The birthing process is truly miraculous. It’s empowering to bring life into the world; many women feel that after they give birth, they are capable of doing anything! Birth is beautiful and is an experience meant to be treasured.

I was fortunate to have three incredible and unique birthing experiences. After Bella’s “perfect birth,” my hopes for Aria’s birth were pretty high. I was prepared for the unexpected but hoped for the best. My wishes were to have a natural water birth, for my family to be present, for Aria’s daddy to “catch” her, and to have photos of her grand entrance. Realistically, I was just hoping we would make it to the hospital (which is over an hour away from our home). My previous labours were 3 hours with Hudson and 2 hours with Bella, and we were anticipating the possibility that this time may be even quicker.

We weren’t expecting to make it to my due date, but at 3 days overdue, I was beyond ready to meet our rainbow princess! I knew labour was approaching but I was hoping to remain at home until the following morning. Plans changed once my water broke since a snow storm was on the way and we really didn’t want to have this baby in the car. We decided to leave for the hospital and wait things out there. Road closures and terrible driving conditions proved we made the right decision; it was one long drive.

We arrived close to midnight, settled in and tried to get some rest. I couldn’t sleep as my contractions were getting stronger. I wasn’t in active labour yet but I woke Tom up because I didn’t want to be alone. I knew that things would likely progress very quickly. I wasn’t sure when to call my midwife or tell my family to make their way, still hoping baby would wait until morning. My contractions quickly went from 8 minutes apart to 4 minutes, and I could feel baby moving down inside of me. Just after 3:00 am, my sister and niece decided to leave (they were also over an hour away) and I called our midwife to come. I sent a text to my mom at 3:19 am that read “I think I might be in labour.” My contractions suddenly went from 4 minutes to 2 minutes apart and it wasn’t long before I was no longer able to track them. I could feel my bones in my pelvis cracking and moving apart. Baby was coming and it was happening fast! I was relieved that everyone was on their way.

Our midwife arrived 30 minutes later; she could see that I was in active labour and she worked quickly to get the pool set up. Tom was filling it with water by 4:00 am. Because I hemorrhaged after Bella’s delivery, we decided that I would have an IV lock put in incase there were any complications, which was done while the pool was filling.

At 4:10 am, I got in the pool. I was fully dilated and was told I could start pushing right away. Baby was coming but I wasn’t ready because my family still hadn’t arrived. I tried to hold baby in and kept asking Tom where they were but they weren’t responding to his messages. I couldn’t wait any longer and told Tom to “grab the good camera and record it.”

He was figuring out how to record video with my camera, something he had never done, when Aria came. At 4:18 am, in one big push, Aria came flying out of me! It shocked us all as it was so quick and unexpected. Thankfully, Tom was taking a “test” video and successfully recorded it.

Our midwife caught Aria and she began crying. She was passed to me immediately and as soon as I held her, time stood still. “She’s so beautiful!” I fell in love instantly. Our rainbow is here, finally! And she is absolutely perfect!

❤️