271 - Winnie’s Birth Story
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Winsome Joy Ray, our precious fifth baby, was born at home on Christmas Day. This is her birth story.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Before I share Winnie's birth story, I just want to let you know you can see some pictures of it over on my blog. I just want to give you the disclaimer: I don't really hold back when I'm sharing my birth stories. So you have been warned. Okay, let's start at the beginning.
At the end of 2023, Will and I were prayerfully considering a new fifth baby. We had two girls, two boys so it felt very complete, but we weren't sure. We were praying about it. We were really just, we weren't sure. After several months of prayer, we just kind of came to the conclusion that we'd never regret adding another person to our family. We knew it wasn't guaranteed, so we kind of put it in the Lord's hands for six months. After several months of nothing happening, we decided, “Okay well, let's just not have the baby in December, because my birthday is in December, Beaufort's birthday is in December, Jesus's birthday is in December.” You know, it's December. It's crazy.
Lo and behold, I took a pregnancy test and I was due Christmas Eve. So the Lord has a sense of humor. We laughed at the irony, but you know, this has been a theme for us. Since baby number one, I remember when I was pregnant with Millie, I said, “As long as I don't have the baby in May or June, I'll be fine” because that was the height of wedding season. Her due date was May 27th and the Lord is so good. I just want to encourage anybody listening who feels like the timing maybe wasn't your choice. God has been so good in giving us babies exactly when they were born and he knows what is best. His timing is always better than ours. That proved to be true this time.
So I found out I was pregnant. We were like, “What in the world? Okay, here we go. Christmas baby.” Uh, because my first calculation was that I would be due Christmas Eve.
After experiencing a home birth with Benji, my fourth, I knew I wanted another home birth. So the first thing I did was I texted my midwife, told her I was pregnant, and told her my estimated due date. I felt so nervous and she graciously agreed to be my midwife, even being due right at Christmas time. I will forever be thankful for the sacrifices she made for me.
So I'll just go into this saying… this was my hardest, I don't know, hardest, one of my most difficult births mentally. I think it had to do with several different things, but I really was hoping she wouldn't be born on Christmas day. I was hoping that, you know, my baby would come early. I had three different due dates, like Christmas Eve was my first calculation. Then my two ultrasounds gave me December 19th and December 21st.
Three of my four other babies came on the early side of their due dates. So I just was so certain that this baby would be born before Christmas. You know, there's just challenges when a baby's born on Christmas day. Ultimately I said, you know, I'm going to give this to the Lord. I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to trust my body. I knew I didn't want to be induced. I knew I wanted to have a home birth and I was going to trust Him in that.
So… my pregnancy was good. I worked out more in this pregnancy than I ever had. I started working out in earnest with a couple of my friends when Benji was like 18 months old and I did not stop until maybe the 30-week mark. That gave me so much energy in life. I think my biggest difficult symptoms or what symptoms I guess of pregnancy would be my veins. I Have very visible, kind of painful varicose veins in my legs during pregnancy and they just get really swollen. Then heartburn. It's just brutal. The heartburn is brutal, but other than that, I really had a good pregnancy. So thankful for that, but I think my legs and my heartburn were the two things that really just rocked my world throughout the pregnancy. It just got progressively worse. My low back started hurting, but as I turned the corner in December, I just started getting nervous. You would think, I've done this unmedicated four times by now. I know what to expect. Like, come on, confident mom, let's do this. That is not the case. I felt weak. I felt nervous. I struggled mentally to find the confidence I really wanted. Man, I clung to the verse, “In our weakness, He is made strong” because I just felt weak
I felt nervous about the due date and the timing and I was done. My body is so tired. I'm older. I just was done being pregnant and also I didn't want it to end. All of those feelings, you know, that we have at the end of pregnancy. So when we approached December 19th, my first given due date, I just was like, “Let's go.” Actually, I was still nervous. Will was like, let's have this baby. Let's get you walking every day. Let's do the workouts. What spicy food, you know, let's do every labor inducing thing we can think of for the next two or three days. So I did it all. I ate spicy food. We took long walks in the evenings. Every morning for like three days. I did a Nourish Move Love Labor Inducing Workout. Highly recommend. It was awesome. Fifteen minutes in the mornings. It was great, but nothing… like no contractions, until the day that Will looked at me and was like, “Hey, we're getting closer to Christmas. Let's stop trying to induce labor and let's try to have the baby after Christmas.” I just laughed because of course you can't control it. But I was like, “Okay, that's fine. Let's stop.”
