Birthing Magazine had a contest recently involving birth stories in 150 words. I edited my second son’s story down and submitted it and it was published in their summer issue. I wanted to go ahead and share the super-abbreviated story of Z’s birth here also:

Open channel
Feeling a familiar sharper edge to my contractions, I woke my husband and got my birth ball. The contractions suddenly picked up to one minute apart. I hung on my husband during contractions and felt some pressure. I reminded myself to be a clear, open channel for birth. I said, “It’s okay baby, you can come out!”

I dropped to my hands and knees, saying, “This is MAJOR!” I talked myself down out of feeling out of control with an ongoing chant of, “It’s okay, I’m okay, it’s okay.” I pushed a little and my water broke.

Zander’s head was fully crowning as our midwife came in. I pushed him out and as I held him, I saw that he was a boy. I could barely believe that after two hours of labour, my baby was here! Zander weighed nine pounds, two ounces.

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The much longer version of his birth story is here.

The benefit of participating in the contest is that I discovered what a super-cool resource Birthing Magazine is. It has TONS of great content and I’m excited to read the whole issue!