This is my fourth and final birth story.

Sorry, I had to go and have a good cry after I wrote that sentence. I would blame the hormones. But there are truly so many emotions behind that sentence. 4 days that have shaped my life more than any others (ok, my wedding day was pretty great too). But those 4 days. Those 4 births. I don’t want to forget a single moment of the anticipation, the pain, the wonder, the joy, and empowerment, the overwhelming love. How your heart just explodes a little more with each new baby you hold in your arms.

Introducing: Juniper Renee Pool. Born on April 13^th at 5:27 pm. She weighed 8lbs even and was 19.75” long. The name Juniper is a nod to the long history of plant and landscape lovers on both sides of my family. My great-great grandpa started Hoerr Nursery over 90 years ago and I have fond memories of all the beautiful plants that have special meanings to my different family members (the magnolia tree in my grandma’s yard, my dad’s love of geraniums in our front yard and the ginko and birch trees, my mom’s zinna’s).  Renee is my sister, Jenna’s, middle name. She is also the one who took all the beautiful birth pictures below.But let’s back up a bit, shall we? Since I’ve been a terrible blogger for a year now, I need to recap the craziness of this last pregnancy. We had been a little on the fence about adding a number 4 to our clan, especially with new rhythm we were trying to find in our new city of Denver! But in April 2016, we got a positive on a pregnancy test and were thrilled. But in May, we sadly lost that sweet baby. It made me certain we weren’t done adding to our family (William took a little more convincing). Just 2 months later in July, we got pregnant again and after seeing a sweet little heartbeat, announced it to the world in September. We found a wonderful midwifery practice that at the University of Colorado Health, which is a great compromise for William and I. I’m probably a homebirther at heart and William would never do birth outside a hospital, so this practice felt like a great middle ground for us. With this practice, you rotate seeing six midwives and one would be on call for your delivery at University Hospital. I can’t say enough wonderful things about them and how supported I felt through everything this pregnancy has brought. So let’s just sum up this pregnancy in a word: nausea.

I’ve been increasing sick with each pregnancy, but this one was a whole new ball game. Starting around 8 weeks, and extending until the day she was born, I had nausea. Thankfully, the bulk of the actual puking ended around 22 weeks, but the remainder of the pregnancy I still was on the highest dose of 2 different meds to keep food down and help me to function.

Then to make things even more fun, I started to get the sneaking suspicion around 30 weeks that baby was not head down. I pressed for an ultrasound at my next midwife appointment and it was confirmed that she was breech. This launched me into weeks of trying everything and anything in my power to get her to turn. We started seeing a chiropractor weekly and I did every trick on the spinning babies website. My ironing board saw more action that it ever has as I laid head down on the side of my bead twice a day for 20 minutes. I had acupuncture for the first time and burned moxibustion sticks by my pinky toes several times a day. I took warm baths with an ice pack laying on her head to try and get her to move to the warmth.

We also made an appointment with Dr. Hall. He is one of the few doctors left in Denver the country who will allow for a breech vaginal birth. He works at Swedish Hospital, which is about 45 minutes from us, but I wanted to have a back up plan in case she decided not to turn. I had a midwife appointment the day before meeting Dr. Hall and we confirmed that she was still breech. The next morning (Thursday, March 16^th @ 35w4d), I was lying in bed and felt a sharp pain but I thought it was because I was huge and also had 2 kids that had snuck into bed with me in the night and getting comfy was beyond me. My car wouldn’t start that morning, but thankfully, my neighbor let me borrow her car and I headed to Swedish. We had an amazing appointment and he said I was the perfect breech vaginal candidate. But then, we did the ultrasound – and she was HEAD DOWN. Wow, did I feel silly. Haha. Her head was very flat and he said he could tell she had just turned. But he gave me his cell phone number and said if she turned back or those midwives weren’t able to help me, just call him.The rest of the pregnancy was all the normal “can’t sleep, can’t eat, I can’t wait until she’s out” routine as she stayed head down and we just anticipated when she would arrive and if it would coincide with my mom being able to fly out. I had about 2 weeks of prodromal labor. For those unfamiliar with that, it’s basically real labor (unlike Braxton hicks contractions) in terms of pain, contractions, and regularity but it comes and goes. It’s more likely to happen in subsequent pregnancies and also pregnancies where the baby isn’t in an optimal position. It made for an exhausting last few weeks and also made me very unsure of how I’d know if I was in labor that was actually worth heading to hospital for.

On Tuesday, April 11 around 2pm I started having contractions that felt very different and very real. At about 1am, I decided we should probably go to the hospital just to see. Well, that was embarrassing. I felt like a first time mom when Nikki pronounced me 1.5 cm and +2 station and sent me home where contractions completely stopped. William decided to stay home from work on Wednesday, just in case. I had contractions all day Wednesday and was having trouble talking through them, so we decided to make our way to the hospital again around 4pm. Annnndddd, sent home again at 2cm. Feeling like a fool at this point, although the midwife was very kind to say that I really WAS in labor, she was just taking her sweet time. I was able to sleep through the night and decided I would not be heading in again until I KNEW it was time. (I was GBS+ again so I knew I needed to get there in time to get IV antibiotics before she arrived).

