Sofie-Maré's Birth Story
JANUARY 26, 2020
The Birth of Sofie-Maré Joy
As told by Sofie-Maré’s mom and The Birth Center client, Sunelle
It is time to tell the story of our dear Sofie-Maré Joy birth
Going back to July 2017 when our firstborn son, Emmet, came to meet the world we knew that we wanted a different experience for our next child. During the first pregnancy we were met with many challenges where we ultimately realized natural birth isn’t something that is as “normal” or natural as we thought.
To be honest all the doctors I saw during that pregnancy really scared me and caused a lot of anxiety. I knew this wasn’t the way birth was supposed to be. Being from another country where birth was seen so differently, my experience really was culture shock. My husband and I were recommended The Bradley Method birth class, and decided immediately to educate ourselves as much as possible. Essentially, your partner learns to be your doula. This was probably the best thing we did whilst preparing for a hospital birth. Although our experience was good, and our son was born 100% natural, free of any interventions, we had to put up a big fight to make sure we got the experience we wanted. That sometimes meant saying NO, when doctors tried to pressure us into unnecessary interventions.
Two years later we were pregnant again and we started searching and doing more research into home births and midwifery. We were opting for home birth, but our insurance didn’t cover the midwives we interviewed… and, can we just add how difficult it is to find midwives in the Central Valley. So as we were about to give up, the midwives we interviewed for home birth reached out to us with information about a midwifery practice in Sacramento that would take our insurance.
That’s when we met Ruth. We immediately connected with her and went to a Thursday tour of The Birth Center. After that visit, during the car ride home, we knew that this was what we were looking for, what we wanted for our next baby's birth.
All throughout the pregnancy Ruth did such an amazing job lowering anxiety from previous experiences, and really focusing on a healthy mom, not just a healthy baby. It was such a relief going from 5 min appointments and “do you have any questions” to 30 min appointments and information being given to you. We live in Lodi and I work in Stockton, but it was well worth the drive to have Ruth be our provider.
Around 32/33 weeks of pregnancy I took another blood glucose test, and it came back with elevated levels… Of course I went into panic mode, but Ruth didn’t go the medication route; instead she made it very clear that diet is key and that I would need to monitor my glucose levels daily until our baby’s birth. I made changes to my diet, monitored glucose levels and reported back to Ruth weekly. It was such a relief seeing all my levels within the range they needed to be.
We also decided to not find out the gender until birth, so there we were, our baby due January 26th. I’d still been working out and doing my spin class up until the Wednesday before our baby's birth, but after that last class I felt like it would be my last for a while.
It was January 23rd and we had our weekly bible study at our home. I had been starting to feel like the time to meet our baby was coming closer, after prayer that night I started to relax and feel some contractions, they faded away and I went to sleep. Friday was the same pattern. I lost more of my mucus plug and more contracting here and there, but nothing lasting.
It was early Saturday morning, January 26th, perhaps around 2 or 3am when I woke up and realized that my contractions were really strong - still about 10 minutes apart, but definitely very strong and not going away. I took a bath, ate a nice meal, did some house chores, and tried to sleep for a bit, but they kept coming… So at 5am I decided to let Ruth know that it was time. I was concerned because the contractions were so far apart, but my first baby’s labor was only 5 hours and I was very worried about the drive to Sacramento and having a baby in the car. After all, I was looking forward to that nice warm birth tub.
Meme (grandma) came over and took care of Emmet while we were on our way… the contractions grew further apart - 20 minutes. I was horrified. When we got to The Birth Center, Ruth checked me and I was only dilated to 6, still contracting far apart. Ruth let me and Michael hang out and labor in one of the rooms to see if I progressed any further in the next couple hours. Michael and I had zero boy names we both liked, so we kept talking about boy names, not able to agree on any. Once Michael put on some worship music I felt like I could finally relax and focus on bringing our baby into the world.
The Birth Center has the most welcoming and relaxing environment. As soon as there was music in the background, low light in the room and talking with my husband I began to relax, and pretty soon after that, contractions became hard and fast. Ruth decided to admit me and began running the water for the birth tub. I remember talking to my family on video chat (they are in South Africa - I’m South African); all I remember was telling my mom was how I had forgotten how painful this was. Michael did an amazing job being there for me every step of the way: getting ice cubes, rubbing my back, rocking back and forth with me, holding me and working through every contraction with me. It was time to get in the tub (we still didn’t have a boy name, BTW)
The water was so warm, and relieved so much pain, at first contractions seemed to slow, but then all of a sudden things changed real fast… I don’t remember too much after that, just that it was fast… I heard my water break (that was the coolest thing ever) just a little pop and bubble up in the water, and I had the urge to push. Ruth was still trying to check our baby’s heartbeat with the doppler, but I needed to push. I think it was two pushes and our beautiful baby was in my arms. Husband eagerly waiting to hear if it was a boy or a girl, after doing some checks Ruth announced that it was a girl. (Thank goodness because we only had a girl name.)
I already had picked out a girl name - Sofie-Maré - before our son was born. Joy is her middle name. Joy is a special name because, as we prayed over her one night with our community group, God brought this word to light. Her name is from her two grandmas... South African and American. Sofie means wisdom and Maré is a Afrikaans spelling pronounced (Marie) which kind of means something like "roll against the tide".
Ruth and her team helped me get out of the tub with our little girl and took me to the bed to deliver the placenta. As is her practice, Ruth delayed clamping the cord until it stopped pulsing (lots of nourishment in there for baby) and then Michael cut it, while I was cuddling Sofie and waiting for her to latch. Shortly after that, Emmet and Meme arrived and he met his new little sister. It was the sweetest moment - Michael and I just sat there staring at our two beautiful miracles. I remember just being so humbled and grateful for this beautiful birthing experience I just had, thinking that every family deserves to have this amazing experience truly “a nice way for a family to be born”. Ruth did more checks after I breastfed our girl and weighed and measured her: 9 lbs, 21 inches. WOW! Another 9lb baby I thought. I remember telling her “I must grow 9 lb babies”.
After about 4 hours we were able to go home and rest and begin our new journey as a family of four. We are so humbled and so blessed to have had Ruth guide us through our pregnancy with our sweet baby girl Sofie-Maré Joy.
In the days and weeks that passed, Ruth continued to keep contact with me. I had a very difficult time getting my hormones back on track, and Ruth went above and beyond being there for me every step of the way until I could finally feel more like myself again. I can really say that through all this I feel more like I’ve gained another wonderful friend, and I know that if we decide to have another baby that there would be no other place or person I would trust more to take care of me and my baby… Thank you Ruth, you have truly blessed us!
For more information about our prenatal care and birth services at The Birth Center, visit https://www.sactobirth.com/prenatal andhttps://www.sactobirth.com/birth-services
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