Bennett’s Birth Story

 Bennett Tolman Messinger

To get a full understanding of his birth, I need to recap Gracelynn’s birth.

When I was pregnant with Gracelynn, I was determined to birth without an epidural. I took a Hypnobirthing class and practiced all the time. I would talk natural birth up to anyone who would listen. I felt so confident and prepared.

Her birth ended after 30 hours of struggle and pain. I felt traumatized and betrayed that my birth wasn’t what I knew it could be.

When I found out I was pregnant with Bennett, I was so torn about going through natural birth again. I did not want to suffer again, but I didn’t want to be numb to the process either. Honestly, I felt like getting an epidural would be cheating.

After a lot of prayer, introspection and talking to others, I decided I would plan to go natural again but be more in tune with myself and respect my limits. If this birth went on a long time, I wouldn’t let myself suffer, and I’d choose the epidural.

My due date was December 31 and I had been having contractions off and on for a couple weeks. But that day came and went with no baby.

On January 2, we were having a normal Saturday morning. I had been feeling pretty itchy for a couple days and that morning was the same. I ended up looking online to see why I would be itchy. And you know Dr. Google always tells you the worst possible scenario. In this case, it said one cause of itchiness is Cholestasis. That’s where your liver has issues with bile flow. One risk of Cholestasis in pregnancy is stillbirth.

I started to feel worried so I texted Marta, my husband’s aunt who is a labor and delivery nurse. I asked if I she thought I should be concerned or if I was overreacting. A few minutes later, she called me and said she had just talked to my midwife, Tina. (They work together and are friends.) Tina wanted me to come into the hospital to have blood work done and a Non-stress Test.

We dropped Gracelynn off at our awesome neighbors, called my parents to come down to be with her just in case, and headed off to the hospital.

They got us situated in a room and put me on the monitor to check on baby. He was moving around like normal which was a relief. They gave me a covid test (ouch!) and drew my blood to test for two different things.

A little while later, Tina came in and told me that it takes a couple days to get results from the blood work that gives a definitive answer to whether I had Cholestasis or not. But the other quick blood test did show that my liver enzyme levels were elevated. Because of that, she recommended I be induced to be safe.

Shock, fear, uncertainty. Those were my initial feelings about being induced. I had heard the pitocin makes contractions harder.

How could I go natural if my contractions were even worse than they would be normally?

We said a prayer and I felt like we should go ahead with the induction. Tina came in and told me since I was going natural they would start by just breaking my water and see if that kickstarted things.

She broke my water and I was 3 centimeters dilated. She let me know that they’d check me in two hours. If I hadn’t progressed then we’d start pitocin. 

One of my favorite things during Gracelynn’s birth was being in the shower. The water felt awesome. I asked if I could be in the shower when labor started this time. They actually had a huge tub in the room next door, so they let me switch!

We got settled in the room and were left to wait for things to get going. We turned on the tv and hung out while I had very mild contractions. Two hours later, at 5:30, they checked me again and I was at a 4. That was progress so no pitocin needed!

In all my research of natural birth I learned that laughing releases oxytocin which helps speed up labor and lessen discomfort. So once contractions started feeling more uncomfortable, we turned the tv to Impractical Jokers. It was so much fun to laugh through my contractions with Kyler while he gave me counter pressure and danced with me.

7:30 they checked me and I was another centimeter dilated. My contractions were pretty intense by this point, so we turned off the television and I got in the tub.

The nurse told me if I started feeling pushy, I needed to get out because they couldn’t let me give birth in the tub. I thought that wasn’t even a possibility because I had been progressing so slow. Plus when I was at a 5 with Gracelynn, I still labored for 8 more hours.

Once I got in the tub things got overwhelming so fast. Kyler was still giving me counter pressure and being the best cheerleader. Marta was able to come support us too and came at the perfect time.

