hours of sleep.

I woke up in the morning once again pregnant. The midwives had stayed the night and  I was the worst host in the world, just leaving them on the couch and forgetting about them while I went to sleep. This whole entire day was a blur. Who took care of my children this whole day? I have no idea. I only remember them asking repeatedly if they could swim in the birth pool and also wanting to know when they were ever going to get to eat that cake. I took more castor oil after breakfast and it had absolutely no affect on me. I stayed in my room, with the blinds closed, sleeping and praying, most of the day. I prayed like I had never prayed before. Each day since labor began on Friday night, Leland had given me a priesthood blessing. Each time he told me reassuring things like my body was made to birth this baby, and that I would be meeting my baby very soon. I feel like he even said that my body would birth this baby without help, but maybe I'm misremembering that. However, by this day 4 of my water breaking with no labor  I was so discouraged. I remember having a good cry and feeling quite sorry for myself for a while this day. I did half-heartedly try a couple things, like walking around the yard and doing the miles circuit to see if that would move things along, but nothing worked.

By Monday afternoon I had a conversation with my midwife. They had stayed at the house since Sunday night, almost 24 hours at this point. They checked my vitals and baby's heartbeat every hour on the hour. I was grateful for their care but I felt bad they were there so long and I definitely felt like the watched pot that was never going to boil. My midwife told me that if labor didn't start by 9pm that night that we would need to go to the hospital for an induction. I could see her reasoning for wanting to go but I did not in any way want to, or feel like I needed to go to the hospital. Baby and I were fine with zero signs of infection or distress. The thought of going to the hospital and all that would entail (with a high possibility of a repeat c section for me), the thought of that was horrible. I was fine with going to the hospital in an emergency but this didn't feel like an emergency at all to me. 

The midwife decided to bring over her friend who is a massage and cranial-sacral therapist. I had a few massages with her during pregnancy and I was happy to try whatever she wanted to do. She came over and after seeing me she suggested that I get another priesthood blessing, this time with anointing oil. I was willing to do anything at this point, so Leland called a brother from the ward to come over and help him do that. I was pretty embarrassed to have more people come over. (It actually reminded me of the same embarrassment that happened during Adele's birth when the hospital missionaries came and gave me a blessing during labor. I suppose I should be glad that  I wasn't in the throes of transition during this blessing!) Leland spoke for the blessing and pronounced that the baby would be born that night. Immediately I felt a lot of peace and comfort that this birth actually would end with the peaceful birth I had hoped for my whole pregnancy.

The midwife was reassured as well. She didn't talk about going to the hospital anymore and  I didn't ask. Despite all my sleeping that day, I was still very tired. We decided to all get some rest and hopefully have a baby that night. I lay down around 11pm and immediately a big thunderstorm came up. It was the biggest storm since we've been here. Lightning and thunder were crashing right outside our window, or so it sounded. Eventually the storm blew over but I didn't sleep at all. At midnight my midwife came in to check our vitals as they had every hour. I started to get worried. I had prayed and prayed for four days for labor to begin. Why wasn't it happening?  I was promised that this baby would be born this night, and why wasn't it happening? (Anything less than a 5 hour labor was not on my radar at all, in my mind if labor did not start really soon then the baby was not going to be born that night.) I tried to have as much faith as I could, but throughout most of this  I felt like my faith was nothing more than a mustard seed. 

Still, it seemed to be enough. At 1am my midwife had the idea to check and see if my water had indeed broken all the way. I hadn't had any cervix checks except the one the night before, in order to prevent infection. I agreed to a cervix check and for her to break my water if there was anything left to break. She checked me, found that I was 5cm dilated, stretched me to a 6, and found a little bubble of water in front of the baby's head. She broke it and indeed,  huge gushes of water came out!  It turns out that only my forebag of water had broken and the main bag of water was still intact this whole time.* 

She assured me that now labor would begin right away. I tentatively believed her but still thought  I had at least a solid 6 hours of labor ahead of me. We sat around and chatted and  I wondered (for the millionth time in the past several days) when labor would begin. After about 45 minutes I was hit with a big solid contraction and I was so happy. That lasted about 10 minutes in which time  I had two more big strong ones and wow,  I knew I was in for something now.

