My favourite memory of 2016 would have to be the birth of our second daughter Clara Lee on February 3rd. We were once again blessed to have a home water birth, but boy was it ever a different experience than the first! We had just picked up our new vehicle an hour prior, when I went to put our then 22month old down to bed. As I was laying there with her, my water broke!
Thankfully she was asleep and I was able to slip out without waking her up or making a mess! I call out to my husband that my water broke and his response was “are you serious”??? He starts losing his mind, cleaning and setting the birthing pool up. We had just moved into our new home 2 months prior so there were still boxes everywhere.
I called our amazing midwife Genia to let her know, and she told us to call her when contractions were about 5 minutes apart. We also called our birth photographer, and my mom, who had just left our house from a visit 20 mins prior. We needed someone at the house in case Ameliya woke up. At this point, an ice storm had started outside and I thought we would be delivering his baby ourselves!
For my first birth, I was in the early stages of labour for almost 18-20 hours; this time, was much different. I called my midwife 2 hours later to let her know I had jumped to 4-1-1 and things were happening quickly. I was able to control my contractions much easier this time around as I was feeling labour in the front, as opposed to back labour with my first.
My sister was supposed to come down from Niagara Falls to act as my doula but has gotten sick so she was face timing in through my moms phone. After only 8 hours of labour, Clara Lee was born at 5:24am in our dining room into the water of the birth pool! We moved everything into the bedroom, and the best part of the entire experience was Ameliya waking up as a big sister!! Who gets to go to bed as an only child and wake up with a sister and sleep through the whole thing?? ❤️ ~ Miranda Pellett