Audrey Roloff is opening up about the special moment her baby son Radley arrived. After welcoming her youngest back in November 2021, the Little People, Big World alum on Tuesday gave fans more details about the happy moment, revealing that she experienced an extremely rare en caul birth. En caul, also a veiled birth, according to Healthline, is the term used when a baby is born still inside an intact amniotic sac.
Roloff began her birthing story with “some background info,” sharing with her followers that Radley’s birth was her first birth outside of the hospital. Although the mom of three “had a prior history of fast labors and postpartum hemorrhaging,” she ultimately decided to welcome her newborn at a birth center after she “talked a lot with my midwives about this prior and had a great plan in place this time.” After her 40-week prenatal appointment on Nov. 3, Roloff said everyone believed her little one would soon be making his arrival, though she went through five days of Braxton Hicks contractions, which left her “on edge” about her “main concern” of making it to the birth center in time. Roloff said she assumed she would have to be “super in tune with my body and discerning to know when it’s ‘go time,’” as her water didn’t break with her two oldest children.
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Things started moving at a much fast pace early on Nov. 8, when, just hours after putting their kids – daughter Ember Jean, 4, and son Bode James, 2 –to sleep, Roloff “woke up with consistent contractions” just after 1 a.m. As her contractions grew closer together, Roloff called her midwives and her husband Jeremy drove her to the birth center. After several hours of contractions, Roloff said she “started pushing at around 6:20 even though it felt more like really intense pressure contractions and not like pushing.”
“I didn’t have the feeling of the baby coming down like I did with the other kids. I had crazy back labor and lots of pressure with no feeling of progress. It was painful, and harder mentally because I felt like I was pushing and not getting anywhere,” Roloff wrote. “A couple contractions before he came out I begged my midwife to break my water… she so kindly and peacefully responded ‘you know in some cultures it’s good luck for baby to be born in the sac.’”
Little Radley arrived at 6:32 a.m., with Roloff revealing that “our little (or not so little) Radley was born ‘En Caul’ – meaning my water never broke and he was born in the amniotic sac! It’s extremely rare – less than 1 in 80,000 births!” Radley weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. and measured 21.5 inches long. Reflecting on her son’s birth, Roloff wrote, “Radley’s entire labor/birth experience was harmonious… That golden hour after birth was pure joy. SO. MUCH. HARMONY. Radley Knight you continue to bring harmony to our home. We love you so much Rad man.”
