Home birth from an Urban Hippie - LONG
I will qualify this with we are not what/who people would stereotype for a home birth. We live in a condo downtown. I love wearing heels. But after a lot of reading, soul searching, etc I had hopes and dreams of a home birth. DH did not initially share my enthusiasm but a few weeks prior to the birth he read a bit, discussed at length with a midwife and our doula and had a change of heart.
My water broke at 6:30am Tuesday October 20th. I was 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Tried to go back to bed but was too excited and my mind was racing with everything we had to do: I was still working and we had left a lot of baby items to do for weeks 40-41 when I would surely still be pregnant because this was a first baby and that's what everyone kept telling me: first babies are late.
DH and I packed a bag for the hospital and then headed to my office so I could clean some things up. While we were planning a home birth I knew that because I was GBS+ I would have to go in for a round of antibiotics. In fact, I was open to the idea that because of this factor I may have the baby in the hospital.
Everyone at work thought I was crazy for being there. I guess I kind of agree but I really need to shovel some stuff to the new guy and also get my mat leave papers sorted. On the ride to the office we paged the midwife and she said to come meet her at the hospital once we were done at the office.
10:30am and we were at the hospital. Andrea the MW on call reviewed our options with us. Because I was GBS+ and had ruptured membranse we needed to get the party/labor started and get the baby delivered pronto. The hospital policy was to induce GBS+ women with ruptured membranes after 8 hours if labor has not progressed. I was offerred an afternoon induction. I declined it. I had a bag of IV antibiotics through a hep lock and the midwife offered me a herbal tinctern to induce labor naturally. I decided to try this method - if I was not in hard labor by 6am the following morning I would go to the hospital to be induced.
DH and I left the hospital and ran some errands on the way home. Picked up home birth kit and visited Whole Foods for some lunch and I mixed up a dose of the herbal concoction and drank it around noon.
By 1pm we were home and I was feeling some mild contractions. My twin sister left work and ran some errands for us. It felt like things were picking up and by 4pm I was having contractions every 3-4 mins. DH and I had had a nap but I could not sleep through them.
The midwife came over at 6pm to adminster another dose of antibiotics and my contractions all but stopped. I was frustrated. I discussed my options with her and I was still set on a 24 hour deadline to be in hard labor. She suggested I take another dose of the herbal tinctern, have a shower and nap, and see if things picked up. She would call before coming over for the 4am dose of antibiotics and if things had not progressed we would move to the hospital for an induction.
We had been in touch with my doula through out the day and she had kept heavily suggesting I not have people over. Aka, send my sister home and have quiet time with DH to let labor progress. I had even had a acupuncturist come over in the afternoon to give me a treatment to get contractions moving at her suggestion. The acupuncturist had reported back to the doula that it felt like a party at my place.
I sent my sister home - she was cool with it - drank another herbal concoction and DH and I tried to sleep. This was all at around 9:30pm.
By 10:30pm I was out of bed and having really hard contractions. I tried to labor on my own for a bit, listening to my iPod and sitting on a big physio ball but it was really heating up. I woke up DH around 11:30pm and we got our game faces on. He was great, massaging my back through contractions and making me drink water and pee. As fate would have it we had just had our labor rehearsal with the doula the day before. It was all very fresh in his mind.
Around 1am I said we needed the doula there. We called her, she listened to me breathe through a contraction, gave me some pointers and said she would be right over.
The doula arrived about thirty minutes later and we got to business. She had me get in lots of positions, side squats, etc to get this baby moving down. My legs started to get tired but the contractions became more intense and I was starting to feel pressure on my ass by 4am.
The midwife arrived at 4:30am to give me another does of anitbiotics. She offered to give me an internal first and I accepted. This would be my first internal in late pregnancy. I really felt that if I was only at 2-3cms at this point I would go to the hospital get induced and get some pain meds - I was getting really tired!
I was 9 cms+! I actually pumped my fist I was so excited. The doula calmed me down - there was still work to be done. They had set up my IV station in my dining room with a labor area. I sat against DH in a chair between and stood and labored over a ball on another chair during the contractions. At this point I was moaning/heavy breathing through the contractions with a lot of swaying and squatting. I felt energized and focused - not sure if it was because of the good news about my progress or just what labor was sending me.
The IV finished up around 5:30am and I decided to move to the toilet to labor. I had had some intense contractions on there and I think the deep supported squat really worked for me. DH sat on the ledge of the bath tub, doula on my other side while I had a couple of insanely intense contractions.
We had told the doula and midwives we needed to call my sister to come over when it was time for the birth. They all said we had a couple of hours, this was a first baby and the pushing would be a while. This was not the case.
I started to have pushing contractions on the toilet. Everything changed. It was involuntary, I started screaming during the contractions. The midwives came into the bathroom and pulled out the flashlight to take a look. They quickly told DH to call my sister - this baby was coming fast!
They asked me to come to the bed.I got on my knees facing the headboard, the doula put a physio ball in front of me that I draped myself over, DH was on one side of me.
Everything had changed so quickly, the pain had become so different and unbearable and I was starting to scream while I had been relatively calm and sedate through the labor. I told DH and the doula I could not do it, it was too painful. I felt like I was being ripped in two as he came down. Everyone kept telling me I could. DH teared up and said he wished he could do this for me. I felt so helpless.
Another contraction came and everyone was telling me to pant through it, not to push. I tried but couldn't and his head came out. I was still in terrible pain and saying I couldn't do it. They told me to reach down and touch his head which I did, DH took a look at his head.
On the next contraction everyone coaxed me to pant, don't push. I tried for a bit and it worked and then I couldn't stop myself from pushing. And he was out.
Sweet relief.
They got me set up with him on my chest and DH and I looked over this tiny miracle. He arrived wailing and screaming but we were ecstatic and just kept exclaiming how perfect he was.
The final part, delivering the placenta and getting stitched up took forever. I didn't hear what degree the tears are but I had many of them from the quick pushing.
My sister sprinted over and arrived just minutes after he was born. She said she walked in the door and heard a baby crying and it was the best sound.
My DH and I are in love with our little man, all 8 lbs 4 ozs and 20 inches of him and I feel so blessed we had this amazing birth experience together.
If you are considering a home birth I highly recommend it. We felt so comfortable and relaxed in our home and it was a beautfiul way to start his life with us.
Re: Home birth from an Urban Hippie - LONG
Matthew Kevin
7/31/83-7/20/11
Met 1/8/00
Engaged 4/21/06
Married 9/29/07
Two beautiful legacies: Noah Matthew (2 yrs) and Chloe Marcella (8 mos)
Day Three
Trying for #2 since July 2010
BFP 8/1/10, missed m/c, D&C 9/15/10.
BFP 1/8/11, chemical pregnancy.
BFP 3/4/11, measured behind all along, no more HB 4/18/11. D&C 4/29/11. HCG didn't drop, Repeat D&C 6/17/11; confirmed molar pregnancy 6/23/11.
Forced break, including two Hysteroscopies in October to remove retained tissue.
BFP 12/29/11! Betas @ 10 dpo = 85, 14 dpo= 498, 22 dpo = 7242
Heard HB 1/24/12. 144 bpm!
Luca Rose born 9/9/12! More than worth the wait!