Theo Joseph Walker: The Birth Story
Sunday, February 23rd, at 3:58am was the moment we finally met our beautiful son Theo. The moment this sweet little being was born into our arms.
It was the best day of our lives.
Now, I wish I could say the road to getting to this precious moment in our lives was a quick and easy one. I wish I could say that everything went to planned and that we followed all of my birth preferences. But that would be no fun, right?! Life always throws you curve balls. And that day (the longest day of my life) definitely lived up to that saying!
Where shall we begin?
Natural Induction
Leading up to my last few weeks of pregnancy, I had known that my doctors planned to induce me at 39 weeks. This is due to having type one diabetes. Typically mama’s with type 1 tend to have larger babies and doctors don’t like to go past 39 weeks. Some hospitals even say earlier at 37-38 weeks. These larger sized babies are usually caused by uncontrolled high blood sugars.
Our little babe was looking great on his ultrasounds size wise, and my blood sugars were controlled and in tight range my entire pregnancy. With this, I was able to push my induction date to 39 weeks and 3 days. Did I want to be medically induced? Hell nah!
My plan was to have an unmedicated birth as possible, and having my body forced into something it clearly wasn’t ready for was not ideal for me. So I tried every trick in the books starting around 36 weeks of pregnancy to try and naturally induce myself or at least to help my body prepare to go into labor on it’s own! Here is a list of things I did to help with natural induction.
Red Raspberry Leaf Tea— for the entire 3rd trimester
Daily walks
Bouncing and stretching with birthing ball
Having sex!!
Acupuncture— starting at 34 weeks 1-2 times a week, 2-3 a week at 38 weeks and on.
The chiropractor— get those hips aligned and ready + help the babe drop
Massage points— another great reason for your significant other to give you body/foot massages
Spicy foods!!! Yum. Gimme all the Indian and Thai foods.
Evening Primrose Oil- taken orally or vaginally
Clary Sage Essential Oil- diffused only after 39 weeks or during labor.
Positive affirmations and setting intentions out into the world. “My body will go into labor on its own before _______ date.” “I trust my baby and my body to know what to do.”
Which of these helped me most? I think ALL were very beneficial, but who knows what actually kick started my labor! Maybe one of them, none of them or all! 😉 But in my eyes they were worth giving all a try.
Labor + Delivery
For our baby Theo’s delivery we chose to go to Tucson Medical Center (TMC), where we had been attending all of our prenatal appointments through TMC Obstetrics— their high risk maternal fetal medicine center. Shoutout to my diabetes for being considered a high risk pregnancy. TMC has some amazing new spacious birthing rooms with laboring tubs and showers. And the staff and nurses at TMC are absolute angels. We had an amazing experience choosing to birth there; and will no doubt be going there again once we have more babies!
The day my labor began, my day started as normal. I had already finished my last day of work a couple days prior; so it was an off day for me. I began my day with a normal wake up with hubby at 6:30am as we drank coffee, had breakfast and he got ready to leave for work. No signs of anything yet! Then came my acupuncture appointment. I had began these appointments once a week starting around 34 weeks. At 38 weeks, which was just the week prior to this I was going twice a week. I went to my acupuncture appointment at 12:40 pm and during this appointment, what was supposed to be my ‘adult nap time,’ I began to feel intense cramping every so often in my stomach + abdomen and a little in my lower back. I just thought “hmmm the acupuncture is working, maybe my body is getting ready to go!” Nothing crazy yet, but this heavy period cramping persisted through the entire hour long appointment on and off every 20 mins or so.
After the appointment, I had a second appointment to make it to— my biweekly nonstress test that I’ve been attending since week 27 of my pregnancy at TMC Obstetrics. This is where at TMC I am hooked up to a couple monitors on my belly. One monitor tracks baby’s movement and fetal heart rate and the other monitor measures my contractions. The nurses were very excited that I was beginning to have contractions, but just advised me to keep an eye on them and to start timing them once they became closer together. I agreed, finished my appointment and headed home. As I made my way home, the contractions began to intensify. When I got home, I decided to pickup around the house and organize, and try and relax here and there. I did this while working through the contractions now every 15-20 minutes lasting for about 30-45 seconds. I texted Zach to let him know that I was having contractions, but told him to stay at work since they were far apart and I’d see him when he got home.
