ELEANOR'S HOME BIRTH STORY

Eleanor Sage Craft is here and she is perfect! And her birth was more than I could have asked for.

After going through birth for the first time with Everly, I knew I wanted a different experience with Eleanor than I got with a hospital delivery. I planned to have an unmedicated birth with Everly, but the cascade of interventions is real, and I ended up with an epidural. I also wanted to be able to have more voice in my birth than I was given in the hospital, as well as more freedom to labor how my body would tell me I needed to labor.

We did have an initial first ultrasound for Eleanor with our OB that delivered Everly, but with this pregnancy being after the heat of covid, we had some differences with how to have a safe pregnancy in these covid times, and I was not comfortable with the fear and guilting tactics used to try to get me to do things I did not want to do while pregnant. We walked out of that office after that first ultrasound and immediately made our appointment with Haven Birth here in Franklin, TN. They are a midwifery practice with an amazing team of Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM’s). I was 100% ready to commit to a homebirth, but Josh needed some questions answers on safety and what this would actually look like. If he was not 100% on board after the consult with Haven, we would proceed forward with a birthing center. But, from that very first consult we had with Lauren Drees, we knew that a home birth was the right option for us, and that this team would be the ones who would help us welcome Eleanor into the world with confidence, peace, and holistic wisdom.

Everything was on track for me to carry 40 weeks+ until Eleanor was ready to come on her own, but at our 38 week appointment, some concerns were voiced and things moved quickly from there. On Thursday, 6/23, they did the routine check of my fundal height (measurement of pubic bone to the top of the uterus in centimeters). I had been at fundal height 34 cm for 4 weeks, now 5, without any growth (Your fundal height should match the amount of weeks your are pregnant, and they don’t like to see you 2 cm above or below that height.) At this point, I was now 4-5 cm behind the ideal fundal height for growth. I carry very small pregnant, but this was very different from my pregnancy with Ever, as she always measured right on track with her fundal height.

Our midwife team was pretty concerned, so they sent me for a same-day (Thursday, 6/23) Biophysical Profile Ultrasound (BPP). This first BPP showed that Eleanor was measuring around the thirteenth percentile, but her abdomen was measuring around three percentile, which would technically qualify her for Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR). Before they took any further action, they wanted to do monitoring of her movement with them at Haven ASAP, and another BPP. She passed her monitoring on Monday, 6/27, with flying colors. At her second BPP, though, on Tuesday, 6/28 at 8 am, they measured her around the twelfth percentile, but her abdomen was still measuring in the three percentile range, and her head was measuring in the one percentile range. We didn’t know what this would be mean, but we were still very concerned.

We waited for our midwife to call us back that afternoon, and it was a long few hours waiting. After Haven got the results of our BPP and they were able to consult with their partnering hospital doctor, they finally had facts and a few plans of action for us. Praise the Lord! They had officially determined that she was IUGR, and that the best thing for Eleanor was to be outside my womb as soon as possible so she could grow without restriction. Their overarching strong recommendation was to induce early and not let me go past 40 weeks. They talked Joshua and I through the two options to induce early:

1. Induce at their partner hospital and deliver in a hospital. This would be WAY outside of our plan for Eleanor’s birth, but we were thankful for this option. They would have been there every step of the way had we chose this option.

2. Start the process of natural induction on Thursday, 6/30 at our 38w6d appointment, and move forward with our planned home birth. (The way we would naturally work to induce labor would be to do a membrane sweep at my appointment, and then drink the ‘Midwives Brew’ with Castor Oil in the afternoon - 4 TBSP castor oil, 4 TBSP nut butter, 1 cup of apricot, pineapple, or orange juice, optional I cup of champagne, or sparkling cider.)

After having all the facts presented to us and praying through it together, we decided to continue forward with option 2, the natural induction process and our planned home birth. Our midwife team was so supportive of either decision and we are extremely grateful for their wisdom and guidance through an unexpected and scary decision. We never once felt pressured in either direction and we had their full support no matter what we chose.

I share all of that backstory because Thursday, 6/30 started off as just a normal day, and it ended with our great reward, Eleanor Sage Craft, being born in our home.

THURSDAY, JUNE 30th

8:30 am - Went to brunch for our 6th wedding anniversary (Our anniversary is July 2nd, and we did not know if we would make it to that date to celebrate on our actual anniversary.)

9:30 am - Went to Honest Coffee for coffee and walking around the Factory. We did this on Everly’s due date and it was fun to recreate this new tradition.

10:30 am - Membrane sweep at Haven Birth. I was 2 cm dilated and 75% effaced.

11:30 am - Grocery shopping and flower shopping with Joshua in case I went into labor. We wanted to have a full fridge since we would be home, especially for Everly. (Also, every woman should have flowers for her anniversary and birth!)

1:00 pm - Drank Castor Oil on an empty stomach. (Newsflash, it wasn’t AS bad as I thought it would be, but gosh it made me feel awful REAL fast.)

1:30 pm - Laid down to nap as I started to feel horrible.

2:15 pm - Josh brought me a Panera sandwich because I needed food. I had not eaten since 8:30 am and needed something to absorb all the sugar I had just drank in the Midwives Brew.

5:30 pm - Dance party on the front porch with Joshua and Everly. That will forever be one of the sweetest last memories with just us three. It was the first thunderstorm in over a month, and we did not waste that precious time with her.

6:30 pm - Went on our last walk as a family of three around our neighborhood. My contractions started as soon as we hit the top of our street, and they felt like they were 2-3 minutes apart. I was going to wait to time them until we got home.

7:00 pm - I laid on the couch with Everly while I timed contractions. She just held my hand while she watched Luca. After 30 minutes of timing them, they were officially 2-3 minutes apart. I honestly did not believe the timer because those contractions came on so quick and so intensely.

