Our Birth Story & Tips for Writing a Birth Plan

Meet Luca Xavier

Any other mamas-to-be a little nervous about giving birth? I was. Not crazy nervous, but definitely wondered if I would be able to handle the pain or if something would cause me to need a c-section or if I would be mentally strong enough to get through it…not that there is any option of NOT getting through it lol.

Every woman experiences labor differently, even from pregnancy to pregnancy for the same woman. You really can’t be fully prepared for what will happen because there are so many factors. But what helped me {ever the planner that I am} was doing my research so I could create a Birth Plan that at least had my preferences in the ideal labor situation. I highly recommend doing some research yourself and creating a one page birth preferences sheet to give to your nurses or at least listing out things that you feel strongly about and are non-negotiable for you {such as having an epidural, vaginal exams etc}.

I searched the internet for a simple, concise, & easy to read birth plan template, but wasn’t happy with anything that I found so I decided to make my own in Canva. It was super simple for me to lay it out just how I wanted in Canva with the space I needed and the appropriate attention to the things that were most important to me. I could also make it look just how I wanted 🙂 Looking at the other templates online was helpful to me to consider what to include though so I do recommend searching around! Below is our Birth Plan that I created for your reference as you work on your own Birth Plan!

Birth Plan Template & Inspiration

Disclaimer: sharing all the very personal details of my labor & our son’s birth below!

Our Birth Story – Welcoming Luca Xavier Fantano

I woke up at 4am on Thursday, August 20th to use the bathroom {as any mama-to-be knows happens very often especially in the third trimester lol}. While going to the bathroom, I noticed a different kind of discharge that I was a little concerned about. I had read about the “mucus plug” but honestly this didn’t look like how it had been described in books and from photos online so I really wasn’t sure what this was. My best description of it is that it looked like Grey Poupon mustard lol.

Other than feeling what I thought could still be Braxton-Hicks contractions, I didn’t feel any different so figured it wasn’t a big issue. I waited until my OB-GYN opened at 9am to give them a call to ask about it. The maternity nurse told me she thought it was the beginning of my mucus plug and that I would most likely have a baby within 72 hours. Talk about a wake up call lol! I was equal parts excited and nervous!

I started going about my day knowing that I probably only had a couple more work days before Luca would arrive and I would be on maternity leave. Needless to say it was a VERY busy day trying to finalize all my open appointments with clients etc., take care of any client issues and summarize the status of all my accounts to send to my boss once I went into labor. I also decided to start my workday sitting on my birthing ball to help things along lol!

Early Labor

The contractions began coming a little more often, about 3 an hour or so, but were still very minor and not really painful at all. I would simply breathe through them and keep going about what I was doing. I wasn’t tracking the contractions at all at this point, but around midday I started to loosely track them and realized I was actually having them more often than I had thought lol!

I had a physical therapy appointment that day as I had been dealing with Pubis Symphysis Dysfunction through the end of my pregnancy. I debated if I should skip the appointment or not, but part of me still wasn’t sure I was in labor so I decided it would be best to go {the PT was seriously such a dramatic help with my pain!} I let my PT know that I thought I might be in labor so he took it easy on me that day lol. I’m not sure if the activity I did there helped to move the labor along or if it was just a coincidence, but once I got home from my appointment the contractions were definitely starting to get stronger.

6pm: Contractions Started Picking Up

Since I had been trying to incorporate dates and raspberry leaf tea into my diet the last couple weeks of pregnancy {both are supposed to help reduce labor time and prepare your cervix for labor}, I made myself an iced raspberry tea as per usual and had a bowl of cottage cheese with chopped dates as a snack. After work, around 6pm or so, I went for my daily walk around our development and that’s when I started realizing I really could be having the baby very soon lol.

I was on the phone chatting with my coworker who has a little boy herself during my walk and I mentioned that I was having some contractions {mainly so she would understand if I sounded pained or out of breath lol}. She started asking about them and told me that she was pretty sure I’d be having the baby that night from her experience lol. The contractions were about 10 minutes apart at this point but I could breathe through them still with really just discomfort, not what I would call pain. The best way I can describe them is really bad period cramps that come in waves. Again, not sure if the walk helped speed things up but maybe so.

