Bennett’s birth was something that like many things in life don’t turn out like you had planned. From before I got pregnant with him I had plans for the homebirth I was going to have with this baby. I was very excited all through my pregnancy after every visit with my wonderful midwives as I thought about having a peaceful waterbirth at home. And since my last 2 babies have arrived about 2 weeks early, I just assumed that this one would as well. 4 weeks before my due date I had my home visit with my midwives, they brought all the birth supplies and left them at my house. I was relieved to have everything there since my contractions had really started to pick up that week, so I was happy to be past the point in my pregnancy where I would have to transfer to the hospital to give birth. The 2 weeks after that brought more contractions, but never anything to make me convinced they were the real thing. Then 2 weeks before my due date my contractions were coming every 5 minutes for quite a few hours, then every 3 minutes for a few hours. I also was getting some lovely pink tinged fluid that made me feel like this was it. So I called my midwives and they decided to come. They got to my house around 7 PM and we got things set up to have a baby. Well after finding that I was dilated to 5 cm and almost totally effaced, my contractions fizzled out during the night. So at 4 AM everyone decided to head home and I went to bed. After that I still felt like I would go back into real labor any day. Some days I would have contractions that lasted for half or more of the day ranging from 5-10 minutes apart, but then things would always die down. By the time I hit 39 weeks and my mom was here I was really starting to get impatient. I wasn’t sleeping well due to contractions, and I really wanted this baby to just get here. Then I hit 40 weeks, this pregnancy was officially longer than any of my others, even my first! I was tired and cranky, and beginning to think this baby was never coming out. On my due date I decided to go to the chiropractor for an adjustment in hopes that it would spur things along. That day I was having really strong contractions, but they still were only coming every 10-20 minutes. Then that night I went to bed and continued to have very strong contractions throughout the night that would wake me up, and I’d writhe around in bed and then go back to sleep. When I woke up at 6:30 they continued and were starting to get closer together, maybe 4-5 minutes apart, and I decided that I wanted to check in with my midwife. I called her and we decided that I would meet her apprentice at the birth center, since she was at the other birth center for an appointment. By this point I had decided that if baby came during the day I would rather give birth at my midwives freestanding birth center rather than at home, since then my mom and kids could be at the house, and I wouldn’t be bothered by them being there. We got to the birth center at 8:00, and my contractions were spacing out a bit, maybe every 5-7 minutes, but still very strong. After a couple of hours of this, I decided to have my midwife check my cervix. She told me it was 8cm, but that what was left was squishy and could be pushed out of the way, so if I felt like it I could try pushing and see if that moved the cervix the rest of the way past babies head. So I thought this was a great plan since I was more than ready to be done and have this birth done and over. I sat on the toilet and pushed through a couple of contractions, and sure enough that got his head to move down and past the rest of the cervix. At this point my husband finally believed that we were really having a baby (an hour earlier he was talking about maybe going into work for a little while!). So I climbed back in the tub and started to really push through contractions. I had a moment of panic and decided maybe I didn’t want to do this part since pushing a whole baby out of you is really not the most comfortable experience in the world, but then I decided I better just get it over with! The midwives sat in the next room for a bit while I was pushing, and I just called them in once babies head was crowning. I was squatting in the tub until I got his head to crowning, and then just kind of floated back to lean back while I pushed the head the rest of the way out. It was such a surreal experience because I was so aware of the way his head was coming out since I was reaching down and feeling him come out. I felt his head rotating after the head came out, and then gave one more big push and his body came out and floated up toward me and I caught him under his arms and pulled him up onto my chest. It was so incredible being able to completely deliver him myself. The midwives just sat back and watched as he was being born. I felt so cared for and supported by them. We got out of the tub a few minutes later since the water was getting pretty cool and then moved into the room on the bed. I was able to cuddle with my baby as long as I wanted, and then we eventually did the newborn exam. Bennett weighed in at 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long, my biggest baby by almost a pound. After all was said and done, the birth was an amazing experience, and the outcome was perfect. I am recovering so quickly, and other than feeling tired from lack of sleep, really don’t feel like I had a baby 1 week ago. And Bennett is perfect and healthy.
