the birth story of my first ever home/water birthed baby:

 Joseph James IV.

 After two hospital-epidural births with my girls, I chose to try a home-birth with this baby...and a water birth at that! This was quite a change for this "mooshy" momma who used to say "I'll take the epidural in the 7th month please!" lol. My reasonings behind this decision were sort of a metamorphosis through this entire pregnancy along with bad experiences and scars lingering from my hospital births. I won't get into all of that here, I'll just say after a nervous on-call doc with my first delivery almost cutting me open for no reason other than his own peace of mind (thankfully didn’t happen though) and then an epidural "gone wrong" in my second birth, I had trust issues with doctors I didn’t know very well and had lost faith in medications.

 We moved to England 2 years ago and there is a whole new practice of doctors here. They roll you through the entire OB staff like a rotisserie chicken and although I was thankful for getting a chance to meet all of them, i just couldn't come to peace with the "hello, I am so-and-so *shakes hands* then gloves that hand and sticks it up my...well, you know."  You wouldn't go and do that to anyone you just met on the street, so why is it okay with this most important and intimate time in my life? After hearing of a friend's UC (Unassisted Childbirth, in that no “trained” medical professional attends the birth. Usually mom, or dad, or a friend of the family catches baby. UC seems radical, but again, in a normal healthy pregnancy birth isn’t to be feared. Mary had Jesus Unassisted in a barn with manure, flies, and fleas! Many people have UC everyday accidently with labors “too fast”..etc. Around our 4th or 5th month of pregnancy, I began researching. I had never heard of a UC before and didn't know what it was or that people could even do that. That research opened a whole new world to me...barriers of fear that had been ingrained in me since my childhood of the "horrors" of birth began falling down, brick by brick, and a new confidence and peace began to replace them. It was scary for me making this decision to homebirth. Very scary, but the base hospital had me more frightened. With Joe’s support we made the "plunge" (pun totally intended lol) to switch to an English midwife and deliver at home, around the 30th week of the pregnancy. I felt immediate peace and fell in love with "Jo" (short for JoAnn) Although I was a 3rd time mom, in many ways I felt like a first time mom with all the nervousness and anxiety of “going natural” for the first time, confidence issues came again and again...I truly didn’t know if I would be able to do it until the time came.

 I was due Nov 23rd and that day came and went without so much a twinge. The next day I began getting minor contractions coming every 20 minutes and lasting around 20-30 seconds. So minor I though they were BH's, the only thing "real" about them is they were consistent and they had a "wavelike" pattern to them. These lasted 24 hours consistently...but they were easy. By the next night I was tired of them and frustrated...either go away or give me something real! Joe and I slept 4 hours that night and I got my wish! I was woken at 2:30 AM with contractions that felt "different"...I watched the clock and they came every 10 minutes, then 7, then 5, then 3...I went to potty and had some bloody show...yay! Finally! This is it!

 I woke Joe about an hour later with the words I’d dreamed about saying for the last month: "We're in labor!" He began prepping the living room, setting up the birth

pool and laying out vinyl backed tablecloths on the floor and over furniture. I labored easily. I moved from room to room as I pleased. I couldn't stand laying down. They intensified and I felt "immobile" on the couch. Joe and I slow danced the contractions away that first hour. He'd hold me close, massage my back, I'd listen to the rhythm of his heartbeat and he'd "cue" me from our Hypnobabies studies..."Release" gave instant state of calm and hypnosis, "Relax" was a deepening cue on relaxation, "peace" was my own personal anesthesia cue. After a few hours contractions got a bit more intense. Suddenly swaying wasn't helping. Being my first time to labor not in a hospital I suddenly had options and began thinking of things I had read of in the hundreds of birth stories I’d read for months in preparation. I wanted to try hands and knees...I had never tried this position before. It was heaven! I don't know why or how, but it worked beautifully. I knelt by a big fluffy chair and stacked pillows in front for my head to rest. When one would come, Joe would come over and put counter pressure on my back. I had water with a flexi-straw next to me, and I grabbed my Hypnobabies CDs and began listening to those. They were wonderful. A whole CD full of positive birthing affirmations such as: "your body knows what it is doing, and is doing it wonderfully...your cervix is opening beautifully, open, open, open..." it kept me focused and calm, which was exactly why I’d bought them to begin with. My doula was back in the states and this was the closest thing I could come up with for a “doula on tape” lol.