So on December 22nd, no more workouts, no more walks. I just was like, I'm just going to rest and enjoy the holidays. We're going to let this baby come when it comes. We were doing a gender surprise. We didn't know if we're having a baby girl or a baby boy. This was going to be our tiebreaker. On the night of the 22nd, I started having contractions at dinner and they were like 10 to 30 minutes apart. Kind of mild. I had contractions for weeks, like when I would do a workout or take a long walk and then they would just subside, but these didn't go away. 10 to 30 minutes apart all night long.They were waking me up. They were strong. I was like, “Okay, this is probably the start of it.”
So I didn't wake up Will. I just tried to get as much sleep as I could, which was not a lot. But I woke up the next morning on the 23rd and they stopped. Like they just stopped. Now I wasn't super surprised by this because I've had prodromal labor, especially with Benji's birth. But I also was like, “Come on. Okay, we're there. You know, almost before Christmas. Let's see when this baby's going to be born.” Will looked at me and he was like, “All right, let's go to the Christmas Eve service.” They were actually doing it on the 23rd. I was like, “This is a little dicey, but let's go.” So we all got dressed up. We went to the Christmas Eve service. That was just a balm to my heart to be able to worship, to be able to think about Mary at Christmas time, literally due at the exact same time that she was due. I mean, I know that we don't know when Jesus's birthday is, but you know what I mean. The sentiment felt so precious and real.
Went to bed that night of the 23rd. Boom. Contractions started again, like in earnest, very strong. Even stronger than the night before. I had some bleeding. I was like, “Okay, this is more progress.” I texted my midwife and I was like, “I'm seeing some signs, feeling some contractions. These feel stronger.” You know, let's go. I didn't wake up Will again. I just let my body do its thing all night. Got very little sleep. They were so intense.
I woke up. I have this vivid memory. I woke up on Christmas Eve morning, I got my journal out. I couldn't sleep. It was 6AM. The whole house was still asleep. Got a cup of hot coffee, turned on the Christmas tree, turned on the fire and was like, Lord, thank you that I am having a baby today; Christmas Eve. This is so magical. Like I knew, I knew I was having a baby today. Those contractions were real. They were timed. This is exactly how several other of my labors started. Everyone got up, we had breakfast, and those contractions just stopped. I was like, “Where did they go? Where did they go? I was in labor. What is happening? I haven't slept in like two nights.”
I was honestly at that point really, really discouraged. Starting to think like, “Ss everything okay? Are we good?” I mean, technically at this point, it was five days past my first due date. I have babies early. This is when the mental game got hard for me. I just wanted to have my baby before or after Christmas Day. So I just cried a lot that day. I was like, Lord, this is hard. The hormones, the stop and start labor, the unpredictability. All of it just brought me to this very somber place of just wanting to trust, but doubting and literally having to say out loud, “Lord, I trust you” and hope that my mind and heart would just follow those words. I thought I had the best plan. I thought I had the best plan.
Lo and behold that night, Christmas Eve, contractions pick up again all through the night. I'm feeling real sleep deprived at this point, but a strong one would wake me up. I would sleep a little bit and then they would wake me up again. Consistently 10 to 20 minutes apart, sometimes 30, and then Christmas morning comes. Okay, so I am going on three nights of no sleep, but I just pour myself a hot cup of coffee. We do our favorite traditions. I whisper a prayer, thankful I can just be present on Christmas morning. I really did not want to miss Christmas morning with my kids. I lit the candles. I turned on the music. I put our cream cheese danish in the oven. You know, I just stopped to breathe through every single contraction every 15 minutes or so. Then I would do the next thing, Make the kids sing happy birthday to Jesus. They all came downstairs. I was videoing them opening presents.
