header-photo

First Home Birth

After hospital births

I first meet the midwife during a well woman check-up visit. I got pregnant a bit later and started receiving care from both midwives.

I really enjoyed receiving care from her and felt like she was not just my midwife, but a friend too. I never dreaded going to a prenatal appointment like I did with my first baby. I found her very friendly to talk to, a good listener, and supportive. I was always amazed at how much time she would take to listen to my concerns or complaints, to share the ups and downs of pregnancy with me, and to give me encouragement and suggestions when I needed them (like how to work more healthy food into my diet!) She would take the time to give me her full attention. One of my fun memories of my prenatal visits with her was when she took the time to show me how to find my uterus as it was growing, and then later, to point out how my baby was laying and which body part was (probably) poking me. In short, she goes the whole mile and then some (like showing me how to use my baby carrier during one of our post-natal home visits and then picking up my husband because his car battery died a few miles from home.)

I also found her to be a very good communicator. She was very good at not only communicating with me and my family but also in asking the right questions in the right way, so that I could give her the information she needed. All this came to good use when I was pregnant, then in labor, and then later still when I needed a shoulder because I was just sore engorged a few days after giving birth.

Laura truly believes in a women’s ability to give birth; that my pregnancy, labor, and birth are mine and with that she is there to advisee, inform, and to encourage but ultimately the choices are up to me.

...................

At 2:30 AM, my son woke me up climbing into our bed. I had a big contraction and/or needed to pee really badly. So I got up and was awake for an hour realizing I was having contractions but they were really far apart and not very strong. I went back to bed at 3:30 and left a note for my husband not to go to work before talking to me. I slept but was awakened sometimes with contractions until I got up around 5:45. I texted the midwife something like “just giving you a heads up, think I’m in labor but have a long way to go!” Her response was “ok, what is going on?” which totally made me laugh because I could just “hear” her saying it. I truly thought I had a long way to go because the contractions really were not strong or very consistent/close together.

I got some more sleep, ate a bit, and my husband got the birth tub set up. Contractions were slowly getting a bit stronger but were still manageable with little effort. But as time went on I was vocalizing more and didn't like lying down. I was getting contractions in clusters. I would get 2 or 3 right in a row and then have a pretty long break before getting another cluster of contractions. I felt like they were a good 10 minutes apart, but looking back I wonder if they were a bit closer then that. At just about 10am I talked to the midwife on the phone, and told her I was going to take my morning shower so I wouldn’t feel yucky all day. She thought that was a great idea, that it might help the contractions even out, and she gave me some other suggestions to help with the clusters. She was getting ready to come over but I still really felt it was early. So I got in the shower and little did I know that my baby would be born in 1 hour.

When I got out of the shower I went to the bathroom and had bloody show on the toilet paper. Then I immediately started throwing up! Arrg! I threw up a few times. Then contractions really hit hard. I texted my sister-in-law saying "Things are getting serious now!" My husband timed contractions for a bit and they were now 2 to 3 minutes apart. The midwives were both definitely on their way now! Contractions were hard and intense. I was laboring at the foot of my bed and couldn’t seem to move away from that spot too much. But still, I thought I had a long way to go and was even thinking in my head "so when the midwives get here when do I want them to check my dilation?" I was worried I would get checked and be disappointed that I wasn't very far along. I also remember lamenting to my husband “Its only been like 5 minutes, they will never get here!” (As in, I need a very short term goal and ‘this-is-hard-and-the-midwives-will-know-how-to-make-it-easier’.) Even though contractions were so intense all of a sudden, some of m were actually short, which was surprising. Around this time my son finally had woken up and was a bit demanding. He was playing music and jumping on the bed. Luckily my mom finally got there and after a few minutes we convinced him to go outside and pick me a few flowers.

All of the sudden during one of the contractions I felt a lot of pressure. I remember thinking something like "Umm..that was different." Then at the next contraction my water broke! My husband called the midwife to let her know and she said to get in the birth tub. So I made it to the birth tub and it became obvious pretty quickly that baby was coming! I had those contractions that are hard to describe but you can probably understand if you have had a non-drugged birth before... lots of pressure and you really can't do anything to stop from bearing down. We ended up on speaker phone with one midwife on the house phone and the other on the cell phone! One of them decided to hang up and the other stayed on the phone. She was speeding down the road and I swear it was a good thing there were no cops on 95 that day! She coached my husband (and my mom) with things like "you need to get the towels. Put the baby on her chest once it is out." She tried to encourage me to pant so I wouldn't tear- and I tried- but that was really hard! I remember one very distinct little break in contractions where she asked “What’s going on?” and I told her “Oh, just a little break.” I’m not sure how fast this all really happened but it was fast. Because next thing we knew, the baby’s head appeared. My husband reached down; the rest of the baby came out. He caught the baby and put “it” on my chest! The cord was wrapped around baby's neck and looped around the shoulder so my mom and I unwrapped it. Baby was great and cried and cried (he had, and still has, a very good set of lungs!) It took us a few minutes to see what the sex of the baby was. My son was feeling too shy to announce it, so finally my husband announced it was a boy (He actually knew the baby’s sex since we had an ultrasound and he had kept it a secret for the whole pregnancy)!

After the baby came out I was in some mental shock because it all happened so quickly! The one midwife stayed on the phone the whole time and she got there about 8 to 10 minutes after the new baby was born. We just waited in the tub covered with towels. I was very uncomfortable- my bottom really hurt! The water was also too high for me to sit comfortably while holding the baby up high enough. When the first midwife got there she supported me under my arms so I could get more comfortable and she instructed my husband on how to drain some of the water out. The second midwife got there a few minutes later. I was really crampy and it felt like it was taking forever for the placenta to come out. We decided to cut the cord because it had stopped pulsating and it was getting hard to hold the baby up above the water while he was still attached. My son cut the cord! Then I moved to the bed and birthed the placenta and felt so much better! (But really, wow! Those after cramps were intense!)

The next few hours were busy but relaxed. I had a tear that needed to be sewn up (but it was not as bad as with my previous birth). While the midwives sewed me up, my family went about cleaning up the pool, getting the house in order, and ordering take-out. Later one midwife showed us the placenta, I got to eat, the baby nursed, and the baby had his newborn exam.

That is our birth story in a nut shell. My pregnancy, labor and birth were all amazing experiences. Receiving care from two great midwives was just awesome and I would never willingly go back to a hospital centered caregiver!