 3 hours after the first contractions we call our friend to pick up our 3 and 4 year old girls and I got into the shower. Water always helped me progress as I labored in the bath with my second daughter for awhile...it was heaven! Of course it gives that extra shot of oxytocin as well. I had Joe bring me the birth ball and had a gardeners knee pad under it for my knees...when a contraction would come I would kneel against the birth ball. I had several in the shower and suddenly wanted to stay away from people...maybe it was knowing we had "company" coming to get our girls very soon, but as soon as I was dry I was up the stairs to be "away". I had to concentrate more now and I didn't like that Joe was so busy loading car seats and taking care of our other children...I wanted him with me. After the girls were gone I went back downstairs and labored kneeling against my favorite chair. I listened to our CDs and sipped water. Soon I began vomiting. This was a good sign to me. I knew we were nowhere near transition, but I remembered throwing up in early labor with my last daughter…it told me two things: 1) I was definitely in real labor as this is my body’s reaction to all the birthing hormones dumped into my blood stream and 2) my blood sugar was low, I needed to eat. I had Joe bring me some Gatorade and I asked him to begin de-thawing the homemade chicken noodle soup I had made and frozen for “labor day”. Our midwife arrived soon after. The time was around 6:30 am...4 hours after the first contractions. In between them she took my blood pressure, pulse, and listened to baby’s heartbeat…everything was well. She would do such checks periodically through out the labor which I appreciated. Helped me to know baby was coping well and it was doubly nice not being hooked up to anything anywhere and being “detained”. She checked me and baby no matter where I was or what position I happened to be in at the time, she adapted to me and that felt wonderful!

 Contractions were still coming the same, about every 5-10 minutes and lasting for only 20-30 seconds, but they required my full attention and I had to have my little "routine"...I had to have a place to kneel, if I didn’t I felt "stuck" and panicked. The midwife was wonderful. Let me know she was there, but stayed quietly in the background and just observed me. No silly questions or a mini-interview like I would have received from the nurses at the hospital. I LOVE how she respected me, and my space. I felt "safe," and relaxed with the ebb and flow of labor.

 Around an hour and a half later she asked if she could check me. I had no cervical checks during my pregnancy as I know my body doesn't "gear up" my cervix until active labor. I know what it feels like to be disappointed appointment after appointment after being told your body wasn't "doing" anything and I couldn't take that this time...having a home birth I needed my positive state of mind as much as possible. Allowing any kind of disappointment wasn't a luxury I could afford. I was afraid to let the MW check me. If I wasn't a 5 I knew I'd be disappointed and I didn’t want to become disheartened with a good amount of labor ahead of me, so I told her “Yeah…but if it’s not good, lie to me!” everyone laughed. On the couch she said I was 4 centimeters and stretchy but still quite thick, around 50% effaced and baby still high, negative 2 station as he had been the whole month prior. 4 centimeters, not too bad, not the 5 I hoped for, but close enough. I asked if I could get into the birth pool and she said not yet, but soon. I was afraid of that. I knew she liked to wait until around 5 centimeters. I understood but was a bit disheartened. With my daughter I labored from 2 centimeters to 5 centimeters in a matter of 2-3 hours in my bathtub at home…I knew how good the weightlessness of water felt and I knew my labor would speed up once I was in…but I waited. I decided to try walking around the house a bit as I knew from the many potty breaks Joe reminded me to take every hour, walking intensified them. This didn’t last long. I went into the kitchen to be with Joe as he was making himself and the midwife some tea, but soon I found myself back on hands and knees on the dining floor lol. I’d get up and wait a second or two, then bam, back down again…finally, as I realized I was using my daughter’s rocking horse to lean against instead of my birth ball lol, (and as I asked Joe to bring me the ball) I thought, “Well this is silly. So much for walking lol…might as well go back into the living room to our little “nest”…as soon as Joe brought it in I turned him around and we both went back to the living room.