They drained and refilled the tub, while I labored on the birth ball. It felt like groundhog's day to me, an exact repeat of the night before. Except this time contractions were way stronger. I knew the baby was actually coming now. Before the tub was all the way filled I needed Leland's help through the contractions. I was waiting as long as  I possibly could before getting into the tub because of what had happened the night before. I didn't want anything to slow labor down this time. As I was standing and leaning on Leland through a contraction  I felt the baby move down, down, down. The contraction seemed to last forever and I could clearly feel exactly where the baby's head was as it slid down further and further. I was shocked and sure that the baby's head was going to come out if the contraction lasted any longer. I had felt the same sensation during Israel's labor and he was born with the next contraction, so this freaked me out. As soon as the contraction was over  I pulled the rest of my clothes off and jumped into the pool. I told Leland to go wake up the girls and Alba, who was spending the night to help with the kids in case we ended up needing to go to the hospital.

As I got into the pool between contractions I asked my midwife "Can it really be this fast?!". I had only been in labor for less than an hour at this point. She assured me that yes it could be that fast. 

It turned out  I jumped the gun a little. The girls came up as  I was in the valley of death transition. I had a few more contractions and I begged the midwife to check and see how far along  I was. She was hesitant but  I  basically made her. She told me I was 7cm dilated. That was not the news  I wanted to hear but she assured me women can go from 7-10cm very quickly, especially on a 5th baby. As is typical for transition, I lost all my strength to go on as I continued to be pounded by strong wave after strong wave. They seemed SO strong to me. I could not get on top of them. I just laid in the the tub in agony as I tried my best to work through them. The midwife kept reminded me to relax and breathe down, which I could do for part of each contraction, but at the peak I could not relax and definitely tensed all my muscles most of the time. In my past births  I described the labor as hard hard work, the feeling of being forced to sprint up a mountain over and over. This time it felt more like I was drowning. Each contraction would pull me under, and I would fight to stay on the surface each time. 

Somewhere in my mind I knew that this was transition and the baby would come soon. But also, I have had very long transitions before. It wasn't so much the contractions that were hard, but I kept thinking, how can I do this for three more hours?! My patience in waiting for the baby to come had been 100% depleted in the past 4 days and I just wanted SO badly for this to be over. At some point Moses woke up and Leland went to go get him back to sleep. I felt I couldn't do it without him and asked someone to go bring him back. So from that point on the Moses, Esther and Adele were sitting on the bed watching me. Leland held my hands, did counter pressure, and fed me sips of gatorade. In between contractions  I worried about the kids and if they were too tired. I was surprised how good they were though. They sat there and barely made a peep for over an hour. It's like they all knew, even Moses, what a special event they were witnessing.  

After a while I started pushing with each contraction. I didn't really decide to, I only knew that I could not keep doing contractions like this without doing something to get baby here. Still I could feel the baby wasn't really moving much and I was terrified I had another cervical lip. (As I had for my other 4 births). I asked my midwife to check me and she said I was at an 8 with a bit of an uneven cervix, but that my cervix was stretchy and she felt it would move on it's own. She did give me some homeopathic pellets, Gelsemium, to help my cervix move away and avoid another cervical lip. 

I continued to moan and groan (both literally and figuratively) through labor. I remember falling asleep in the pool between contractions.  I remember saying "I don't think I can do this anymore!" and "Maybe if  I were better at this it wouldn't be taking so long!" and of course everyone reassured me that I was doing great and baby would be here soon. At one point I remembered looking at them all sitting there watching me, the three midwives, Alba, Leland and the kids, and being so angry that clearly I was suffering so much and they were all just sitting there! Just watching me! If someone had offered me an epidural I gladly would have taken it, which is why I birth at home where there is no possibility of that happening ha. 

