Kovacs Birth Story!

Hey there Birth Bumpers! You know #birthblogs is near and dear to my heart and sharing these awesome mamas stories brings me so much joy! Today is extra special because today my long time inter web friend Britt Kovacs is sharing her stories! She’s honored us with the comparison between her two births! She’s a rockstar mama of TWO boys! I can’t wait for y’all to hear (read) !! She was also super fortunate to have two photographers, one at each birth so we were lucky enough to get visuals! Hannah from Milk&Hannah did her second birth so make sure to check her out! I’ll link all social media’s at the bottom so you can follow along! Happy reading!

my birth stories were night and day different but I felt empowered in both…  my degree is family studies and human development and I had the honor of watching the Business of Being Born with Ricki Lake in one of my sophomore HDFS classes and I basically decided that day that I was not going to have an epidural or pitocin or any unnecessary interventions and spent the next 10 years backing up that decision and becoming a self proclaimed birth nerd.

In spring 2015, not even married.. barely engaged, no children yet.. I attended a Birth without Fear conference and remember being so freaking empowered hearing all of January Harshe’s extremely different birth stories.  She has coined the term “variations of normal” and she just stands for all things EDUCATION and EMPOWERMENT in choices.. I find that so many women today just walk in to the hospital and do what the doctor says without even knowing that have options or what their bodies are truly capable of!

When we got pregnant with our first, I started talking more on my social media platforms about my passion for all natural everything when it comes to birth.. one of my friends who is a midwife in a different state suggested that I would love the bradley method… soo naturally, without hestitation I found a class near us and my husband and I enrolled in the 12 week session!

on to my first birth story!

I was due on April 2, 2018 and our final bradley method class was March 21st so naturally after that we were antsy and ready to have a baby!! We were going on walks everyday it was nice out, bouncing on birth balls and just getting really excited to meet our new little human!

I was a full time nanny at the time and my little girl happen to be on spring break the week before my due date so we kept joking that I had to make it through her spring break that week then baby could come!

Wednesday the week of spring break of course, I woke up at like 5am with the most energy ever.. I asked my husband what he wanted for breakfast and he was like umm what is wrong with you? I had been exhausted and uncomfortable and rolling out of bed at the last possible second for the last month or so and he knew something was off.  In our bradley method classes, we learned that the first stages of early labor come with a “putsy putsy” vibe and he was noticing that in me before we even got out of bed that morning.

I stood up and realized my water had broke. Holy Moly its baby time.  I was 39 weeks 2 days and could not believe it!   I had bounced on a birth ball the night before watching a movie and here we are.. its baby time! In hindsight, especially now having a second birth story.. I am convinced that I broke my own water and my body wasn’t ready – I don’t know if that is a medically sound theory but its my story, kay? LOL

So my water broke around 6am.. we showered and took our time getting ready since I was having zero contractions and got to the hospital around 9am. I was about 4cm dilated when we got to the hospital.  When they laid me back flat in triage to check my dilation and confirm that my bag of waters had broken, the baby’s heart rate dropped.. I am talking like into the 40s .. umm the squads came in.. I was immediately put on oxygen and IV and continuous monitoring which immediately sent half of my “birth plan” out the window..

We got moved to a delivery room and I was able to walk, squat, dance, pump to try to use nipple stimulation to induce labor.. nothing was working.. they saw a second dip in the baby’s heart rate and I opted to start pitocin around 5pm that evening!  I didn’t really feel anything for the first few hours then all of a sudden it was like WHOA.  I felt like I had no control over my body.. I honestly feel like I blacked out for some of it.. I remember looking at my husband at one point and saying, “I understand why someone would want an epidural” but like I mentioned earlier.. I spent the last 9+ years getting my mind in a space that wasn’t an option for me despite the pitocin on broken waters contractions taking over my body.

Around 10:30pm they checked me for dilation again and that time I was 6cm about 90% effaced and 0 position.  They called the doctor and she said “see you in the morning” because I seemed to be progressing so slowly.

The nurse came in and was charting some stuff on the computer and she looked at me and said, are you bearing down with those? turns out I had just went through transition but bossed it and no one knew LOL idk man,

like I said.. I was basically on another planet at this time..

