It all started the night before the big day. I was thinking I might be in labor and texted my doula
to tell her, she told me she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t think it would be wise to attend my birth
if I were actually in labor, and that she had a backup for me.
I was immediately heartbroken and turned to my backup photographer who is also a doula and
a friend, Shanna. The photographer I hired had an emergency and had to go out of town and
that broke my heart too. I was telling her I couldn’tbreathe from crying so much and how I had
been visualizing my birth and Meredith (doula) and Tiffani (photographer) had always been
present. Shanna walked me through breathing, put my mind at ease and told me to use my
Breathe essential oil to, yeah, you guessed it, BREATHE!
Thankfully it helped and I was calm enough to get to bed. I should add that I had been pretty
confident about this birth and so very excited from the start, but started having little doubts
creeping in. Thankfully my midwife, Liz Derry, talked to me days before to put all those fears to
rest. She kept assuring me that everything will happen as it’s meant to and that she knew my
birth would be amazing!
I woke up at 2:30 AM on December 14, 2013 feeling some stronger contractions. Still unsure
that I might be in labor, I started timing contractions and discovered that they were coming three
minutes and 30 seconds apart on average. I had been having contractions on and off for a
couple weeks before the big day, so that’s why I was unsure. I woke up Travis, my husband, to
let him know I was “feeling something.” Shortly after, I went to the restroom and had some
bloody show and then I knew that this was it!