*At this point, we knew I was in labor, but with everything going on (putting Ever down, timing contractions, focusing intensely on labor and my contractions, Josh getting our bedroom set up, and then the team arriving, we did not even have time to let anyone, not even our parents, know that I was in labor. This was not our plan, as we had a whole list of people to text when I went into labor. We did not get to tell anyone until early the next morning while we were lying in bed with Eleanor. We so wish we could have let people know to be praying, but we already had an army of people praying around us for Eleanor since there were some concerns for her, as shared above. We felt every single one of those prayers during the labor though.

7:30 pm - Helped Josh lay down Everly in between contractions. I could barely make it up the stairs, but I got my last snuggles in with Everly before she became a big sister.

7:47 pm - Called my midwife, Dawn. She could hear it in my voice that things were serious and sped over. She lives right down the street from us, so she was able to get here pretty quickly. She suggested I start laboring in our bath tub while Josh got our bedroom, our bed, the birth tub, and the hose to fill the tub all set up. (Josh is a project manager, and he had an entire folder of to-do’s for how to set up our bedroom for the home birth - it was super cute. But this actually was so helpful for him since everything was moving so fast to have a checklist to get everything done for me to deliver at home.) As I got into our tub, I had this overwhelming desire to add the song ‘Oceans’ to my birth playlist that only had 15-20 songs on it. A dear friend gave me an affirmation to speak over my heart during contractions. “This is just a wave. He won’t let you go under.” I spoke that, alongside “Keep your shoulders down” and “Breathe her down” and “Jesus” over and and over again when I thought I couldn’t continue laboring. Little did I know, I would meet my daughter while ‘Oceans’ played just a short hour later. I would nurse her skin to skin for the first time to ‘Knowing You’ by Steffany Gretzinger.

7:50 pm - Started laboring in our tub.

8:10 pm - Dawn, our midwife, arrives. She first listened to Eleanor’s heartbeat, and it 155 and strong. She checked my progress, and I was already 6 cm and 100% effaced. She began talking me through contractions with encouragement and affirmations, as they were growing in strength and intensity, very quickly. Dan and Josh thought it would be best for me to get some electrolytes in me. He brought me over a cup of LMNT Raspberry Electrolyte drink to continue to get fluids outside of water. I took one sip, Dawn asked me a question, and I couldn’t even answer because I immediately felt like I had to throw up. I threw up twice and felt instantly better after that.

8:40 pm - Lauren, my second midwife, arrives.

8:45 pm - At this point, I felt what every birth video said I would feel - I felt like I needed to poop. I asked for privacy to use the bathroom, but of course, I did not need to. When that happened though, I knew I was so close to meeting Eleanor. I got back in our tub, and during the first contraction, I felt this overwhelming urge to push. I told them I wanted to have one more contraction in our tub before walking to the birth tub. The last contraction in this tub I remember vividly saying ‘I can’t do this’ and then right after that said ‘No, I can do this’. This was one of the most intense mental experiences of my life.

8:55 pm - Josh finished filling up the birth tub with water RIGHT before I needed to get in. Our nurse, Lia, also arrived right as I was getting into the tub. My team helped me move from our tub in our bathroom, to the birthing tub. As soon as I got in the birth tub, I felt a ‘pop’ in the water. I told Dawn and Lauren this, and they said that my water had just broken. I pushed once after my water broke, and Dawn felt Eleanor’s head. I pushed a second time and could literally feel her head come first and then her shoulders all in the same push. It was the hardest most amazing moment of my life. It was also incredible to feel everything that was happening, as I was not able to experience that with Everly. I have never been more in tune with my body and what was happening.

9:00 pm - I was holding Eleanor Sage. Her birthdate: June 30th, 2022 born at 9:00 pm. It happened so fast that I had a hard time processing that she was actually here. Josh was crying from seeing the pain I was in from laboring and meeting his second daughter all in the same moment. 

9:10pm - Moved to the bed where I was skin to skin with Eleanor for hours. Josh wanted to be really involved in the whole process. While he did not get to catch Eleanor (The position I was in was too hard for him to catch her, so Dawn caught her.), he was able to cut the cord when it stopped pulsating, measured her length with Dawn, and weighed her. Our team allowed all of Eleanor’s vernix (a protective coating that forms on baby's skin in utero. It is a thick, greasy substance made of water, fatty acids, and proteins, and it creates a moisturizing barrier for your baby's skin.) to stay on her skin and they did not require that we wash it off in a bath right away. This was totally different than a hospital birth where they clean it off right away.

FRIDAY, JULY 1st

1:00 am - Our birth team was at our house until well after midnight finishing up paperwork, getting me all taken care of with postpartum things, and cleaning up our bedroom from the birth. They drained the tub, did all the laundry for us, stripped our bed, pulled up the floor mats taped to the floor, took down the hose from the shower head, and left our home feeling like nothing ever happened. It was truly a weird and wonderful experience to just be home after such a huge life change. Joshua and I were up until 2:00 am just spending time with Eleanor and soaking her in before she met her sister in the morning.

7:19 am - Everly met Eleanor! Ever and Nora - the future best of friends. When we first brought Eleanor in to meet Everly, she started saying ‘No, no, no, no’ over and over. She finally warmed up to her sister and gave her kisses on her head. She still did not really understand what was happening since she is still so little, but she knew she loved her little sister and gave her dad the sweetest smile while he held Eleanor. This morning is etched into my heart forever.

This birth will forever be one of the top moments of my entire life. I am still not over how amazing the woman’s body is, how wonderful the Haven Birth team was, and how strong and supportive my husband was through this whole process. Praise God for a healthy mama and baby Eleanor!

We still cannot believe that we have two daughters. We are eternally grateful to get to steward their little lives together.

Sweet blessings,