After about 20 minutes in the tub, my contractions were unbearable and overlapping. I had reached my limit and knew I wouldn’t be able to labor like that for hours more. I looked at Marta and Kyler and said, “I think I want the epidural.” They both agreed that was a good idea, and we told the nurse.

While we waited for the anesthesiologist, I broke down crying. Even though this is what I had decided beforehand, I felt like a failure. My two cheerleaders assured me I was amazing.

The anesthesiologist came in right as I was in a very strong and long contraction. She kept asking me questions and all I could do was nod as I had my eyes closed, riding through it. Unfortunately she wasn’t a very compassionate person and she quite firmly said, “Can you look at me?” Oh boy... as soon as she got the information she needed, she left to get the epidural.

A few minutes later, Tina and some nurses came to check on me. I barely registered them there because I was so deep into riding my contractions. I also started feeling like I had to go to the bathroom and was pushing in the tub. I had heard some women say when they were ready to push they felt like they needed to have a bowel movement. I didn’t think that was what was happening because I was just barely a 5 half an hour before.

They told me it was time to get out of the tub and I heard them tell each other that it seems like I was ready to push. The anesthesiologist had come back in and I heard her say, “Well it looks like you don’t need me.” I was still in denial that I was at a 10, so in my head I thought, “Where are you going?! Of course I need you!”

Tina checked me and said, “Juli, you’re complete! Let’s just have a baby!”

Without thinking about it, I laid on my side. Kyler was on my left holding my leg up and saying the sweetest encouragements. Marta was on my right stroking my head and pushing me to keep going and reminding me to be aware of my breathing.

There was a moment where Marta said, “This is your give it your all moment, Juli.” All I could think was, “This is too hard. Someone else do this for me!”

There’s no other word to describe birthing naturally than primal. My body knew exactly what it was doing. It gave me very clear sensations for when to push and when to stop. My mind took a backseat and my body was in complete control. I felt baby descend and he was out within 10 minutes.

“I did it!!” I just kept saying that over and over again. I was so proud of myself and riding on an oxytocin high that lasted for a couple of days!

His birth was so perfect. 5 hours from start to finish with 10 minutes of pushing. I firmly believe epidurals have a place in the birthing world for when a momma needs help. But I am so happy that I was able to experience a natural birth the way I knew it could be. Intense, primal, beautiful.

Our perfect Baby Bennett Boy

January 2, 2021

8:09 PM

7lb 12oz

20.5 inches

Gracelynn's Birth Story

There are some things in life you just can't prepare for. No matter how much you study about, practice for, and know about. Experiencing it is really the only way to truly know.

For the past 9 months I had been preparing for an unmedicated birth. Our society thinks that's crazy. Why would you willing go through pain when our medical advances have made it possible to bypass that? Well there are many reasons, but I won't go into that now. Just know I had done tons of research and knew this was the best thing for my baby and me.

I wanted to get this down while it's fresh in my memory, so that I can get as many details as possible. So here we go...

It was Tuesday, May 23rd at 1:30 in the morning. I woke up with annoying back pain that I attributed to normal pregnancy sleeping pain. I had been sleeping horribly for the past couple of weeks, and at 40 weeks and 2 days I was ready for this baby to come!

After a little bit I realized I was having mild back contractions. I started timing them and they were coming 10 minutes apart and lasted 1 minute each. Kyler and I ended up on the couch watching tv from 2-5 that morning. By then my contractions stopped and I was able to go back to sleep.

I decided to call into work just in case. I was hoping the contractions would come back and stay! Kyler and I ran errands, cleaned the house, everything to get things going again. I had contractions off and on all morning and afternoon but they finally came and stayed around 1-2 pm. We were timing them and they were still 8-10 minutes apart lasting about 1 minute. My midwife suggested I labor at home until they were consistently 3-5 minutes apart.

So we waited...

I contracted..

Kyler timed them..

And hours later, the closest they got was really only 5-7 minutes.