 Around 9:00 AM we started “active labor”. They were becoming stronger and I felt a need to moan through them to help cope. Verbalizing felt wonderful and “happened” without really thinking about it. The contractions were coming around every 5 minutes steadily now and lasting 45 seconds long, only 15 seconds longer than the early labor contractions. Never was it “hard” to cope through and I had wonderful rests in between. Jo, our midwife, had me eat some of the chicken soup and then offered an aromatherapy massage on my lower back which I gratefully accepted. She used lavender oils along with the same “base” oils she’d used for my prenatal massage the day before. It felt wonderful. Every time a contraction would come she would put counter pressure on my lower back, then as it would end she would rub my entire back. Around this time my ear plug for the Hypnobabies was beginning to annoy me, so I took it out and threw it down. Joe stepped up the verbal cues at this point and I didn’t really need the CDs anymore.

 After about 20 minutes that pool was looking awfully good to me, even though I knew once I got in the water this wonderful massage would obviously end. I actually sat and debated for a few minutes which I wanted more lol, but finally the water won. I asked if I could get in yet and Jo said after I emptied my bladder I could. Argh. I knew walking would increase contractions. I knew I’d have 4-5 through the 20 feet of walking from point A to point B, at least one while on the toilet, and then another 4-5 for the walk back…but I wanted that pool! I mumbled something about “Nothing like motivation" and then slowly started my journey to the potty and back.

 It felt wonderful to be in the water finally! It was a little cold so Joe began boiling water on the stove to top it up. I can’t say enough about laboring in water. The weightlessness is so wonderful on the tummy and lack of gravity helps with changing positions. The pool was huge for my petite self, I could literally be in any position I wanted, still have belly well under the rim of the water AND have Joe in there with me! After about 20 minutes I asked him to get in with me to continue the counter pressure on my back. I mostly stayed at one end of the pool. It didn’t feel right sitting normally or trying to stretch out. Being on all fours felt better, but not as good as staying on my knees and leaning against the side of the pool with my upper body…that felt the best. The pool was specially designed with the help of midwives and mothers whom prefer Natural Childbirth and one of the features it specially had was handles on the outside. Through out active labor Joe massaged my back and Jo made sure I kept my hydration up by sipping water and applied a cool rag to my face or neck when I asked. My body was working hard, but again, nothing was ever unbearable and I was being taken care of very attentively. The blood pressure checks stopped when I got into the water (at least I don’t remember any being done) but she still kept up with my pulse and listening to baby’s heartbeat under the water. Again, it was so nice not having to adapt to “precautions”, but having them adapt to me and my labor. I felt so respected. An amazing change since my first birth in the hospital 4 years ago where I fearfully felt “left to the whims” of that on-call doctor, whom I barely knew his name and he had the power to make any split second decisions that would affect my body, my health, my recovery, my baby’s health and my future fertility!

