International Homebirth Day

January 30, 2013

Today is International Homebirth Day.  If you ever have the chance to attend one, DO IT.  If you ever have the chance to have one, DO IT!

Okay, okay, homebirth isn't for everyone and I do not judge anyone who chooses not to.  Every birth is unique and every woman should be proud of her birth.  Even the births that don't go as planned or God forbid when he calls His sweet child home.

Today I will share my birth story with you.  If you have any questions about my homebirth or anything, please feel free to leave me a comment and I'll respond!

It was a Tuesday evening and the day before our due date when I began to have “pre- labor” contractions.  David, my husband, was at a work related dinner in downtown Houston so he let his coworkers know not to expect him at work the next day and cut out a few minutes early to come check on me. My contractions were still about 20 minutes apart when he arrived home so we decided to just go to sleep and rest up for the big event.

I had only been asleep for about an hour or two when I was woken by a strong contraction around midnight, January 30^th.  I decided to let David continue to sleep until the contractions began to get closer together and more painful. I woke David at about 4:30 A.M. in tears from the pain and he attempted to comfort me. My contractions were still about 10 minutes apart, but we decided to go ahead and call Alice, our midwife, to let her know I was going into labor.  She told us to continue timing the contractions and she’d begin getting ready to head our way.  David began cleaning the house with his nervous energy as I continued to labor.  He also began calling all our family members who were planning on attending the birth.

Alice arrived around 7 A.M. and I immediately felt better and more confident.  Alice checked me and I was 5 cm dilated, but at this point my contractions were about 5 or 6 minutes apart.   The next five hours are a blur of painful contractions and different family members arriving and saying their hellos.  Among the arrivals was my sister in law, Emily, who delivered her last little girl with Alice about two years ago.  I had decided I wanted Emily to be in the birthing room along with David, and Alice for support and also to take pictures.  Emily’s presence also gave me more confidence and added a sense of calm.

Over the next couple of hours I moved from the bed to the bathtub, from the bathtub back to the bed, and then back to the tub again.  Although the tub was relaxing and comfortable, my contractions slowed and became milder so we moved back to the bed again.  As my contractions intensified and grew closer together we knew it wouldn’t be much longer.  Then I felt my water break and exclaimed to everyone, “my water just broke!”  This was exciting as Alice had mentioned the best case scenario is for the water to break just prior to birth. 

After my water broke I started to get the urge to push.  Alice checked me again to make sure it was ok that I started pushing.  I was 9 cm.  She told me that we could but she would help my cervix open more.  We then began pushing and after a few minutes realized that it would be better if I were in a squatting position.  In between the strong contractions I managed to move myself out of bed to the floor in front of the bed and immediately got into squatting position.

 I then started pushing with every contraction.  My arms were getting tired and my legs were starting to give after being in the squatting position even with David helping support me.  After several intense contractions and pushes, Alice said that she could see the baby’s head and showed David and Emily who then started to encourage me to push really good and that she was almost here.  Alice even placed a mirror so that I could see the baby’s head myself.  It eventually became difficult for me to continue squatting and Alice suggested that I lie down and continue pushing.

When I laid down and started pushing more she started to make her appearance.  She was crooked so,  Alice had to rotate her head and then I continued pushing and within a few more pushes she was out!  David handed her to me and she reached her sweet little arms out to me and I immediately began to cry and placed her on my chest.  I couldn’t believe that I did it.  Our sweet Madison had arrived!

David got to cut the cord and showed her off to the family while I got cleaned up a bit and got into bed where I nursed her for the first time.  She latched on effortlessly.  Alice weighed and measured Madison and after we got to take a nice relaxing bubble bath together.  After that we got her dressed and headed downstairs to meet the rest of the family.