Throughout all of this laboring at home Kyler was incredible. (Just like he was throughout labor at the hospital.) He stayed right by my side, drew me a bath, did counter pressure whenever I needed, reminded me of my breathing when he could tell I was losing control, put on movies to help distract me. He was my rock.

Every time I thought it couldn't get much worse.. it did. After talking to Marta (our amazing aunt who is a labor and delivery nurse,) we decided to head to the hospital. She heard me go through a contraction in the background of her phone call with Kyler and said that even though they weren't super close, they sounded intense enough to head in. And I am so glad we did!

We got to the hospital around 11 pm. They checked me and admitted me. Yay! It was actually happening.

After getting us settled in a room, Kyler turned on my hypnobirthing tracks, turned on our battery operated candles, and hung up my birth affirmations so I could see them as I labored. It was just like I pictured it!

One thing I didn't picture for myself was back labor. Constant. With every contraction. Of course I'd heard about and learned about some things to help, but for some reason I just never thought that that would happen to me. But it did. And it didn't stop until she was here!

A list of things that helped me get through labor:


-Fentanyl. They gave me two and half doses of this over the first three hours and then cut me off. It didn't numb or stop the pain, but it definitely dulled it a little!

-Hypnobirthing tracks. Although I had a hard time concentrating on the words, the familiar sound helped me relax.

-The shower. The hot water on my back was heaven.

-My birthing ball.

-Vocalizing. We learned about vocalizing in our hypnobirthing class and I thought, "I'll probably be quiet during labor." Ha ha. Not even close. Vocalizing helped me ride through each contraction and also helped me hear myself coping. I could tell when I was losing control and tried to pull myself back together again.

-My nurses. Every single one of them were amazing and supportive!

-My midwife. I literally couldn't have done it without her. She talked me through the extreme contractions. Hearing her tell me I was doing a great job and that I was so strong gave me some of the will power I needed to keep going.

-Kyler. Like I said before, he was my rock through it all. He never left me to do it alone. Always holding my hand, rubbing my back, feeding me ice chips. He worked so hard and I am forever grateful for him!

Throughout labor my midwife checked me twice.. And both time is was the exact same as when I got to my labor and delivery room. The first time she told me the baby was also facing to the right and we needed her to turn But my contractions were still 5 minutes apart and not strong enough to turn the baby.. So to help with all of that I chose to pump to see if that would stimulate harder contractions. I didn't feel like it was doing anything. And sure enough she checked me again and I hadn't dilated. I was so discouraged. At that point I almost said, "Just give me the epidural!"

Julie, my midwife, could tell I needed help. So she suggested breaking my water. As soon as she did that she was able to stretch me to a 9. A 9! I was so so close! And baby had turned!  Little did I know the hardest part was about to start. Pushing.

My mother in law and Kyler each held a leg and my mom was the camera woman behind me. My team was all ready, but was I? Did it really matter? I couldn't back out now!

I pushed for probably about 30 minutes, but they felt like hours. I thought I would never get her out. This is the only time throughout labor that I really felt myself lose control. Screaming instead of vocalizing and at one point I simply said that I couldn't do it. But I had to. And I figured if I had to do it, I wanted to get it over with. So I pushed as hard as I could. After one of my pushes, Julie told me she could see baby's hair. She had hair!

The push that got her out should've felt the best, but it was actually the worst. I felt myself tear. It was excruciating. But she was here! I did it! They put that sweet baby on my chest and the rest is history. She was bright eyed and alert, ready to conquer the world.

The experience was so much more difficult than I thought it would be. Nothing could have prepared me. But it taught me so much, and for that, I'm grateful.

Getting Aquainted With Grief

     Grief seems to be one of those things in life that you don't really understand until you've experienced it. At least that's how it's been for me. And even if you have experienced it, we probably all understand it a little differently.


     Grief has been one of my only constants over the past 7 months. Something I could count on to be with me pretty much every day. Not always overwhelming or thought consuming, but always there in the back of my heart. I have made a lot of mistakes along this journey. I haven't always handled my grief in the healthiest ways but because of this, I have come to understand the deeper roots of grief.


