Hellooo everyone! I’m super excited to finally share baby Ronnie’s birth story. This one took me longer to put together as I needed a little extra time to gather my thoughts and put pen to paper. It is finally here and I hope it inspires you to look beyond, ask more questions, and trust your intuition.
October 18, 2021 was my “estimated due date”, a date I never really shared with anyone as I personally don’t like to get too attached to it. You see, the EDD it’s an educated guess on when you will be delivering the baby based on the first day of your last menstrual period. And only about 2.5% of women actually give birth on their due date…I am now one of them.
Ronald Arthur Vogel III was born at 8:38am on his due date—clocking in at a healthy 7.10lbs and 19.25 inches. Taking after his daddy’s love for speed, baby Ronnie, was born spontaneously after an intense and quick 4-hour labor.
The night before baby Ronnie was born I couldn’t sleep at all (pregnancy insomnia hit me hard in the third trimester) so I decided to go downstairs and watch a few episodes of my new favorite Netflix show, MAID. At around 3 am, I started feeling mild cramping in my back, and I remember thinking “could this be it?” I desperately wanted some labor symptoms as I had none prior to that night and I was one day away from completing 40 weeks. 
About an hour later and mid-MAID marathon, my mild cramps started getting stronger and stronger. I immediately thought to myself “this is definitely it”. I wanted to make sure there was a cadence to my “cramps” before I made any phone calls, so I went upstairs and with the “Contraction Timer & Counter” app on my phone, I started tracking my contractions. After 45min, my cramps turned into mild contractions and were about 7-8min apart so I told my husband “I’m having contractions…the baby is coming.” Shortly after, I texted my midwife (Dana) & doula (Eyla) to let them know I was in labor. “Keep me posted” replied my midwife, Dana.
At 6 am I peed a big ball of blood, to which Dana said “that’s great, it means your cervix is changing”. In the meantime, I called my mom and my brother to let them know I was in labor and ask them to help me with Shiva and the dogs. I was anticipating at least 6-8 hrs of labor so I wanted the house to be as quiet as possible, we also needed someone to give Shiva a ride to school.
Ronnie, my husband, went to get Shiva ready for school and I stayed in our room meditating and tracking contractions. At around 7:30 am, during one of my many check-ins with Dana that morning, she said, “Sounds like they are moving fast. I’m on my way.” I nodded.
Contractions kept getting stronger and closer to each other, and at 7:58 am my water finally broke. It broke like in the movies—a loud “pop” noise and a shitload of water everywhere! I thought to myself “omg, I’m going to have to do this alone”. Shortly after, Eyla arrived—thank god! Labor was so strong at this point that I was in desperate need of support. When I saw Dana and her assistant walk through the door at around 8:15 am, I surrendered to my breath and gave myself permission to birth.
I started to feel like I needed to poop (a standard feeling when you’re having a baby). So we moved to my bathroom and I sat on the toilette, where I got this urge to push. I pushed twice and I felt the baby was here, so I pushed again with everything I had and baby Ronnie was born at 8:38 am in what they call a “posterior face presentation”. An incredibly rare presentation where the baby is born face first and traditionally a very tough, long labor. We just so happened to be the magical exception, as our birth was smooth and free of complications. 
This speedy birth caught us all by surprise (myself included) as we were all prepared for a much longer labor. My sweet husband missed the whole thing bc he was downstairs setting up the birthing pool we never got to use. The girls ran to get him and we all hugged, kissed, and welcomed baby Ronnie into our family. We spent the rest of the day in bed all three of us until Shiva got home from school eager to meet her baby brother. Our hearts are so full and we feel incredibly blessed and complete as a family of 4.