Once I got back home from my walk around 6:30pm or so, I made a healthy dinner and Marc and I started finalizing our hospital bags {well I started finishing mine and Marc finally started packing his lol}. During dinner I downloaded a contraction tracking app. The contractions were averaging about 7-8 minutes in between by now and lasting 45-60 seconds each. I told Marc I really wanted to straighten up and clean the house before having the baby because I knew I wanted to come home to a clean house so we started vacuuming etc. Yes, I literally vacuumed the top floor of our house amidst having 7 minute apart strong contractions lol.

Check out my “What to Pack in Your Hospital Bag & What NOT to Pack” here!

We finished cleaning and the contraction tracking app was suggesting that I get ready to head to the hospital {in between one set of contractions it actually told me to go to the hospital}. I knew I wanted to labor at home as much as possible because I wanted to avoid an epidural and other interventions…and I honestly thought maybe I would go to bed and go to the hospital in the morning {naive first time mom lol}.

11:30pm: Water Breaking

Around 11pm the contractions were “no joke” as I texted my friend lol and I started realizing how exhausted I was after being up since 4am and having a crazy stressful workday {I was still texting with clients trying to button things up at 11pm lol!} I put on a comfy dress I thought I might wear to the hospital and decided to lay down on my couch for a little bit to rest in case I did end up going into active labor that night. I had also told Marc a little earlier he should try to take a nap so he was doing that in our basement.

I laid down on my couch for about a minute or two and another contraction started to come on. I reached behind me for my phone to track the contraction and BAM my water broke! It was a literal gush and I basically attempted to jump backwards off my couch so it didn’t get soaked lol. So much for the comfy dress I thought I’d be wearing to the hospital lol!

I shouted downstairs to Marc to let him know & hurried upstairs to rinse off and throw on sweats. What I didn’t know is that once your water breaks your hormones go even crazier and you start shivering wildly. I actually was really scared something was wrong, I couldn’t get warm! Thankfully when I called the on call doctor to let her know my water broke, she let me know that was normal. She told me we should head to the hospital so we packed up the car and got on the road.

En route to the hospital I was rapidly typing away on my work laptop sending off all my last minute client notes to my boss all while having 4 excruciating contractions in the 15 minute drive and being so nauseous I was concerned about getting sick in the car. The contractions had really picked up intensity since my water broke!

12:45am: Arriving at the Hospital & Triage

Once we arrived at the hospital, we parked and I attempted to walk into the hospital amidst the super intense contractions. It was an extremely busy night at our hospital apparently and we actually had to wait outside the labor and delivery area before they let us in which was pretty excruciating with the nausea I was experiencing and the contractions coming every 3 minutes approximately. Also, due to COVID-19, we had to answer all the standard questions about symptoms/travel etc. before we could enter. I won’t lie, my patience was waning as they had us waiting outside and I told Marc to tell them how strong and fast my contractions were…a couple times lol.

Once we finally were let in to a triage room it was honestly very confusing and disorganized at this point. This is the only area I would fault our hospital on because as new parents {without the ability to have toured the hospital and gone through the procedures in advance due to COVID} we had no idea how it all worked and no one was really communicating with us. There was a parade of different nurses in and out but no one really engaging with us, just kind of all over the place. It was honestly strange and definitely didn’t help me feel calm or in good hands. This totally made me feel more frantic too.

So this is where the story is going to get a bit more intimate if you have made it this far lol. One thing I did not know or expect with labor was the intense feeling of needing to go to the bathroom, not just number one, but also number two…over and over and over. I kept asking to go to the bathroom because I felt like I needed to poop, and the triage bathroom was not super close, painful to get to, and then I wasn’t able to go once I got there! I also had the fortune of being extremely nauseous the entire time I was in labor, and the face mask due to COVID did not help.