 2 ½ hours later we began entering transition. I threw up again which I expected to happen and was encouraged by. I had read (Ina May Gaskin’s book I believe) that 1 good vomit during labor is worth 10 contractions against your cervix and I was all about trading some contractions in lol! Transition was hard, even though it only lasted 20 minutes it felt much longer to me. At this point they came every 2-3 minutes lasting 1 minute long, so I still had wonderful breaks in between. Transition was my “fear” of this labor as having two medicated deliveries before I had never felt Transition 100% full force, even when the epidural I had with my second birth was “splotchy” I knew what I did feel wasn’t 100% to what was Natural.  These contractions didn’t come on so strong they surprised me and I don’t remember many with double peaks, really, nature was quite kind to me. I had always envisioned them as a non-ending waterfall of mind delirious pain from what I had read in other birth stories…but these weren’t like that at all. It was painful and hard work, but it had it’s “end” and when they ended, they ENDED! I rested my head on the side of the tub and “slept” in between them. What was hardest physically was that at the peak of them I would feel a strong, sharp “zing” from my tailbone traveling up my spine...that was the hardest part, and even that sensation only lasted a few seconds and was gone when the peak was gone. I am thinking perhaps it was baby moving down into my pelvis, and he moved quite quickly, from a -2 station to a +4 station within 25 minutes or so. looking back I think the biggest challenge of transition is more mental than physical. The hormones are changing your contractions and your body to “transition” from dilating to pushing…and with this there seems to be natural release of “fearing” hormones. I suddenly felt doubtful and scared. Even though I didn’t feel like I had any reason to be. At one point I just started crying. One of those hormonal cries, I know you ladies know what I am talking about. You know “those” cries because you can’t think of any reason WHY you are crying, just that you FEEL like you need to. Yeah, one of those. Big fat tears quietly rolling down my cheeks and I couldn’t figure out why I was crying. It wasn’t because of pain. I was doubtful and feeling scared, but not so scared that that solely was what was causing me to cry. Mostly I was scared of how much longer this was going to go on. I DID feel like I was at the end of my rope and I was tired. But during this time I do remember feeling grateful. Grateful I was surrounded by so much love. As strange as it seems I fell in love with my husband even more at that moment. He had sacrificed so much to help me in those last 9 hours and he was still going strong. I had this amazing midwife being so attentive to me. At this point I had her on the other side of the pool wall holding both my hands massaging them. Her firm touch felt so good when the contractions would come. Especially the transition ones. Verbalizing wasn’t working so much with them anymore and at one point she began deep breathing and I mimicked what she did. Usually I labor with my eyes closed, but when I did that during transition I felt uncontrolled, like I was floating away. Watching her breathe and making direct eye contact helped me stay centered and grounded. At one point when one contraction ended I cracked a joke that she had “beautiful eyes”..which I meant, but thought would be funny to say at that moment lol. As everyone chuckled then I thought of Joe, dutifully behind me putting counter pressure with his whole body weight at each contraction, still using hypnobabies cues for me and encouraging me constantly, so I added a “You too!” to him, which made everyone laugh more. It felt good to chuckle. Even in transition there was laughter. Both laughter and tears within minutes of each other lol…I don’t remember laughing much with my other births.

 Soon I began feeling tired and I wanted to “move on” from these transition contractions. My legs would shake a bit with the contractions and make my teeth chatter. I wasn’t cold, but the shaking made me “feel” almost as though I was. Jo began putting more hot water in the tub which I was undecided if was needed or not, my face still felt hot and I still wanted the cold rag on my face and neck…it was a strange paradox, hot and cold all at once. Jo also brought in two teaspoons of honey for me to eat. Honey is easily broken down by the body and would provide fuel needed when the pushing began. (I also had 2 teaspoons of honey after I vomited in transition for the same reason, to replenish fuel sources that had just been lost) Not too much longer I started asking about pushing. Looking back I do think I had started to feel the “urge to push” at this point, but it wasn’t that “demanding” urge to push you hear about and I was unsure. In my previous births I had no urge to push, only immense pressure to know baby’s head was moving down. I was tired of breathing and coping, I wanted some control dangit lol! But at the same time I knew if I began pushing when my cervix wasn’t ready it could possibly swell and send us back a few centimeters. Jo was very encouraging that if I felt like pushing then I should trust that and obey my bodies signals. I tried a few pushes and boy they felt good! But still, I was doubtful...do they feel good because I am finally doing something, or feel good because I am obeying my body? I asked her to check me. She doesn’t like doing a lot of cervical checks as each one gives risk to introducing infection and I LOVE that, keep in mind I had only that one check earlier in the day for my entire pregnancy and labor so far. She mentions about me seeing if I can feel baby’s head. So I reach in to maybe my second knuckle and there he is! It was amazing to be the first, VERY FIRST to touch MY baby! And he was so close! I knew he had to be past the cervix, but what confused me was I felt something sqooshy over his head. I didn’t know if it was the amniotic sack, or a cervix lol. As I was trying to figure this out the first thing I said was, “well I don’t feel hair”…everyone laughed. I said I could feel a head, but there was something squishy over it and I didn’t know if it was the amniotic sack or the cervix. Jo reluctantly got a glove and said “this one’s going off the record!” lol and checked for me right there in the pool. She said, “OH Kristy! He is RIGHT there! That’s the amniotic sack over his head. He is ready to come out Kristy, push your baby out!” felt SOOOOooooo good to hear that!