Around 6pm, Zach picked up some delicious spicy Thai food for dinner. As he got home, the contractions had progressed with intensity but still timing the same length and space apart. We ate our dinner and watched tv for a very short amount of time. As my contractions progressed to every 10 minutes, I decided to go lay down and relax in bed upstairs to try to get into my hypnobirthing element and state of mind. Having a very relaxed and calm state of mind with each surge or contraction was important to me; and using my breathing techniques we learned through our courses of hypnobirthing was key. Beginning around 730-8pm I began really timing out my contractions since they were under 10 minutes apart— and continued to time them out until they were considered active labor under 4 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute long for over an hour.
“My body and my baby know what to do. ”
This 4-1-1 rule is what made us finally decide to the hospital at about 4:30am. That night I had no sleep due to how heavy and intense these contractions were. I was timing the surges every few minutes working through the discomfort and focusing on my breath and calm mind + body. As we drove to the hospital around 4:30, I worked through these contractions in the front seat of our truck as Zachary safely and calmly brought us to TMC’s labor and delivery. Good job babe. ☺️
At 5am we got to the hospital, checked in at triage. As I was signing myself in, I was having contractions every few minutes as the receptionist woman was cheering me on saying “You go mama, you got this!” We made sure to call our Doula, Vanessa, on our way to the hospital, who also met us there in triage.
After awhile in our room, I was finally checked for my very first time during my pregnancy. I chose to deny these vaginal checks at my previous appointments until my very last scheduled appointment at 39 weeks and 2 days (which would be two days from this date). I was 5 centimeters dilated; what an awesome start we thought! We were already halfway there. We decided to wait for the labor and delivery room that we wanted, the room that had the biggest laboring tub. This is the room we imagined having after our hospital tour, the only room with a big corner tub. And hot damn! We got it!
Things were looking great at around 7:30am we moved to our labor and delivery room. With the help of my amazing husband and our awesome doula from WildRoseProject (Click on the link to find her info!) Vanessa Wingerath— I began to focus on my laboring techniques I learned to help my body prepare for this little one’s birth. Using a birthing ball, walking around, kneeling, stretching, going through cat cow, using the warm shower, and the amazing laboring tub were just some of the things we used to help me get through these surges every few minutes. Without medication, the pain was intense but my body was doing what it already knew what to do. We used low lighting and essential oils throughout the entire labor as well. The tub laboring was extremely relaxing And beneficial for me and was definitely my favorite part of my laboring. I am so thankful we had this room and tub!
My doctors came and checked me one more time at 1pm and I was 6cm. After hours of laboring and movement, I was dilated only one more centimeter from 6 hours before. This was so discouraging after all the hard work I had put in.
The doctor suggested to us that we could try and break my water. They said this could either speed things along, but it would really intensify my contractions…or there was a chance it may not do much of anything and still would intensify the contractions. I held off on breaking my water right away to try a few more different techniques for laboring.
Our doula suggested we try using her robozo. The Rebozo is a very long, woven scarf created by women for women. It’s used to try Rebozo sifting in pregnancy for active labor for comfort, and to enhance techniques that may then be used to “make space for the baby” to get into their best position for labor. We did this for about an hour and half, laboring in different positions. At 2:30pm, we decided to get check again to see what progress we had made from an hour and a half of laboring and robozo techniques. 6 cm dilated. No change.
I had been laboring since 5am. I was running on no sleep for almost 24 hours. an empty stomach, low energy. Not much progress had been made. So we decided to try breaking my water around 2:30pm.
They did not lie when they said that the contractions would get more aggressive. Holy shit balls.
Still unmedicated, I labored 2 more hours from 2:30-4:30 with these outrageously aggressive contractions. At 4:30pm I was checked and I was 7cm. 1 more god damn centimeter, after so much hard work. My body was exhausted, I had no appetite to eat. So at 4:30 it was time to head back to the tub, where I felt most comfortable. I hopped into the shower a bit as we got the tub ready and warmed up again. I was back in the tub again ready to labor some more!
