Maximo's birth

Maximo's birth story, as told by his mom, Megan White.

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The birth of our son Maximo was very much anticipated the last few days before his official due date. Due to Josh's line of work it was a lot of "hurry up and wait". We would try to get him to come while he was in town and as soon as Josh left for work it would be wait time. The weekend of his due date Josh was supposed to have a show in Las Vegas, which was ironic because Josh was in Vegas when Olive was born. He didn't make it home for Olive, but this time we were determined that he would be at the birth.

January 29th: Max's Due date.Friday morning I woke up determined that I would have this baby that day. I had been dilating for a few weeks and was more than ready to go into labor. The day before I had done some home remedy self inducing tricks. They all started contractions but nothing that continued on. This was a bummer. So, that morning I woke up 5 cms and 90% effaced. I decided that before the snow storm that was supposed to hit around noon I would make it to Target for a few laps around the store. As we were walking we realized that snow was coming down heavier and starting to stick. I decided to call the Susie and discuss her coming to the house to hang out due to the weather.

We got home and contractions stalled. I was so bummed but waited to try to make things happen in case the midwife didn't make it there any time soon. A few hours later around 1:00 PM Susie and Cindy arrived. We got contractions started and I waited them out. I was super prepared for the birth this time. I had been doing weeks of relaxation technique exercises. I made CDS full of music that encouraged me to feel relaxed and breathe. Josh and I began to just hang out and work our way through each contraction. I was very hopeful. Olive's delivery was hard and fast, it had a point where is stalled out but overall went extremely well. So far, Max's labor was going SO easy I began to worry something wasn't right. In the back of my head, I was very aware that if we had to get the hospital, the only way would be by ambulance and I don't even know how fast that would have gone since it was snowing and sleeting.

4:00 in the afternoon contractions had taken me to about 7 cms. So far so good, but I was starting to feel a little bit antsy for the labor to progress faster. Time started to blur around this time, but from here to around 9:00 we just kept encouraging contractions and keeping them going along with herbs and the breast pump. These techniques were working and it was fairly painless, but it wasn't taking me to the end.

Around midnight, I was starting to get completely exhausted physically and mentally and was really frustrated at the direction the labor was. I was desparate to hear that I had progressed enough to break the water. I was at 9 CM. I was getting closer... but Max's head was still not right. I think by now everyone probably realized (short of myself) that Max was posterior in the womb. Then my water broke and contractions hit the roof. They became intense and fast, very much like Olive's whole labor. Emotions were completely taken over, but the one thing that was keeping me going and strong was Josh. He was by my side the whole time and though he didn't say a thing, he gave me the encouragement to not give up. On top of this I had my amazing team. I felt surrounded by encouragement and love and despite my desparate calls for please just kill me : ) I knew that we could get through this. Honestly, we HAD TO GET THROUGH THIS.

3:00 am-- I was 9.5 cms and NOT progressing. The baby was obviously posterior and NOT turning. I was exhausted. So much for second babies being half the time of the first or easier. This was work. Hard hard work. Then Susie manually helped start the pushing process even with the 1.2 cm not complete. Pushing began. I tried pushing him under my pelvis for an hour or so. It was a constant push. No avail. Finally, he got through. Not sure how, but it was time to get him out.

4:45 AM

BABY MAX IS BORN!!

Born 1/30/2010 4:45 AM

9 lbs 7 oz 23 inches long