A Little Soul- Home Birth, First Baby

Welcome to another Birth Story Wednesday!

Today we have a wonderful home birth story. I love how it shows that everybody experiences birth differently. Mostly I love the end though, such a true statement about the wonder of birth, babies, and the endless connection we have with them.

Enjoy!

A friend of mine recently had a baby and posted her amazing home birth story within three days...(Elizabeth, I maintain that you are some sort of superwoman, if not THE Superwoman) and it inspired me to write out my home birth story... albeit 9 months late. Enjoy.

I was due August 17th. This day came and went. I wasn't ever overly uncomfortable in my pregnancy, it was more the excitement of wanting to meet this baby Kidd that made me antsy to get him...or her??...out.

On the19th my husband and I decided to go to Splash Montana for the day thinking perhaps the water slides just might inspire this little one to want to come out and see what the heck was going on. Down the slides we'd go, running up the stairs we went and on and on and on. After a fun-filled/exhaustive day we went on to Fort Missoula to play a little one on one.

I spared nothing. Running, jumping, hobbling was I, allllll over that court. Then, we walked the near mile around the park. Misery had now set in to my pubic bones. I may or may not have been shedding tears by the end of that mile.

The next day, no baby. BUT, by that night I awoke at 3am with my first real contractions. We began to time them (like all good first parents do) and within the hour they were lasting one minute and were 5 minutes apart. We called our amazing midwife, Sundhano, around 6:30am and she came about 7.

As soon as she arrived she checked me and much to my delight I was 5 centimeters! I labored on my bed til 10am when I got into the kiddie pool blown up in our living room just for the occasion. Clyde had been tirelessly filling it with a hose hooked up to our washing machine for about 2 hours... draining the hot water tank.

One of my big fears was that the water wouldn't be warm enough for me to get in because we would run out of hot water. It needed to stay between 98 and 103 degrees to get in. However it was 107! He added a touch of cold and I was good to go. Labor in the pool was like paradise... nearly...

Clyde was making Sundhano and I huckleberry smoothies in ice cream sundae cups... A few hours later I thought I'd like to know my progress and when she checked she noticed there was an anterior lip to my cervix. Basically the cervix was 'hung up' so to speak on the back/top of the baby's head. I will spare the details on how that needed to be resolved. Youch.

Also, my water hadn't broken and after being given the pros and cons to having her break it I decided to let her do it... why keep this baby in there any longer? She had a heck of a time breaking it... I was actually birthing the water bag and she still had a very hard time breaking it. After 4 or 5 tries though it worked. By 4pm my contractions were 1 minute apart... transition had set in and so had the tears.

At this point Sundhano suggested I get out of the pool (MUCH to my dismay) because gravity would now be a good thing to have on my side. Off to the birthing stool, which was set up in our bedroom, I went. I began to push despite NOT having the urge to push... I hear women say, "Oh you'll know when to push, you won't be able to not push..." and things like this.

Well, I never had that urge. Ever. I just decided it'd be a good idea to start pushing with each contraction. I pushed for a bit... maybe 30 minutes when Sundhano had her doppler heart monitor on me to check the baby's heartbeat. It'd been about 140 beats per minute and this particular time when we heard it it was about 70 b/min. She didn't panic or say that this was a bad thing necessarily, but I perceived that it was bad and I decided that this baby was coming out on the next push.

Lo and behold, out came a 7 lb baby in the next push... and he hadn't even been crowning yet. Clyde was on the floor next to Sundhano this whole time and got to be so involved in the entire process, which was so priceless. She handed me a screaming little baby boy and about 10 seconds after I had him in my arms he completely stopped crying and looked directly into my face with these big, dark blue eyes.

I knew he knew me and I knew I'd always known him... like his soul had always been a part of me but now was realized by inhabiting this tiny, perfect baby. And a love that I'd never known before this moment came spilling out of me... our baby, baby Ellis, was born.