For 10 minutes I pushed, although out of that time only got about 3 really good ones out, the rest were kind of experimental as I grappled with these new sensations and what to do with them. I stayed on my knees as I had been the whole time. It just felt right. I had heard of pushing to be “intense” and it was! Feeling my body push down while also feeling my pelvic cavity open up and my hips pushing “out”, all while the same areas were remaining “intact,” AND my perineum and ****** area bulging out…it was quite a bit to mentally take in and process! The only way any of it felt good was to push as hard as I could though it…there was no more thinking things through at this point. Only thing I cared about was getting baby out and getting him out NOW! These sensations, as natural as they were, were a bit frightening as I’d not felt them before and I wanted them over with lol! I also really wanted my baby here! I never felt the “ring of fire”. I did feel some burning towards the top, near the clitoris and I instinctively breathed through that because I really had no idea what to do with that sensation lol, but once it was over, even though I couldn’t feel the head crowning yet I pushed as hard as I could to get it there, once it got there I kept on pushing. I *knew* I needed to stop and let it come out gently to minimize chances of tearing, but I just couldn’t! Everything in me was pushing baby out and there was no way I could withhold any of it or myself! I just pushed passed it all and hoped I wouldn’t pay for it later! Finally I felt a head “pop” out, literally! It was such a relief! I heard Joe say, “I see a face! Awww...he’s so cute!!” what I didn’t know was baby was being born “in the caul”, he stayed in his amniotic sack the whole way. Joe said it looked as though he had pantyhose over his face and his little nose was sqooshed down lol.

With the next set of contractions I pushed as hard as I could to get his body out and although he was moving down, it didn’t “feel” like he was and I panicked a little bit. I remember saying, “Get him out! Can’t we just pull him out?!...I can’t get him out!” With the girls it seemed once their head was out, the rest of their body just “slipped” out, this seemed much much harder getting the body out. Jo instructed Joe to pull me back towards him while making sure we didn’t hit the head on the ground of the pool. As he helped lift me back onto him she helped with the shoulders and I pushed as hard as I could. It was one large weird fluid motion that ended with me sitting on my husband’s lap in the pool with a baby in my arms! Lol! I was so shocked! I think I may have had my eyes closed as I was going back because I didn’t realize all that was happening all at once. All I knew was “Okay, I’m going back on Joe, push push push!!” lol! Next thing I knew Joe had “caught” baby with the one free hand that wasn’t holding me, and midwife Jo had caught the other side of baby and both of them brought him to the surface and put him on my chest. I couldn’t believe it was all over! I was shocked to see a baby there! I said, “hi baby! Hi little one!” and heard him make a few squeaks and try to look around a bit. All along my brain is thinking, “it’s over already? We’re DONE?! Oh my gosh!! I can’t believe it! We’re done?! I DID it?! WE did it?! Oh, look at him! He’s so cute!” Then Jo asked to take a picture which is what you see here. Dh is crying, my weird expression is reflective to the myriad of thoughts going through my head all capped up with, “You want a picture NOW?!” lol..i am SO SO SO glad she took it though!

We stayed in the water for about 10 minutes, until I felt the contractions return for birthing the placenta. I wanted to birth the placenta on land so we could get a good estimate of my bleeding. Although we wanted to let the cord stay attached until it stopped pulsating I knew I needed to get out of the tub and overall it would be better if babe and I were unattached to do that. Joe cut the cord, Jo took baby and wrapped him up warm, my Joe got out and toweled off and changed clothes real quick. Joe took baby and then I got out, toweled off, put on my robe, and laid on the couch for some skin to skin time with my new son while we waited on the placenta. About 30 minutes later the placenta came out with a few easy pushes and I was examined...no tears! No skid marks! Completely intact! Yay!!