During this pretty tumultuous time of my labor, they were asking me a bunch of questions to input into the computer. Between the contractions and the nausea, I was having a lot of difficulty answering them and honestly was completely running out of patience with the nurse lol. They also kept trying to put the fetal heart rate monitor on me which is not something I wanted {as you can see in my birth plan, I had wanted intermittent fetal monitoring}. For some reason the pressure of the fetal heart rate monitor also was making me even more nauseous, like unbearably nauseous, and I needed to unhook it every time I got up to try and go to the bathroom. I don’t know if you can sense how chaotic things were at this point, but they really were lol.

A medical resident came in to see how far I was dilated at this point which was honestly such a painful experience. I actually thought {think} she did it wrong it was so insanely painful. She also claimed I was only 1 cm dilated, which we still think might be incorrect based on how the rest of the labor went lol. Keep reading to see why…

2:30am {approx}: Delivery Time

They finally moved us to a delivery room and I immediately felt the need to go number two again. Thankfully this room had a bathroom in it. The best way I can describe this point of my labor was like I was violently recovering from a hangover. I was so nauseous and also started having diarrhea. I would go to the bathroom and literally thought I was going to throw up at the same time as I went to the bathroom, then the wave would pass, I would stand up and wash my hands, and a new wave would come of the same thing. At the same time, the nurse and Marc were yelling at me because they wanted to put the fetal monitors on but I literally couldn’t get out of the bathroom with wave after wave I was having of nausea and diarrhea. In hindsight, I’m kind of glad the diarrhea happened then and there because I didn’t actually go during labor as a lot of women do. So there is that positive lol!

I finally was able to make it out of the bathroom and back to the bed. They hooked the monitors on me and the nausea again got worse. At this point I really started pretty much screaming {and I’m pretty sure I was cursing too lol, which I apologized for afterwards} through the contractions they were so unbearable. And for some reason trying to breathe through them was making me more and more nauseous. I truly didn’t know what to do. All my plans of breathing tactics and visualization and Marc massaging me as I changed positions went out the window. It was survival mode. And anyone touching me was making me yet again more nauseous so he couldn’t even console me.

Ivory Dress // “L” Initial Necklace // Gold Hoop Earrings // Men’s White Henley

At this point they asked if I wanted to have the epidural after all and I actually did give in because I didn’t know how much more I could bear. While we were waiting for the epidural, which was taking a VERY long time due to how busy the hospital was that night, they put an IV in me.

I then told them that I felt like he was coming out of me, there was sooo much pressure {like insane period cramps} and I was just sure the kid was popping right out down there lol. Of course they didn’t believe me. I told them I had to go to the bathroom again because all that pressure was giving me the urge to go number two again, but they said they couldn’t let me get up until they checked to see how dilated I was.

So this is why Marc and I think they may have been wrong when they first checked how many centimeters I was. Another resident came in to check me and I was 10 centimeters! If they were correct the first time, I went from 1 cm to 10 cms in under 2.5 hours, which all the nurses and residents said was a record lol. They said they could see his little head full of hair! They asked if I still wanted to the epidural or if I want to push and I basically said heck no, I’m ready to push lol.

4:00am: Time to Push

Marc says this is when he saw me completely change and get totally focused. I told him it’s because I’m good when I know where the finish line is lol. I’ve always been more of a sprinter than a cross-country runner…it’s a mental thing for me.

The doctor wasn’t at the hospital yet {probably hadn’t even left home yet!} since they didn’t expect me to progress so quickly, but they assured me that one of the residents could delivery the baby if she didn’t arrive in time. They got the room set up for me to deliver and starting showing Marc and I how to hold my legs up and telling me how to breathe and push.

