Thank you to my midwives for keeping such detailed notes to fill in the details where my memory could not! And thank you to my friend Megan for taking pictures for us. Here is my birth story.
I first realized I was in labor at 12:45am on Monday, April 13, 2009. My contractions were not very painful, but enough that I couldn't fall back to sleep. I started timing them and they were about 5 minutes apart. At about 1:30am and more of the same and not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to wake up hubby. I was so excited! I knew this was the day I would finally be able to hold my little girl in my arms. The day we had been waiting for!
Ready and waiting for baby's arrival!
We got up and timed contractions with contractionmaster.com (awesome website!) while playing Rockband on the Wii. Contractions were still uncomfortable but obviously not that painful! We timed for about 2 hours, the contractions varied between 2 and 4 minutes apart. A couple of times I laid down, but the contractions slowed quite a bit when I did that so I decided to keep things moving along by staying up and moving around. We were still so excited as it sunk in that our baby girl was coming to meet us!
At about 3:40am hubby decided it was time to call our midwife and our friend, Megan, that was going to attend the birth. Megan arrived around 4:30am. Our midwife and her apprentice were on their way and arrived around maybe 5:30am (I don't clearly remember times, just a general idea).
The contractions stayed about the same although they had gotten more powerful and I had to stop and breathe through them. My midwife checked me at 6am and I was at 4-5cm and 90% effaced, +2 station. Even though I was pretty tired at this point I decided to just keep moving around and progressing the labor since I would not get any real rest until it was over anyway.
At 7am hubby took a nap and I was checked again and was around 6cm, 100% effaced. At this point I was able to reach in and feel the top of her head.... so crazy! Still just breathing my way through contractions. My midwives and hubby and friend helped here and there with counter pressure on my back which felt really good. The contractions were getting more uncomfortable and I was starting to feel pretty tired having only slept an hour and a half the night before.
At 8:10am I decided to get in the birthing tub. At 8:23am my midwife checked me and I was 9cm and very stretchy! Almost there! I sat in the tub in many different positions to help the pain (right side, left side, hands and knees, draped over the tub). At 9:40am they bailed out the water in the tub and filled it back up with hot water. At 9:54am the contractions became very painful. I had a lot of pain in my hips.
At 10:41am I started pushing in a squat position in the tub. Pushing was REALLY hard because I felt soooo tired at this point. I felt like I was completely out of energy. My midwife gave me some oxygen to help with my energy level. In between pushing I was dozing and falling asleep.
At 11:00am we moved to the bed trying to find a good position to push. After a push or two on the bed there was a BOOM! (really big pop) my water EXPLODED. It was really loud and exciting and sprayed everyone close to me. It was so loud it actually startled hubby!
At 11:48am we moved to the birthing stool and pushed there until 11:55am we moved to the floor. At 12:19pm on my bedroom floor I delivered my beautiful baby girl!
Placing baby on my belly!
Daddy gazing at his baby girl, waiting for the placenta to be delivered.
I was so in my zone during the pushing I can't remember a lot of things. My midwives and friend and husband were all wonderful. I felt like I wasn't going to be able to do it since I was so tired and I felt like I was not making progress with my pushes, which really scared me. But I was making progress and in the end I just kept telling myself (out loud) that I could do it. It kept me from giving up. The whole time they monitored baby's heartbeat and it NEVER wavered, not during contractions, rest, not during pushing or after. She was strong the whole way through which gave me a lot of confidence that everything was ok.
Baby gazing at her daddy for the first time.
I was bleeding quite a bit, so my midwife gave me a shot of pitocin in my thigh, did acupuncture, massaged my uterus, and gave me a placenta smoothie (small piece of placenta with lots of fruit!). I laid on my bed during all of this with my baby girl nursing while I rested. I slept for about an hour (with my baby nursing the whole time) since I was so exhausted from childbirth and no sleep. Hubby slept too!
At 2:25pm, after the cord had stopped pulsating, the midwives clamped and daddy cut the cord.
After examining me my midwife gave me two stitches for a minor tear. They tried to get me up to go to the bathroom before they left a few hours later and I almost passed out, so I decided to stay in bed. I said I wasn't going to get out of bed again until the next day, but I actually made it to the bathroom and back (with hubby's assistance of course) later that night (almost passed out on the way back - but I thought that was pretty good!)
Mama and baby.
In the middle of our bed at 3:25pm, the assisting midwife performed the newborn exam. Everything was perfect! At 4:30pm, midwives had everything cleaned up and packed up, we had all eaten together and they left us to enjoy our new family.
I'm thrilled that I was able to experience (unmedicated) childbirth, it was and is a truly incredible experience. I'm so proud of what I have accomplished. The pain was bearable and really not what I remember most. I absolutely plan to have more babies (at home)! I'm so happy as a first time mom to have had such a good experience and I was SO happy that my home birth stayed at home. And most of all of course I'm happy to have a healthy happy baby.
Everyone relaxing in bed together.
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