1. Grief is extremely individual


     As I was browsing Facebook a while ago I came across this picture:

     Now I know it's a little cheesy and cutesy, but doesn't the message hit your heart? It's been on my mind ever since I saw it. How often do we compare trials? In my case it's been things like.. "Well she's had more miscarriages than me," or, "She was way farther along in her pregnancy when she miscarried," and, "She's tried and prayed and waited years to get pregnant," and, "She actually got to meet and bond with her baby before she had to say goodbye."


     The more I thought these things, the stronger my guilt got for feeling so much grief over my loss. Who was I to be feeling so desperately lost when these women seemed to have it so much worse? But that is so unfair. We are all so unique and individual, which means that the trials we go through and the way our hearts react to them are also unique and individual.
     Do not judge someone because of the way they are grieving. You can try to imagine, but you really have no idea how their heart is hurting.


2. Grief has no timeline and time does not heal it
    
     For some people grief last only moments, days. For others months, years. And you know what? That's ok. There is no rule that grief has to last a certain amount of time or be gone by a certain amount of time.
     We've all heard that saying, "Time heals all wounds." I disagree. Time doesn't heal anything. Time gives you the opportunity to see your trials from a different perspective which often allows you to heal. But time doesn't do the healing. It is foolish to passively wait around for time to pass, hoping your grief will heal.


3. Grief is demanding


     Isn't it strange that something with no physical form, no mind of it's own can demand so much?

• It demands that we take care of ourselves.
•  Others might see it as being selfish, you might even think you are being selfish. But understand that taking care of yourself during this time (taking a lot of "you" time, separating yourself from triggers for a while, walking away from painful situations) is important to overcoming and healing.
• It demands that we have faith.
• Whether you believe in God or not, grief demands that you have faith and hope that things will get better. One of my sweet friends lost her mother earlier this year and at the funeral, her aunt spoke. She said something that will stay with me forever. "I have to have faith in my Heavenly Father, because if I don't have faith, I will be bitter."
• It demands change.
• Grief is a very real example of the refiner's fire. It will change us whether we want it to or not. What we do have control over if whether those changes are for the better or for the worse. "You can get bitter or you can get better" very strongly applies here.

4. Grief is not an excuse


     In the suffocating depths of grief, it is easy to feel justified in certain behaviors. But we are not entitled to treat others unkindly because of grief. We should not end relationships or cut people out of our lives because of grief. Grief can definitely be an explanation for the choices we are making, but it cannot become an excuse. I know those sound very similar, but I think there is a difference. An explanation to me would sound like, "I need to make this choice to help me heal." Explaining to help others understand. An excuse would sound like, "I have the right to make this choice because I am grieving." Do you see the difference? It might seem like I am splitting hairs, but this is a very important difference in my mind.


5. We eventually have to let go of our grief


     This is something my husband recently taught me. And I think this has to be one of the toughest things to handle when it comes to grief. At least for me.
     Now remember, grief does not have a timeline. If your heart needs to grieve for a long time, then let it. But there's a difference between needing to grieve and feeling like we have to.
     I have been holding so tightly onto my grief because I felt like I had to. Our siblings, family members, and friends have been announcing pregnancies and having babies.. With all of the excitement and happiness for them, everyone has forgotten my sweet baby except for me. No one asks me anymore. No one said anything on my due date. No one cared. That's how I have felt. And because I was the last one who remembered anymore, I thought that as soon as I let go and move forward then it will be like my baby never existed because no one will remember. But I understand that letting go doesn't mean forgetting. Letting go means allowing yourself to let go of the grief, not of the life, person or event that you have been grieving.


     Learning about something and actually applying it are two different things. I understand all of these things, but I am far from perfect at applying them. That is life though. We learn and we try. We learn and we try. Over and over and over. It can feel tiring, and constantly "failing" can get discouraging. But as we keep trying, we can look back and see that we have come a lot farther than we realized and that our efforts haven't actually been failures at all.

