Emery's Home birth story

vintagejjane · May 2012

I wanted to share our fabulous home birth story of our little girl from this weekend!

Emery was born May 20^th, 2012 in our home at 11am. It was the most powerful and difficult thing I have ever done, and she is so absolutely beautiful. On Friday afternoon, at 41 weeks exactly, I noticed while walking up the stairs that I had a small gush. I went to the bathroom and thought that it could be my water. It happened again 5 minutes later, so I called my midwife. She said that it was possible but I wasn?t having regular contractions at the time so, my husband and I went about our day, but we set up the birthing tub in our room just in case. During the course of the rest of the afternoon I kept getting small gushes of water so I called my mom and told her to come to our house, and that I think it?s going to happen this weekend.

As the night went on my contractions became stronger and more frequent at 10-14 minutes a part and I wasn?t able to sleep at all, My midwife told me to call her when they were 6 minutes a part. That happened around 4am Saturday morning. She came over with another midwife and I labored around for the day and the contractions would tapper off and then come back in a pattern. It must have been the weekend of the babies because another momma to be called my midwife and was in labor as well. Luckily she was back by Saturday evening as my contractions were very strong at the point. Where I couldn?t lay down and was back and forth in the tub. Finally, I just had to walk them through because they were so painful.

Sunday morning came around and the contractions were still pretty close together. I was so thankful that I felt the urge to push around 8am. I went into the tub and I felt like wonder woman. For 3 hours I push as hard as I could to get my little girl out. I was so exhausted from the last 2 days I just needed her to be out! The 3 hours felt like nothing, spending most of my time in the pool on my hands and knees pushing. My midwife told me to turn around so I could catch my baby. I turned and out came one of the most precious gifts God has given me. At a whopping 9.2 pounds and 22 inches long, so came very peacefully with only little whimpers. I?m a little awe struck still that she is here and no longer inside me!!

Recovery has kind of sucked because I have a severe hematoma on my labia, so I'm on strict bedrest for 3 days, but I wouldn't have done it any other way!