Positive Birth Story: Home Birth of First Baby
When my husband and I found out we were pregnant (3 months into our marriage, I might add), we were thrilled and terrified all at once. I had always been fascinated by pregnancy and labor and homebirth. With a bad ob/gyn experience and much reluctance from my sweet husband, we met a midwife and settled on a homebirth.
I had a wonderful pregnancy! No morning sickness, slept incredibly well, was able to be active and keep working the whole time.
At 37 weeks I began having surges that were 5 minutes apart, approximately 1 minute in length, and for 3-4 days I had them for about an hour and then they would stop.
The day before I hit 38 weeks, my water began to leak, but I was having ZERO contractions. The following day we met with my midwives and talked about potentially having to do a hospital transfer to get my labor started. While in my midwife’s office, my water officially broke! But still no contractions.
As a last ditch effort to start labor, I borrowed some dry pants from my midwife and we went to see the chiropractor for an adjustment.
I kid you not, as I was walking out of the chiropractic office, I started having contractions! We went home, set up the birthing pool, ate a snack, took a shower, tried to nap, recorded a video for our sweet baby boy, and then called the midwives to come over.
I labored in the pool quite a bit, and then on my bed trying to relax and rest. I was having a lot of back labor, which was really painful, so resting between contractions was very difficult. I went back into to pool because the hot water was so relaxing to my muscles.
Then I hit transition! The contractions were coming hard and fast and seemed to last forever. I questioned if I could do it. In my head I was begging for an epidural, and for this all to be over. And just as I thought I couldn’t go on any longer...I felt it. This baby was coming. I could feel him shifting downward so quickly. I knew I needed to start pushing. When I said it, nobody really believed me at first, they thought it would take a lot longer. But I knew he was coming. I was confident in my body and nothing could change my mind. I began pushing and it was like all the pain slipped away, I was about to meet my son!
I pushed for about 10 minutes and he was there! We almost didn’t get the video camera started in time. My husband got to reach down and catch our baby and then set him up on my chest. I remember seeing him and everything inside of me just connected to him instantly.
All in all, I labored for about 10 hours from the start of the contractions. Our sweet baby boy arrived at 6lbs 10oz of pure perfection.
I’m so thankful I was able to follow my gut in this whole process. I was able to have a birth better than I ever dreamt possible! Positive birth experiences are SO possible! No matter what the setting.
Thankyou so much to Nadiah for sharing her amazing story!