But I just remember, I was perched up on the couch leaning over sideways on the armrest, breathing through the whole morning. Kids would look at me and be like, “Mom, look at this present. This is amazing.” I would literally be in labor land and close my eyes and I would just say, “Hang on a second. Hang on a second. I can't look.” Then I would open my eyes and be like, “Let me see, guys. This is awesome!” I felt like I had one foot in each world, like reality and labor land. But they were not getting close together.
So thinking back to Christmas morning, I feel like I kind of blacked out. I remember little snippets of it, but I was dealing with this whole cloud of emotions. My body transitioning into labor and feeling like the contractions were so strong, but they were so far apart and wondering if baby was okay, if I was okay, trying to be present, all of those things.
So we made it through Christmas morning. Will and I only do stockings for each other on Christmas. I looked at him and I was like, “I cannot open a stocking. You can open yours if you want, but I'm not. I'm not in any place to open a stocking.” So we just enjoyed our kids doing Christmas that day. I didn't open one thing for myself. I just enjoyed Christmas. We sent Beaufort and Benji (my boys) to my mother-in-law's house for the afternoon to visit with her, to play. That was Will's idea and it was great because it allowed me to kind of get into that space of labor.
So that's when Mily and Lyndon, my seven and nine year old girls were so sweet and they really stepped in. Of course with Will's guidance, they stepped in as my doulas. They were rubbing my shoulders, rubbing my back, getting me water, tickling my arms. I had worship music on. I just kind of rotated from the birth ball to the bathtub to laying on my side in the bed. I was exhausted too.
I had been in touch with my midwife here and there. Christmas afternoon, you know, three days of stop and start labor that was pretty intense. I was like, “I need to call her and get on the phone with her.” She took my call right away and she said, “You know, if you're not going to have this baby by tonight, I'm going to come in the morning and just check on you and check on baby and make sure baby is in the right position.”
She said, “In the meantime, get on your knees, put your chest flat on the bed (basically like child's pose or puppy dog pose, like when your booty is really high in the air, but your chest is on the ground). I want you to hold it there for 20 minutes.” I was like, okay… 41 weeks pregnant just about. This is going to be hard, but I'm going to do it. It was a long 20 minutes. I hung up with her, did that for 20 minutes.
Thankfully, Will sat with me the whole time for that because the blood was rushing to my face. I felt so uncomfortable, but we just worshiped through it and he encouraged me. After that, I think I laid on the bed. Got in the bathtub again. you know, Just doing the rounds. Took walks around the house.
At some point I ended up in the bathtub that evening and I was timing my contractions and was like, these feel closer together. They feel intense and they feel closer together. I was not able to speak at all through them. When we realized they were six minutes apart, I said, “This is it. This is it. Like, I think this is it.” It was like this mix of confidence that this is it and also,I don't know if this is it. Will looked at me. I was like, “Call the midwife, call the photographer, call everybody in.”
They all lived 90 minutes to two to three hours away. My midwife was 90 minutes away. My photographer was three hours away. He goes, “Are you sure?” I said, “No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but just call them anyway. It's time to call them.” So yeah, I just had to trust. I had to go with my gut.
So I vaguely remember the next couple of hours. Okay. This is when I really entered into the birth world labor land where you just enter another realm completely. You can't remember the timing of things. Can't remember who was there. Your eyes are closed. You know what's happening. The things that I remember is the album Peace by Bethel Music playing on repeat. Then I would switch that and switch to one of Jess Ray's Matin albums. Then I would switch to another Matin album and then switch back to Peace. Those albums… wow. They carried me through that alternate reality where I am just wrapping my head around, like this is labor. We're here. It is Christmas Day. I am having this baby. You know, it's just a wild thing. It brought me to this place of total surrender. So again… the bed, the birth ball, the bathtub, I looked at Will and I said, “Fill up the birth tub.” Again, he said, “Are you sure?? I said, “No, I'm not sure, but fill it up.”
It felt like this mix of relief and fear. This is what we have waited for. This is what I've been praying for, but I'm so nervous. Can I do this again? Is the baby okay? Is baby in the right position? What's going to happen? Just waiting, you know? Taking it one contraction at a time.
