My First Son Was Born Five Weeks Early: Aaron's Birth Story
My first son Aaron was born five weeks early. This is the story of his arrival.
Aaron, born 23rd January 2016, Universitätsklinik Frankfurt
We had planned a birth center birth. That was the plan.
Then at 35 weeks and 2 days, my waters broke.
It was around 2am. I was lying in bed and felt the wetness spreading beneath me, then onto the floor. And at exactly that moment, Mirco and I looked out of the window and saw blue flashing lights in the street below. We hadn’t called anyone yet. We looked at each other.
It was the fire brigade. A water pipe had burst somewhere under the road. Water was running down the street in the middle of the night.
Two waters breaking at once. We have never forgotten that.
Bad Homburg, Frankfurt, and learning to trust yourself#
The ambulance came twenty minutes later and took us to the nearest hospital, Bad Homburg, only five minutes from where we lived. Ultrasound, examination, contractions already there but not yet strong or regular. The doctor told me that if things hadn’t progressed within a certain number of hours, they would induce me. They also wanted to give me antibiotics as a precaution, and I didn’t want that. I was already in labor and couldn’t really think clearly anymore. A pediatrician came in and was pushy in a way that felt invasive, telling me she couldn’t understand why I was refusing. Mirco tried to defend my wishes. In the end, overwhelmed and mid-contraction, I gave in.
An hour later the head doctor came. Completely different, calm and empathetic. He told me the antibiotics were actually only indicated after 24 hours of waters breaking, not before. He had studied and worked in Canada, where continuous CTG monitoring was not standard practice due to the high false-positive rate, so he understood my position entirely. But he recommended we transfer to the university clinic in Frankfurt, because at 35 weeks, if anything happened with the baby, we would want a neonatal unit right there.
A second ambulance took us to Frankfurt.
And that was the best decision of the night.
The university clinic was a completely different world. The first thing they told me: the baby stays in as long as possible. We do not induce before the due date. As long as the amniotic fluid is replenishing and the baby is not in distress, he stays exactly where he is. Antibiotics only if your inflammation markers actually change. One ultrasound per day. No continuous CTG.
I felt my whole body relax.
Two days in the hospital, and Marie’s laugh#
I settled into my room and felt safe again. Family came to visit and brought me proper food so I didn’t have to eat hospital meals. At night the contractions would wake me, but gently enough that I could fall back asleep between them. I went to see the acupuncturist on the ward, a midwife who had worked with Médecins Sans Frontières, and we immediately clicked.
On the evening of 35 weeks and 4 days, my friend Marie was visiting. We had been laughing all afternoon, the way you laugh with someone whose giggle is completely contagious, and when the contractions started becoming stronger and more regular, we just kept laughing. I was in labor and we were giggling. My room neighbor watched us with growing concern from her bed until she finally said, nodding toward my belly: “Maybe you should call the doctor, your contractions are quite regular.”
We laughed at that too. But she was right.
The doctor came. Four centimeters already open. Time to go to the delivery room.
Marie helped wheel the bed out into the corridor. As we moved through the hallway she asked me: is it okay if I stay for the birth? Of course, I said.
Then the endorphins hit. On the way down, before Mirco even arrived, a warm wave moved through my whole body. My jaw went loose, my eyes rolled slightly and I thought: oh wow. If this keeps going it might actually be okay.
In the delivery room#
The room had a salt lamp and a bathtub. Marie poured warm water over my belly, massaged my back and feet, brought water and sandwiches. Mirco arrived and we slow danced between contractions. I tried the ball, the tub, all fours, walking. I listened to mantras. I breathed. It was my first birth and I was still learning what my body needed, still more in my head than in my body, still asking myself how long, how much longer, what should I do now.
Our midwife Henrike was wonderful, exactly on our wavelength. And then her shift ended.
She told me she was leaving but that she thought it would still be a while. I looked at her. She could see I didn’t want her to go. And she left anyway.
The moment the door closed, something in my body responded. The waves became immediately stronger, my voice louder, the whole energy in the room shifted. And then the door opened again. Henrike stood there, looked at me, and stayed.
She put her coat back on for a last examination, felt Aaron’s head, and told her colleague: I’ll handle this one.
Aaron#
Henrike was behind me holding my hips. Mirco was beside me holding my hand. I heard myself saying I can’t anymore, I can’t anymore, and they said yes you can, you’re doing it, you’re almost there.
And then Aaron was there.
He was so small. Thirty-five weeks, tiny lungs, and the doctor said we should keep tickling him gently to get him to cry and strengthen his breathing. While Aaron rested in my arms and slowly got stronger, the placenta came. Mirco and Marie wrapped it carefully so the cord could finish pulsing quietly.
Aaron weighed 2320 grams and he was completely, entirely himself from the first moment.
He lay on my chest for about thirty minutes. And then the doctors noticed his blood sugar was low. Things moved very quickly after that. They took him to give him an IV. Mirco went with him. Marie had already gone home.
And suddenly I was alone.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening. The room was quiet in a way it hadn’t been before. At some point I called out: hello? Is anyone there?
A midwife came, helped me to my feet, brought me back to my room. Mirco sent word that Aaron was okay, that he was lying in a warming bed and that he was staying with him.
I lay in my room by myself and waited.
It was the strangest feeling. An hour ago I had been in the middle of the most intense experience of my life, held by people on all sides, and now there was just silence and a room and the knowledge that my son was somewhere else in the building being taken care of.
It was horrible.
I couldn’t sleep. At 6am Mirco came and said I could go to him now. I walked through the corridor to where Aaron was lying in his warming bed, sat down beside him, and stayed.
What this birth gave me#
It wasn’t the birth I had planned. I ended up in a hospital instead of a birth center, five weeks earlier than expected, with a fire brigade outside my window and an ambulance ride in the middle of the night.
And even though it went differently than planned, it was a powerful birth. Despite the hospital setting, we managed to create a safe and sheltered space. The people present were my people. The doctor came in twice. Everyone else was someone I loved and trusted.
I remember a holy atmosphere while listening to the mantras. I remember Mirco’s hands and Henrike’s calm and Marie’s laugh. It doesn’t really come down to where we give birth. It comes down to the people around us, the safety we feel inside ourselves, and the trust that everything is as it should be.
He is ten now. Smart, and with a very good kind of humor.
If you are pregnant and want to prepare your body and mind for a calm, conscious birth, I offer 1:1 birth preparation sessions combining hypnosis, breathwork and body wisdom, tailored entirely to you.
And if you feel drawn to reconnect with the instinctive, creative power of your body, the Yoni Egg Initiation Course is where that journey lives.