Breaking the Silence

If you have had a miscarriage, you are not alone. Obviously, you know that. But do you feel that?

Maybe not; because it's a topic that is kept very hush-hush. I've wondered why that is for months now. Maybe people don't feel like sharing their private pain. And that's fine. Maybe some don't feel a miscarried baby carries much weight in the eyes of the world or those they associate with. And that's discouraging. Maybe people don't share because that's just what's expected when you have a miscarriage. "We just don't talk about it."

And that's that.

But that's not enough for me. I firmly believe one of the reasons we go through trials is to help other people through similar ones. So here I am, sharing my pain and also the things I have learned in hopes that someone else will benefit from it. If it doesn't give a sense of hope at least it might give a sense of camaraderie...


One day we saw two pink lines. That day my life changed forever.

Amazing things happen when you find out you are creating a life. You start living with a different purpose. You start having dreams of the future. "Will my baby have dimples like my husband?" "Will my baby love to sing like me?"

And if you have siblings expecting at the same time you picture your kids running around grandma and grandpa's house together, asking to have sleepovers, growing lifelong friendships.

This was my sweet reality for 4 weeks. And then...

One day we couldn't see a heartbeat. That day my life changed forever.

Horrendous things happen when you find out the life you were creating becomes a past tense. You question everything. Your purpose. Your future. Things that you've known your whole life become doubts.

But at the same time you learn. You learn more in those moments, days, weeks, months, following than you feel like you've learned your whole life. But why did it take something so painful and unbearable to learn these things? I don't know. Sometimes it's okay not to know.

My sweet baby's life was not without purpose. He/she taught me more than I ever thought possible. I want to share a few of those.


-I am now a mother. Other people might not recognize me as one. I might not have a baby to hold in my arms. But I am a mother who has felt and continues to feel that unconditional love that mothers feel.

-I lost a child. Not just a bunch of cells. A literal child who had already wiggled his/her way into my heart. But it didn't stop there. I lost the next 6 months that I was supposed to carry that child. I lost holding that baby in my arms for the first time. I lost first steps. I lost first day of kindergarten. I lost first date and first heartbreak. I lost graduation and wedding. I lost an entire life that I had dreamt about and started imagining for/with that baby.

-Miscarriage is one of the most lonely experiences in the world."If people heard about what had happened, their faces would turn into masks of horror for a moment, but then it would become just a story to them. They would go on living, and laughing, and I would be alone with my grief." The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. People try to understand, people say they understand, but no one does. Not even others who have had similar experiences. Because each miscarriage is a unique, heartbreaking journey that no one can fully travel with you. But it's so important to take people's comments for what they're given: comfort. Even if they don't feel comforting at the time.

-Emotional independence is essential. Because no one fully understands, no one will ever be able to feel how deep your pain and grief reach. They aren't feeling what you're feeling, so they don't know what your heart needs. So share your feelings by all means! But don't expect people to react exactly how you expect or give you exactly what you need, because they have no idea.

-Lastly, you are never alone. You have a Heavenly Father and a Savior, Jesus Christ who will never abandon you no matter what your grief makes you feel or think. So yes, no one here on earth knows how you feel. But they do. No one here on earth understands why, including you. But they do.

Trials are the ultimate form of repentance and change. When tragic, traumatic things happen to you it's almost like you come to a dead end in your path of life that you didn't foresee. So for a while you stop. You stare at the dead end. You wonder why in the world it's there because this was not your plan. Most people feel grief and despair for the life that they thought they were going to have but now don't. But after a while, you have to make a choice. Are you going to allow this end point to set you back? Or are you going to choose to let it elevate you? Will you simply sit down on the path with bitterness in your heart? Or will you notice the other path leading off in a different direction and with curiosity and hope for the future keep walking?

I choose to keep walking.