Joseph James IV

Born November 25, 2006

12:28pm England time.

6 lbs, 11 oz

18 ½ inches long

Apgars of 10’s all the way around.

Dark hair and brownish eyes.

 This birth was amazing to me. Yes, it was in some ways much harder than my hospital births, but in other ways it was a dream compared to them. It was such a blessing to not have nurses coming in and out of my laboring room over and over and over, with me wondering, why are they here? What are they doing? What do they want? Am I going to have to fight them over something? And when will they leave? It was SO nice being able to eat and drink what I felt I needed and whenever I wanted and not have to beg for ice chips then wait 20+ minutes to be given them. It was wonderful being able to do as I needed when I needed and not have to ask “permission” to follow my body’s signals and do what felt right. I loved not being tethered to a bed and being able to use all the amenities around me freely. I loved not being tied down with monitors and being worried about the “readings” or if I was “making progress fast enough”. Yes, going natural was hard, but even so only *really* hard for those last 30 minutes and I traded “hard for half an hour” for “an easier, more comfortable laboring” for 9 hours! I loved being treated as a person, and not a patient. There was much, much, much, much less “fear” involved with this birth compared to my other births. It was not an “event.” Not something that “happened” to me, but something that I DID. Something that I made each conscious decision about myself each step of the way. Something that I can call “my own”. Will I do it again? Probably. Unless we are deemed high risk and baby or myself truly needs the medical equipment available only at hospitals, then we probably won’t birth in another hospital. If it’s not needed, why be there? One thing that was really great with our midwife here in England is that they have so much more leeway given to them with birthing. Jo brought in a good 3-4 suitcases of “just in case” equipment…things she said she always had to have with her, but rarely ever truly needed. Involved with these supplies was an oxygen tank, iv lines and synthetic drugs for emergencies…such as “syntocin” (their version of what us Americans call pitocin) in case of hemorrhaging after the birth for example. I knew even if there was a problem, she was fully capable of taking care of us while we waited for an ambulance to arrive and take us to the nearest hospital 20 minutes away. I also knew from all my research that should an emergency occur it would have to be a very very very rare one for the extra 30 minutes to travel to hospital to be “too long”. Of course I am thankful this normal pregnancy turned into a normal delivery, but I wanted to reassure my family reading this that we were well covered and watched out for. Birth isn’t something to fear and in normal pregnancies, not something to be medically managed, but rather to be respected and allowed to unfold. God’s design is beautiful and the Bible doesn’t lie…we truly are “beautifully and wonderfully made”.

**Homebirth isn't for everyone or for every situation. It is very important the birthing mother be where she feels the most "safe". for me that was the hospital for my first birth, and it just so happened that this time it was my own home. I was blessed to have had a completely normal pregnancy in every way to be able to move forward with a homebirth with confidence, and also to have had so many wonderful resources to help encourage me and strengthen my faith in God's design. With that in thought I hope my experience encourages anyone contemplating a homebirth. Do the researc and then take confidence in what you find out, whichever way that pulls you. It was something my heart *personally* needed for healing, and I dedicate this birth story to anyone else whom needs "healing" from thier past births... for anyone whom has had a hard labor/delivery, whom has been taught through Hollywood’s desire for ratings on drama to fear birth, whom has sifted through horror story after horror story from friends or family or random ladies in the super market check out line, to anyone whom has been told your body makes babies “too big” or was deemed with “failure” to progress... to anyone whom was yelled at to "Push" only to be told they were doing it "wrong" or not "trying hard enough"...to anyone whom harbors scars of being told they were “broken” in one form or another…please check out Ina May Gaskin’s book “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth”. It is a healing book. One that restores faith, peace, and beauty back into birthing. Birth doesn’t have to be frightening. It doesn’t have to involve the words “suffering” or “enduring.” For all those that want to make birth their own and not something that had to be “survived”, please look into this book. I highly recommend it. It changed my life.**