Saturday, December 15, 2007

A Beautiful Homebirth

I took a pregnancy test at the end of April 2002, when I had menstrual-like cramps but no period, and realized that I'd been cranky for weeks, which is uncharacteristic of me. I was expecting to wait the 90 agonizing seconds for the results, but it turned positive almost immediately. I brought my husband into the bathroom to show him the double pink lines. He laughed and I cried, happy and scared all at once, since I was only 21, and it was unplanned.
The idea of being a mommy grew on me very quickly, and I remembered the night that our baby must have been conceived – an overwhelming moment of complete union with each other and everything and a feeling that the power of our love had expanded well beyond the two of us. The most fun part of telling everyone was calling one of my best friends (who was six weeks more pregnant than me) and telling her that we would get to do it all together!

The months flew by without a hitch, and for the most part, I really enjoyed pregnancy, especially feeling the baby move around inside me. The constant bathroom visits and heartburn I could've done without, but I survived.

We knew from the start that we wanted to have a homebirth with midwives. We worked with two midwives, and they are amazing women – compassionate, knowledgeable and experienced. We felt empowered to participate fully in the whole pregnancy and birth.

My friend gave birth at home with the same midwives six weeks before me to a healthy 7-pound, 12-ounce boy. Her labor was 27 hours long, so I mentally prepared myself for a long labor as well.

My due date of December 11 came and went. I'd been having false (preparation) labor on and off for weeks, so I was getting pretty frustrated by this time, taking herb tinctures, doing acupressure, taking walks and everything else I could think of to put myself into labor, and nothing worked!

At my 41-week visit, my midwife (who's been attending births for 27 years) told me that my baby was waiting for the full moon in two days. Sure enough, on the day of the full moon, I began to feel crampy and had a heightened awareness. By bedtime, I still didn't feel like I was in labor, but I had a bloody show right before I crawled in. I'd been waking up every morning at about 2 a.m. and unable to sleep again for a few hours since the beginning of my third trimester, so I was pretty sure it would be the same this time, only I would be in labor.

I woke up at 2 a.m. not just in labor, but also in full-on, mind-blowing, hard labor. I called my midwife right away, but she didn't really believe I was in active labor, because I was laughing. Well, I was just so excited to finally be in labor, but I agreed to call her back in an hour or if things started to pick up.

My contractions stayed at five minutes apart and a minute long for about 15 minutes and then went to two minutes apart to a minute-and-a-half long. Before I knew it, I was just kneeling on the floor with my face buried in the sofa groaning and yelling through my contractions. My husband called the midwife again and told her to get on her way. We then called my doula and my friend, who would be attending.

We had planned a water birth and rented a big heated tub. So he was running around trying to get the thing set up, and I was yelling for him to hurry up, but there was a problem. Our hose had been outside buried in the snow the day before and still hadn't thawed out. He used most of the hot water trying to thaw it while I rocked and rocked and yelled and hollered.

My massage therapist showed up first and started pressing on my sacrum immediately, which was a big help. Then the first midwife showed up to check me. Lying on my back even for that long was agony! But I was already 6 centimeters dilated! Huge relief, because I didn't think I could take many more hours of this kind of pain. I was totally immersed in just coping with it.

I resumed my position of face in the couch. The midwife immediately called the other midwife, who lived about 75 miles away, and told her she'd better get over if she wanted to see the birth! Meanwhile, my friend and her baby had shown up, and I'd gotten her and my hubby running back and forth with buckets trying to fill the tub. They were just doing it to appease me, since I was yelling at them to Fill that tub now! But the water heater had pooped out long ago. Finally, I acknowledged the fact that the water birth wasn't going to happen.

I was on the toilet when my water broke, and I remember thinking that I would never have to be embarrassed again in my life, because there I was, huge as a whale, naked as a jaybird, on the toilet, yelling, grunting and sweating in front of four other people!

When I started pushing, we moved back to the favorite face-in-sofa position, but this time, my husband was on the couch holding me, and I just buried my face in his lap and gave it *&%@! This is when I found my cavewoman. With every push came a holler so loud I was sure the police would show up. I think I genuinely frightened everyone in the room, but it's the only way I made it through it.

I was a firm advocate of drug-free childbirth during my pregnancy and still am as far as the health of the baby is concerned, but I can definitely sympathize with women who use pain medications during labor. It hurts! I didn't have the option, since we were at home, but I kept wondering when those endorphins everyone kept talking about were going to kick in!

I pushed for about 35 minutes, and the second midwife made it just in time to help our baby boy out. He was born at 6:30 a.m., just four and a half hours after I woke up in labor! He was a healthy 7 pounds, 8 ounces, and I had no stitches, thanks to the competency of my midwives, I'm sure.

The sun came up shortly after to a beautiful blue-skied, snowy, sunny morning. We crawled into bed and slept and slept after the midwives helped us clean everything up. Solomon's daddy kept looking in on us every few minutes, shaking his head in wonder at our beautiful new life

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