Finally got in the birth tub. There is nothing like that feeling. It is a glorious feeling when you're in labor. I knew this might not take long because my body had been working for basically four days on and off. At this point, my eyes mostly just stayed closed, but I just remember feeling a little daughter's hand, like rubbing my arm, putting a cold cloth on my forehead and just whispers all around me. My mom was there. She had been there for weeks. Bless her heart. She had been with us for weeks leading up to this point. She was there. Will was there. My girls were there.
My mother-in-law ended up bringing the boys back and helped put them down for bed. Then my mom read the supernatural childbirth prayer in the back, which she read over me as well for Beaufort's birth. It was just what I needed to hear. She actually read it twice through. I was like, “Again, let's go.” I was just beautiful.
We stayed there for a little while. Now, again, I don't know what time this is. This is somewhere between like 7p.m. and 10:30 p.m. that I'm like in this space. Eventually, I just feel this really strong urge to push and the contractions are moving my baby down and I feel it and it's a wild ride feeling that knowing it's almost here and I just said I'm just gonna go with this feeling.
So I would push with the contraction, not like really, really hard, but I would push and then I would have a break and I just said out loud with my eyes closed, “I feel the urge to push” and Will goes, “Can you hold off just a minute? Because the midwive is not here”. I said, “no, I cannot hold off.”
But thankfully, my midwife had an assistant midwife. She had arrived and I felt very secure in her care. So it wasn't that we were without anybody. It's just my main lead midwife wasn't there yet. I said, “I am pushing this baby. It doesn't matter.”
So my second midwife was there. She was setting everything up. She was checking on me and baby. Then shortly after, my main midwife got there. It was sweet because I heard her come in and I just like hugged her and grabbed onto her hand and was like, “I'm so glad that you're here.” She was like, “You've got this.” She gets the flashlight. She gets the mirror. She gets all the things. She checks on baby's heartbeat. She checks on me. Then I just start pushing.
I can't exactly remember. I think it was about five or six total, like big contractions with big pushes and about 10 (this is what it felt like, okay? I literally cannot remember, but it felt like there's about 10) minutes in between each one. Maybe eight minutes, maybe five minutes between some, maybe 12, I don't know. But there was one huge contraction and I felt baby's head move down and then another big contraction and I remember pushing baby's head out and I remember reaching down and feeling the baby and my midwife had the mirror and she said, “The baby is facing sunny side up, which is occiput posterior. Basically, you want the baby to be facing your tailbone; not towards your belly button and this baby was facing my belly button.
So that explained a lot of my prodromal labor and why baby had not engaged. Baby was not facing in the ideal position. This is exactly how my first baby was born, Milly. So I push the baby's head out and I'm waiting on the next contraction before pushing baby's body out. I reach down and feel the head. This is the craziest part. So Baby's facing the wrong way. As I'm waiting for the next contraction, my hand is on baby's head, and the baby completely rotates. In the birth canal, halfway out of me, completely rotates to face the right way.
My midwife says, “The baby's restituting. Baby is restituting like he's restituting right now.” She was just calling it a “he.” I felt it and I said, “What is happening right now?” It was not painful at all. I was like, “What is happening? This is so crazy.” She was like, “Baby is turning the right way.” Had another big contraction and I pushed with all my might and the baby was born.
It was wild! That was the craziest thing. I had a couple of very intentional wishes for this moment. I wanted to bring baby up slowly and look at baby's face before announcing the gender. I wanted to be the one to announce if it was a boy or girl, because I'd never done that. Will had always done that.
Of course, right when I pushed the baby out, right after the baby completely made a 180 degree rotation in my birth canal, as it's coming out. I push the body out, feel immense relief and joy and the flood of the beautiful hormones that make you just on cloud nine. I pull the baby up and I look at baby's face and baby starts crying. I just laugh. I am laughing, holding the baby, and I just sit there for a second and just stare at the baby. It was so sweet. That moment, I caught my breath and then I looked and I said, “Ok, are we ready to meet our baby?” I looked and I said, “It's a girl. It is a girl. I cannot believe it.” Will starts laughing and crying. I am just astounded. I cannot believe. We had just gone back and forth. Like, “I think it's a boy. No, I think it's a girl.” We had no idea. What a sweet surprise.
