An Early Morning Birth At Natural Beginning Birthing Center In Austin, Texas

Written by Kenna Jong | Photographed by Mariah Williams

My dream since I was five years old was to be a mom, so I was overjoyed when we found out that we were pregnant with our son. Pregnancy was full of joy, hardship and transitions, but I didn’t really begin to think about the actual birthing process until I was 24 weeks pregnant. I began to research all of the different ways you can give birth and knew I wanted to do whatever was best for my little nugget, no matter how much pain it would put me in and my research helped me land on desiring a natural birth at a birthing center. 

I was full of anticipation for the arrival of our son. I was so terrified of the pain I knew I would have to endure to have him, but the Lord was so gracious in giving me rest - calming my anxious mind each night. 

I went into labor at 7:00pm on February 2nd. The first contractions weren’t too bad, so I naively thought that this was going to be easy. Ha! The contractions grew in intensity and within 4 hours they were steadily 3-5 minutes apart and I had to have my husband help me through each one. At midnight we called the midwife to let her know that we were coming in and quickly got into the car. The car ride wasn’t as bad as I imagined as there was no traffic and most of the lights were green on our way there! My water broke on the car ride, and five minutes later we were slowly making our way up to the birthing center through contractions. 

I was so relieved to see our midwife, Michelle, when we walked through the doors as I knew she would know what to do. She checked us all out to make sure both Baby and I were healthy and in good shape to be in the birthing center. That process took only 40 minutes, but it seemed to last a lifetime. 

Once I was admitted into the room, I immediately went to the shower and had hot water running down by back during every contraction. The contractions were really intense at this point and the time between them was getting shorter and shorter. Michelle moved me to the bed and put a peanut ball between my legs to help my body open up for Baby. I will forever loathe that dang peanut ball! An extremely strong contraction came on and I looked at Michelle while wailing and began to shake my head letting her know I couldn’t do this. She squeezed my hand, looked me in the eyes to help calm me down and said, “You can do this.” She let me know shortly after that I was in transition. I didn’t want anyone touching me and I just wanted to curl up in a ball in the corner (and get that dang peanut ball out from between my legs). 

After what seemed like hours, but really was maybe 15 minutes, everything suddenly calmed down. I wasn’t in pain and I just really had to poop!

Michelle moved me to the bathroom and let me sit down to go, but then I realized that I didn’t actually have to poop, but that Baby was ready to come out! Wahoo! I was so relieved and a newfound strength and joy arose in me. 

I quickly started bearing down and began pushing Baby out. At this point, my mom showed up and was the best support for Shin and I! Compared to the rest of birth, pushing was my favorite part as there was something to focus on, a task I could complete. The finish line was near and that helped me to concentrate, but it took over 2 hours to get him out! 

Looking back at our birth story photos and I see the determination in my eyes, the newfound strength the Lord gave me after being in labor all night, the village that surrounded me to help me through the birthing process, and the amazing miracle that birth is. How refining the birthing process was to me and my faith. I am so broken and yet the Lord allowed new life to grow inside of me. Through the struggle of pregnancy and the seemingly insurmountable feat of actually birthing a human, I saw the gospel play out. From literally blood shed, tears and physical pain, new life was born. What a beautiful representation of our redemption through Jesus! And how beautiful the picture of community was displayed. Through the pain and sorrow of life, our community helps push us closer to Jesus and help walk us through the moments we feel alone and in too much pain to bear. 

Anyways, getting back to pushing. After more than an hour of pushing, Michelle said that if things didn’t start moving we would have to go to the hospital. That helped me focus again on using all of the strength I had left to push Kaden out. Between each push my mom would hold me, my husband would comfort me and everyone around me would laugh and joke around. He finally began showing his head and I was so excited that he was almost here. The joy and determination I had are unexplainable. I was ready to meet him! Then came the final couple of pushes. He was crowning and the pain was crazy! Then when he finally came out, the relief my body felt and the joy and jumble of emotions I was feeling left me feeling like I was in a dream. I instantly fell in love with him! I will never forget the feeling of having him on my chest for the first time; the warmth of his skin against mine, his small and helpless frame being supported by me, and his sweet little cry as he was taking in his first breaths. 

Kaden Thomas Jong was born on February 3, 2019 at 5:18am - weighing 6 pounds 12 ounces and measuring 19.75 inches long.