2 1/2 more hours of labor went by with extreme intense pressure down below. Not gonna lie, felt like my ass was going to fall out. 😂 Had my body made any progress?
At 6pm, now in active labor for over 14 hours. I got checked again and was 7cm. I hadn’t made much progress at all since coming in that morning almost 12 hours ago, and it was now coming up of another night of no sleep, body weakness, empty stomach, on top of these crazy contractions and pressure. My body could not handle it any longer. What was offered to me hours before, but denied, I finally decided to say yes to the epidural. So at 6pm they called for me for an epidural. Thank the lord for this amazing medicine!!
They told me it would be about an hour of waiting for the doctor to come with the epidural. So the intense contractions and pressure continued as we waited with anticipation.
At 7:20 the epidural finally arrived. Getting this epidural was the best decision I could’ve made at this point. And I am SO glad I did it! I received the lowest dosage of the epidural, which was enough to let my body relax a bit. With an epidural, it helps to numb the contractions you are having but you can still feel the pressure down below. I was still able to feel my legs a little, but my body was finally at ease. My contractions were still constant every couple minutes, being monitored on the screen. My body was at more ease, which allowed me to rest a couple hours, thank goodness!! Just what my body needed, some rest.
I slept for 2 hours through contractions being monitored, often feeling that pressure throughout. At 9:30pm, my nurse awoke me to let me know that my contractions looked like they had slowed down a good amount and that the doctor was suggesting I needed petocin to speed up and intensify the contractions. More medication was the last thing I wanted, and I had been feeling the heavy pressure every couple minutes my entire nap. I was 7cm the last time they had checked before the epidural. I decided to speak up for myself and asked her to check me one last time before getting the petocin. So she did. 10cm, 100% effaced, READY TO GO! I was so relieved I spoke up for myself, and that the epidural allowed my body to relax and open up.
Throughout my entire labor and delivery, I was able to control my own insulin and blood sugars. Keeping my cgm and my insulin pump on my body. This was a huge plus! No insulin IV drip needed. My blood sugars were steady and in range my entire labor besides spiking a little through pushing later in the evening.
100% ready meant it was go time! From 9:30pm to 12 midnight I was pushing nonstop for 2 1/2 hours. Making progress slowly but surely, he was on his way. We decided to take a break! I rested and tried sleeping from 12 to 2am.
Once again, it was time to push! From 2am to 4am I pushed for another 2 hours. We could finally see his dark little hairs on that head of his. He was making mama work for his appearance! He was almost here.
The doctors warned us throughout the end of our labor, that he may have a slight shoulder dystocia. This is where baby’s shoulders can get stuck inside mama’s pelvis. They were worried about this from the beginning due to his 95th percentile measurements with his with legs and shoulders from past ultrasounds. With this being said, during the last couple pushes— Theo seemed to be in a bit of distress making his way into this world. Our doctor made a split second decision to make an emergency episiotomy cut on me to get him out. We were NOT planning on this, but I am so glad he made this decision. Immediately after, Theo made his arrival safely!
After 4 and a half hours of pushing, an unplanned epidural, a surprise episiotomy, and almost 24 hours of unmedicated active labor, Theo Joseph Walker was finally born at 3:58am on February 23rd. He weighed a whopping 8 pounds 5 ounces, and measured 20.5 inches long. He was pure magic. It was immediate love. A love we didn’t know we were capable of. This was the happiest moment of our lives. ✨
We immediately had our golden hour, skin to skin time with mama and daddy. The nurses would check his blood sugar and some other small vitals tests to make sure he was healthy and happy during this hour. After a very long and rough road, we had our healthy baby boy. Our beautiful son was finally here.
Birth is absolutely amazing, no matter how it happens. Our hearts have grown at least three sizes over this past week and a half of having him in our lives. Theo is more than we ever expected & so much sweeter than we ever imagined. ❤️
I’ll leave you with some more cutie pics of this angel from the past week and a half!!
We love you so much Theo Joseph! ❤️