Will, he had said kind of throughout the pregnancy, “I kind of hope it's a girl.” That is what we got. It was so precious. I brought her to me and I just sat there for a minute and then delivered the placenta in the tub. I had some intense bleeding right at that moment and I think it's because my cord was really short and it tugged at the placenta. So the bath water got really red. This happened with Benji's birth too. It wasn't concerning, but the midwife said, “Ok, I would like to get you to the bed sooner rather than later just to check on you and check on baby.”
So we had the placenta in a bowl. I had baby on my chest, moved to the bed. And she checked me out and everything was fine. But I did lose a lot of blood through just birth. It wasn't like a hemorrhage. It was just like the placenta had kind of ruptured. Also, that's just kind of what I do in birth. I just kind of bleed more I think than other women.
So, laid down on the bed and just held her. Couldn't believe it was a girl and it just was so sweet. Now, Milly and Lyndon, my girls, were there for the birth. They witnessed the whole thing. It was so precious to have them there. They were right there with me. They curled up in the bed next to me.
We all just stared at her and then we announced her name was Winsome Joy Ray. We were going to call her “Winnie.” Beaufort actually that night, right before he went to bed on Christmas day, Will had asked him, “If it's a girl, what do think we should name her?” He said “Joy” so it just felt like the perfect name for her being born on Christmas Day or Christmas night. She was born at 10:41pm.
It was the sweetest thing because I looked at Will afterwards and I just said, “This is perfect. This is perfect. She's born on Christmas day. This is perfect. This is better.” I'm getting teary thinking about it because it was the thing that like we had stressed out about the most throughout pregnancy. It's going to be so hard if we have a baby on Christmas day. Hard for them, their birthday. As soon as she arrived, I cannot explain the immense amount of joy that it brought us for her to be born on Christmas day. Will and I just started crying, like thinking about that timing. We had fought it and it was perfect. And I was overcome with so much relief, obviously, but so much joy because of the timing of her birth happening on Christmas. It was the most special Christmas we'll ever have, obviously.
It just was the perfect reminder that God knows our days. He has numbered them, and His timing is beautiful and perfect. It was meant for her to be born on Christmas night. The kids will never forget it. We went and we woke up Beaufort and Benji and brought them down right after she was born. Beaufort will remember it. Benji was asleep pretty much the whole time. We made him take a picture and put him back in the bed. He basically just slept on Will's shoulder, but it was just something we'll never forget.
So I'm here to say,I love to share birth stories. I love to share mine. I feel honored and privileged and grateful for them. I share them because I loved listening to birth stories that were encouraging and redemptive. This one in particular, the ways that God showed up and carried me feel so sacred and special. Those worship albums literally carried my physical body for hours and hours on end. His presence was so real and so prescient in those moments. The timing of this was just perfect. It was just perfect.
I have no regrets at all having a baby on Christmas night. In fact, I have abundant joy about it and I'm so glad that the Lord proved me wrong again, showing me that His ways are not just right. They are perfect in every way and I'm so grateful for my sweet Winnie Joy. She's amazing.
We continued to just listen to those worship albums on repeat during the weeks following and postpartum. I labored and delivered in a birth tub in our bedroom next to a Christmas tree that was in the corner. I left that Christmas tree up I think until March… maybe April. I mean, I just could not bring it down. No, I guess it was March that we took it down. Anyway, it's so sacred to have a baby around the holidays. I felt so blessed and so grateful and thought so much of Mary during that time.
So that is Winnie's birth story. It was such a gift. I hope it encourages you. If you're listening and you're going to have a baby, the mental game is so real, but the Lord is our strength when we are weak. Put that worship on. Memorize some scripture. Take walks. Lay it all out before Him. He will carry you. He's so faithful to you.
I'm going close today with a quote by Jane Wideman who said,
“Giving birth should be your greatest achievement; not your greatest fear.”
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week on the next May is for Mamas episode.