Finally as  I was leaning over the edge of the pool and pushing a bit with each contraction, I felt the head come down and start crowning! I was so glad! So relieved! This baby was coming out already and I had only been in labor 2 hours! The head descended slowly, very slowly. It felt intense and still painful but I didn't feel the ring of fire this time. Right as the baby crowned there was a pause between contractions, another contraction and the head was out, then another pause. Another contraction came and I had to push quite a bit to get the shoulders out, then the baby was out!

I stood up in the pool and they handed the baby under my leg to me. Everyone, myself included, was saying "the baby! It's here!". It was such a joyous celebration and the kids in the room made it more thrilling. The kids came over and stood by the pool as I checked and announced, a girl! It was a girl!  I was so surprised it really was a girl, I asked the midwife to double check and indeed it was our girl! The first thing I thought of when  I saw her face was Sorrel.  She was finally here. 

Everyone was commenting how big and chubby she was. She felt tiny to me. We had the girls go and wake up the boys. Israel was really sleepy and non interested ha, but Julian was excited. Moses had been awake for a while by this point and was happy to see the baby finally here. 

I sat in the pool with her and just stared at all her little features for a while. She was covered in so much vernix, I loved it. I had another short cord so I just held her on my belly and enjoyed her. The kids kept asking when they could hold her and I'm pretty sure they asked about eating the cake several times to haha. 

After a while I got out and moved to the bed. I delivered the placenta and we kept her attached for a while. The midwife looked me over and no tears! Another amazing feat I never thought I would see in my birthing experiences. Shortly after that my bleeding started picking up a lot. I physically felt fine but called the midwife over because I felt like I was sitting in a puddle, which I practically was. She quickly gave me a shot of pitocin (most painful shot of my life) and the bleeding stopped. 

Leland and Alba put the boys back to sleep and I continued to cuddle and nurse our unnamed at that point baby girl. Adele got the special job of cutting the cord. After that the midwives did the newborn checkup. She weighed in at 9lbs 2oz and 20 inches long. My biggest baby! We diapered her but didn't dress her for the first week so  I could get as much skin to skin as possible. Leland and the girls each took a turn holding her. I will always remember Esther crying happy tears holding her so long awaited for baby sister for the first time. 

After that the midwives finished cleaning up and everyone left one by one. The girls and Alba went back to bed. Leland went back to helping the boys because some of them were still awake. And then it was just me and baby. The sun was starting to come up already, and I just sat there and stared at this sweet baby as the sun started filtering through the blinds. 

The next day the kids all took turns holding her. Immediately after she was born they started asking her name, I told them we didn't know yet because I wanted a chance to discuss it with Leland alone first. It turns out there wasn't much discussion because he said as soon as he saw her he thought her name should be Sorrel too. 

Our little Sorrel Jane Hunt. Born 7/4/23 at 3:31am after 2.5 hours of labor and 6 minutes of pushing. 

As I said at the beginning of this story, I'm still processing how  I feel about everything that happened. The three days of waiting for labor to begin were some of the most trying days of my life, emotionally. The labor itself, once it started, was by far my fastest and probably my easiest just by being so short. In the end we got our lovely baby Sorrel, which feels like the most enormous undeserving gift I've ever been given, and I'm just so so grateful for her. On top of that, to have the beautiful homebirth, with the kids present, that I did, when many times it was completely out of reach, it feels like another blessing I didn't quite deserve. 

God is good. Everytime I look at her little face I feel proof of that. 

*My midwife and I concluded that my forebag of waters breaking before labor began and containing so much water that it seemed like my entire water had broken, was due the fact that I had “too much water”. I was diagnosed with polyhydraminos in the third trimester of this pregnancy. The risk of infection is still present when the forebag only breaks, but often labor won’t start until the true bag of water breaks too.