Our home birth story 🤍
Our babe was born last week and I wanted to share our home birth story!
This is our third baby. First was an unmedicated hospital birth and second was a precipitous home birth (1hr 10m active labor). With my second, we gave birth at home but transferred to the hospital afterwards to receive additional monitoring and care. It was especially important to us that we took any and all precautions with this third pregnancy so that we could stay home after giving birth (only if it was safe to do so).
At 40+6, I woke up feeling super sad. I still felt physically good most days and I didn’t hit the point of “I hate being pregnant and I’m so uncomfortable”. But I did wake up with a lump in my throat just feeling this longing to meet and hold my baby and sadness that he wasn’t here yet.
I went to my midwife appointment that morning where my midwife confirmed my baby had FINALLY dropped. We also discussed doing a midwife’s induction at home and me reaching out to my OBGYN to schedule an induction for the following week (around 41+5) just in case. When we got home, I realized I had lost my mucus plug and had some bloody show, so I decided to hold off on reaching out to my OB.
We went about our day with no real forward progression. That night for dinner I ate everything in sight (which my husband said he thinks was a sign). Then before bed I lost more of my mucus plug so I insisted on going to sleep early just in case.
At 1:55 AM, I woke up to a strong contraction that I could barely talk through. Over the course of the next hour I dozed between a few big contractions before deciding to get up to go to the bathroom around 3 AM. The second I stood up, contractions started coming on hard, back to back. I also had the shakes, which I hadn’t had in previous labors. I immediately woke my husband and called the midwives and doula.
My husband started prepping the birth pool and by 3:20 he was done with all his “to-do’s”. He and I were fully locked in together, moving through each contraction. He read me my birth affirmations and reminded me to breathe.
Around 4 AM, I got into the birth tub and felt a huge sense of relief. My midwife could tell by my body language and noises that I was completely dilated and reminded me I could push whenever I was ready. However, I knew my body wasn’t ready and I knew I wanted to hold on a bit longer in hopes to not tear. So instead of pushing, I focused my attention on staying calm during each contraction and leaning into it, feeling my body open, and fully allowing the pressure instead of working against it. Bearing down occasionally but not pushing too hard. Around 5 AM I felt that my body was really ready for me to push. My water broke finally broke and I could feel baby’s head. With a few intense pushes, his head was born.
With the next contraction, his body should have come out easily, but my midwife immediately recognized that this was not happening as smoothly as it should have. She had me flip to my back and helped guide him out. I had a brief soft tissue dystocia that was easily resolved with a change in positions and her help.
Baby was born at 5:22 AM. Those first 30 seconds with him felt like a year, since my daughter did not cry and needed assistance to breathe when she was born. Hearing his cry, I completely lost it. Pure joy and love!!!
This was by far the most calm and focused and in-tune with my body that I’ve ever been during labor and birth. It was such a gift to feel present with my body and baby after my last birth was precipitous and stressful. In intentionally slowing down and waiting on my body, I birthed a 9 lb 7 oz baby with no tear. Our baby’s birth felt like such a reflection of who we have learned he is so far — calm, steady, and gentle. He is perfect!