It was 10:56pm and I was a full 10cm and it was go time… except it wasn’t.. my doctor had clocked out for the night so they suggested to turn me sideways with my legs closed while I continued to bear down waiting for my doctor to get there.. it wasn’t even my doctor, she was in California for spring break.. here is my second regret of this birth.. umm it was GO TIME… and my baby sat against my cervix for 40 minutes waiting on A DOCTOR I HAD NEVER MET for no dang reason.. more on that later.

My sweet, sweet, sweetie boy husband suggested when it was time to push that we turn off the pitocin.. like I mentioned at the beginning.. I just kind of always had in my head that pitocin was bad and at this point I had no voice for myself because I was in the zone and so he figured we were ready to go.. lets turn off the pit..

No one suggested that was a poor idea.. no one mentioned that the pitocin gets turned right back on after birth anyways.. when they turned off the pitocin I lost ALL contractions.

it was time to push and had ZERO contractions.

The nurses said my son Barrett was born on straight MOMMY POWER.. ouch.  After 35 minutes of pushing, whenever I felt like it.. our son was born at 12:19am on March 29th!

He ended up with a pretty bad hematoma on his head from the whole bearing down with my legs closed situation.. I ended up with broken blood vessels on my neck from the whole no contractions situation.. but we had a healthy baby boy and that was all that mattered!

Bryer’s birth story..

I called my bradley method instructor from my first pregnancy on Sunday afternoon and asked for a pep talk. At this point, I was 4 days overdue and 9 days more pregnant than I made it with my first and it was so mental for me. She reminded me that baby and my body were waiting on something. Maybe the baby’s lungs needed a few more days to develop, maybe his or her immune system needed more time. We spoke truths into me and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Sunday night I decided to get an epsom salt bubble bath with my friend Sarah’s birth playlist playing and just zone out in attempts to relax and allow my body to stop fighting itself. HubsBen and I usually watch an episode of Hell’s Kitchen every night before bed, but when I got out of the bath I said I want to stay in this zone I’m in and just go to sleep.

I woke up about 1:30am to pee and couldn’t fall back to sleep.. I started noticing contractions around 2:10am but didn’t start tracking right away because I had been having false labor for days. I noticed they were coming consistently and getting more intense so I started tracking. They were 1 minute long every 7 minutes like clockwork for an hour.

I woke Ben up at some point during that hour but he brushed it off because of all the prodromal labor the days leading up to – around 3:15 I said no babe like we need to call your dad is baby is coming. He got in the shower then we called his dad to come over.

His dad arrived around 4:15am and at this point my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart, about one minute long and getting more and more intense. The ride to the hospital seemed so long and full of pot holes. OUCH.

We got to a room in triage by 4:45am and I was 6cm.

We were in a delivery room by 5:15am and I asked for a birth ball. I got on all fours and draped myself over a ball as I remember working through some contractions in that position during my first birth.

Healthy babies in the womb have a variable heart rate.. meaning 130s then 140s then 150s.. they want to see hills on the chart, not a steady line. The baby wasn’t giving much variable HR and so my nurse was asking me to get into bed and lay on my left side so she could get a good reading before we went to intermittent monitoring as listed in my birth plan.

During transition with my first birth, I remember working through the contractions laying on my side and breathing into a blanket. I specifically brought a small blanket FOR this moment and I felt it coming on strong and fast so I gladly transitioned into bed with my blanket. This was about 5:30am.

I had a few contractions in the bed. I believe I was in transition at this point. You can see me gripping the bed rail for dear life and breathing into the blanket.

My water broke at 5:51am and I got checked and was textbook 8cm. One or two more contractions and really visualizing my cervix opening with each one and relaxing and breathing and I felt the urge to push. They checked me at 6:08am and I was full 10cm.

It felt like an eternity while my doctor suited up and the dropped the bottom of the bed down. I worked through one or two more contractions barring down before everyone was ready for me to push full out.

I started pushing at 6:11am and Bryer Elijah joined us earth side at 6:18am. The picture of me looking like a relaxed goddess was at 6:17am .. I was waiting for that last contraction for what seemed like an eternity. I patiently waited for my body to say go time. I growled and moaned and my baby was born.