Thursday morning, I had my regularly scheduled midwife appointment with Nikki. She checked me and gave my membranes a really good strip (holy cow, ow) and said I was now a 4, almost 5 and it felt totally different than I had on Tuesday night. She said she’d be expecting a baby that day! Yay! My mom was scheduled to land at 8pm and now I was just hoping she’d hold off a bit longer so we wouldn’t have to worry about another round of childcare. I was having good contractions all day, but around 3 it started to feel a little more urgent that I call around and see if anyone was around to watch the bigs. My friend Kaylen came over with her little girl Scarlett. I had a grocery order delivered and was trying to help with that but at that point realized “this is really it.” I had her take a picture which is time stamped 3:47pm and I rode in the backseat to the hospital to try and be bit more comfy. My sister decided to just meet us there and my friend Song said she’d make her way there as well.

When I arrived in triage, I was needing William to put pressure on my lower back for contractions and there was definitely no talking happening. They checked and I was at a 7 and they said they were going to hurry up to start getting the pool ready. Woohoo, finally staying and having a baby. They said we’d finish baby’s monitoring upstairs as they wanted to get my IV in right away, so I walked (with a few stops) to room 512! Notice the clock. We arrived in the room around 4:40. Didn’t realize how quick of a stay this would be. At this point, contractions were coming pretty much right on top of one another.They needed a few more minutes of monitoring baby, so here is my last official pregnant belly pic:Then it was IV time. She had a little trouble getting it in the left arm, so I got a second poke on the right. I was supposed to get 2 doses over the course of 4 hours. Spoiler: I got about 3/4 of one dose. 🙂 I was ready for water at this point, but the ladies were still working on the big tub, so they filled the smaller tub in the bathroom for me. I remember William joking that I got my own rubber ducky.William and I have a pretty good routine down now that we’ve done this a few times. He presses hard on my back during contractions but other than that, it’s HANDS OFF. 🙂 I vaguely remember this nurse coming in to take of the monitoring belts and tell me the tub was almost ready. I turned around in this tub at this point and remember becoming more vocal and feeling like I wanted to quit. But then knowing that means I was almost there.At the end of a super hard one, I felt my water broke (sidenote: this is the first time my water has EVER broken on it’s own). William yelled out that it was 5:16. The big tub was finally filled and I somehow was able to get out of the bathroom and into the tub right as another contraction hit. The midwife said there was a little “stool/chair” if I wanted to try to sit back. So I thought, what the heck, I’ll try that.Umm, nope for that position. I needed to push. So push I did. Her head was out quite fast. But her shoulders were turned just slightly and didn’t want to come out without a little help from the midwives.We got my legs back and she helped with the shoulders. And then, she was here. Born at 5:27. About 47 minutes after we arrived in the room. And after about 10 minutes of getting in the birthing tub. Ahhh the sweet relief and joy. She wasn’t making many noises no matter how hard we were rubbing her back and head, so they wanted to get her under the warmer just a bit to get her to pink up. And my placenta was already starting to separate, so I didn’t put up too much of a fight. Of course, she immediately put her lungs to use. William got to cut the cord, while they helped me out of the tub. The minute I stood up, I felt the placenta so I delivered that standing up into the bowl.  They brought her right back to me while I got assessed for “damage” and was so thankful that no stitches were necessary! We marveled at her long fingers (just like Ellison’s) and were quite shocked at her full head of hair (I usually have bald babies). She took to nursing like a pro.My dear friend, Song, arrived thinking I’d still be in labor. But instead, she got introduced to the little miss and got an apology that it went so fast and she missed it! 😉   We took a couple family shots.Then, we had them weigh and measure her then so that Jenna could leave and go watch my kiddos until my mom arrived (I’ll forever give Jenna a hard time that I got her in and out in basically an hour for this birth) 🙂 Juni weighed 8.03 pounds and was 19.75” long.I had found this blanket that had coral peonies on it like in her nursery and little berries that resembled juniper berries. I knew it was a blanket she had to have. The little bonnet I knit the week I found out she was a girl. We moved to a postpartum room where we settled in for a longer stay than we anticipated (more on that in a next post). William left to pick up my mom from the airport and when they got home, we facetimed the kids to show them their new sis! Then I settled in for a quiet night of snuggling June bug. I marveled at how in the world I now had 4 kids and thanked God for the amazing birth story that I got the end my “birthing career” onAnd then I may have shed a few tears. As thrilled as I am that I feel that our family is complete, there is a sadness that comes with this finale. That was the final wait for the 2 lines on the pregnancy test. That was the last time I would feel a baby move inside me. The last time I would anticipate knowing if we would have a boy or girl joining our family. The final time I will lovingly craft a coming home outfit and carefully plan a nursery. The last time I time I will anticipate when labor will start or how their story will play out. The last time I will feel the pain, the exhaustion, and then the euphoria of giving birth. This will be last “first night” where I stay up all night watching her breathe, touching her soft skin and marveling at all the newness as I pick her up to nurse in the night. The last time I will write out a story as life changing as having a child.

But that sadness is also mixed with great excitement. Joy about the stages of rearing children that are ahead of us. The new things well be able to do once we’re out of the newborn/toddler stage. And just a deep sense of anticipation to see what God has in store for Juniper’s life.  

Psalm 127 3-5 (the Message)
Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
with your quivers full of children!