I have to say, the pushing and breathing part was not intuitive at all in my opinion lol. The first round I totally stopped holding my breath and the nurse was like you didn’t do it right…I was like I know lol. I got it by the second push though! Basically you are supposed to hold your legs up, take a big deep inhale as soon as you feel the contraction coming, hold your breath, tuck your chin and push for 10 seconds like you are pooping lol. Holding your breath and pushing for that long is actually very difficult. And I was so physically exhausted I kept telling them I needed help holding my legs, but they said I didn’t actually need to hold them myself I just need to put my arms around them behind my knees like I was holding them and it would help. They were right {no surprise lol}!

I did three pushes and he was really making progress, but the doctor still hadn’t arrived. They had me stall then by breathing through two contractions {yippee lol, the pushing is way easier than breathing through the contractions believe me}. They also asked around this time if I wanted to reach down and feel his head or a mirror to see it but that was a hard pass for me lol. I think Marc took a peek at this point to see the top of Luca’s head.

Thankfully the doctor arrived and she really took charge which was amazing. She adjusted the table to help with gravity and also the positioning of my legs a bit which totally helped. Around this time she asked if I wanted something to be applied topically, I don’t remember what it was called, to help with the burning, but since I really wanted to go natural {and it wasn’t burning at the moment} I asked them to skip that. Well on the next push it started burning and the doctor literally said “I told you so” lol. I had reached the “Ring of Fire” as they call it, and the name fits perfectly. Thankfully it’s a very quick stage.

Luca’s head was out on the next push and then his whole body out the next one! I pushed all of six times and our little man was here! 🙂 It’s crazy how much easier that last push is. For some reason I thought that after the head came you have to push the shoulders out, which I assumed was painful. But really that last push is nothing at all, baby just kind of slips right out lol.

4:35am: Luca is Here!

Luca was born at 4:35am on Friday, August 21st. They laid him right on my chest as I had wanted, which was just the most amazing and emotional whirlwind. I just was holding him against me and kept saying “my baby, my baby” trying to calm him since he was screaming of course. The nurses were wiping him down while he was on me and covered him with a blanket to get him warm. I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him {and his full head of hair}. I so wished I didn’t have to wear my mask at this point. It felt like a barrier to him somehow, and I really hated it. 🙁

Marc had actually last second grabbed his phone between contractions during the pushing and captured the moment Luca arrived on video which I’m really happy about so we have that memory taped. He got to cut the cord probably a minute or so after Luca’s birth {we wanted delayed which I think is pretty standard at the hospital we delivered at}, and he has that on the video too. Pretty amazing moment. 🙂

Next I had to deliver the placenta. I didn’t realize that they had hooked Pitocin up to my IV despite it being on my birth plan that I didn’t want it. They do this sometimes in order to facilitate delivery of the placenta. I didn’t actually realize until they moved me to our recovery room and the nurse there mentioned it to me. The delivery of the placenta is very quick and I don’t remember it being too painful, just like momentary discomfort. Of course this could be because I was very distracted with my new baby on my chest lol.

After the placenta is delivered, they push around on your uterus to make sure everything is out {an interesting concept to think something could be stuck up there lol}. That part I do remember being very uncomfortable, but not terrible, again because you are distracted by baby. 🙂 Marc told me there was tons of blood and he was surprised how much blood there was. Side note: you will probably end up having low hemoglobin levels after you delivery for at least a few days and feel very weak. I made a point to have some red meat in the hospital to help with this.

I ended up having one tear that they needed to stitch up, but I don’t remember feeling a thing at that point. Marc and I were enjoying our little bundle, and they had me start trying to breastfeed already, which I was really happy about. Once they finished stitching me up and cleaning everything up {maybe an hour or so later}, one of the nurses took Luca and Marc and checked his weight, height etc. and got his hand and footprints. They then did Marc and my fingerprints on a cute little paper plaque.

Shortly afterwards they wheeled us down to our recovery room to rest up and enjoy our little miracle! We spent the next couple days learning to be parents, tracking poops and pees and feedings, relaxing {kind of}, healing, eating lukewarm hospital food lol, getting almost constant visits from nurses, doctors etc., and soaking in the most handsome little boy that we still can’t believe we created. God sure does some amazing things, and we are so grateful!