First off, I want to say that my labor experience was wonderful. Birthing at home is not for everyone (but it SHOULD be considered!) - and I never would have tried it if I hadn’t had Precious naturally by accident. But, birthing at home was a joyous, fear free event. Major memories of my hospital births are of absolute terror once I entered the building, and a feeling of not being in control. I have no fear memories (well, except for when Kate was trying to find out what way Stealth Baby was facing) from this. It was a beautiful, fulfilling experience.

All along I’d been praying - yes literally praying - that I have the baby in the late morning or early afternoon. Oh please don’t let me go into labor after a long day with the kids! Don’t make me have to deal with pain and stress when I’m already tired and at the end of my rope. So Friday was a totally typical day. Not a thing out of the ordinary. I even managed to shove my huge body into a swimsuit and took the kids swimming. Didn’t take a nap (but of course!) That night I went upstairs and hauled myself into bed early. However, I was restless, so I decided to read a book. Not just any book, but “Far from the Madding Crowd” by Thomas Hardy, which I just love! (We even quoted from the last page in our wedding program.) So I stared out by reading a few favorite parts, and ended up basically reading the book cover to cover.

I finished the novel and turned out the lights. As I lay in bed I felt a hard cramp. Again, nothing out of the ordinary since I’ve been feeling miserable back pain for about a month now. (Remember, on Feb. 29 I was 70 percent effaced and 3 cm dialited!) However, this was the first time I’ve had one laying down. That caught my attention so I specifically looked at the clock. 11:22. Ok. So I lay there with a slight feeling of anticipation. 11:32, another cramp. Hmmm, that’s 10 minutes apart. Not going to set a record for labor here. 11:45. Then a tiny feeling of water - like a teeny leak. Man, I’ve got to go to the bathroom and I’m leaking. Pregnancy just sucks. But, unbelievably, a tiny bit of blood! This is it! It’s happening. This MUST be labor!

Hubby, at this very inopportune moment, decides to come to bed. I don’t want to bother him, or rather, I don’t want him to bother me. He’s much more uptight about the home birth then I am. I’m delighted because I don’t want to go to the hospital. He’s scared stiff becuase he is sure no one will make it to our house on time and he’ll be calling 9-1-1 and catching the baby himself. So I lightly mention that I may be in labor, but not much is happening, not a thing to worry about, please go to bed. (ha ha ha.)

I call the answering service that hooks me up with the midwife. I am so excited! The woman answering the phone is like, “Are you sure you are in labor? You sound like you are in an awfully good mood.” Honey I am flying. Let’s get this show on the road. So the Kate is the midwife on call, and she calls me back. She’s actually already delivered a baby that day and is hanging out at that person’s house - in Maryland! I try to tell her my situation, that my contractions are around 10 minutes apart and I can easily walk/talk/laugh through them, so of course she doesn’t think I’m in labor. (She admitted later that she was sure I was NOT in labor!) So she says, why don’t you try to get some sleep and call me back in an hour if your contractions are still keeping you awake. Being the non-agressive fool that I am, I say, oh yeah, sure - even though I have NO doubt that I am in labor. (Blood was the key indicator!!)

So I head back to the bedroom where Hubby is now in full-red-alert mode. He’s awake, he’s uptight, and he wants control over the situation. So he’s not pleased that Kate “blew me off.” He wants to “help”, so I say, put the special plastic sheets on the bed, and here are the special flannel sheets I want to birth on. Fix the bed up, that would help. So that I go into the living room.

Perhaps 15 minutes have passed since I spoke to Kate. Within minutes my contractions pick up speed and instensity. Hubby comes to find out what happened to me and finds me (happily) crouched on the floor breathing through a contraction. He snarls at me and dashes off into the bedroom - I know he’s flipping out so I follow him, and find him furiously punching in the number of the midwife center. I grab the phone from him since I don’t want him screaming at the midwife. I looks at me and nearly shouts, “You are going to call the midwife RIGHT NOW!!!” This really was a lot cuter that I am able to make it sound. At this point (and this point only) labor is harder on Hubby than it is on me.

No longer able to stand through contractions, I am in full labor (it took less than an hour to get to this point) so I called the labor attendent, Linda, first. She lives south of us and is closer than Kate was. So I call her at around 12:20 and say, “I’m sorry to bother you. I’ve chosen this very inconvienent time to go into labor.” Next I call Kate. “Kate. This is Julie again. We don’t have an hour. Come now!”

You know, after this part, I just enter labor land, because I only remember bits and pieces. Everything is warm and fuzzy ~ as far as my mind is concerned I had this wonderful time in labor. Only certain points stick out really strongly. At some point I got into bed, because when Linda arrived I was in the bedroom. Being a total fool, I hear her come in and feel I must be the good hostess and get up to go greet her, so that was pretty funny. She takes my vitals - heartbeat, blood pressure, baby’s heartbeat. She then goes about getting all the necessary equipment in order, so she asks about our receiving blankets. So Hubby proudly points out all the (pink - this was supposed to be a girl, remember?) expensive receiving blankets we had been given. Well, and this is funny - guess what receiving blankets really are for? That’s right, receiving the baby right from the womb! That’s why they are called receiving blankets. So you don’t want frilly, nice things - in reality what she really needed were some unwanted old towels. Even in my labor state I got a kick out of that.

So I got up and dug in the linin closet and got out some old (more pink) towels that I got when Grandma K died. So at this point I am still moving around. This is before 1:30 - because Kate arrived at 1:30 and I was most certainly not getting out of bed. At that point I figured, “to hellmut cha,” everyone else could just go away.

However, Kate was worried about me going to the bathroom. Really wanted me to try. While on the toilet a contraction hit - what a sharp pain! So I said some choice things to Kate and said there was no way in hell I was moving off the bed again period! That is really one of my only memories of pain. I mean, I know I was in pain, but almost all of those feelings has dissapeared from my mind. But I remember being on the toilet when a contraction hit and it being awful. But really - most of the rest of the labor was blissful. (as far as I can remember!)

So I lay in the middle of the bed on my left side, with facing the wall with Hubby laying right there in front of me. He would stroke my forehead, and help me count when I squeesed his hand. When a contraction would hit I would count in slow beats of 4. Breath in 4, breath out to 8, breath in to 12 etc. I figured if I got above 40 then I was breathing too fast. This sounds really retarded, but by totally focusing on my breathing I was able to deal with labor pains. Hubby got up once to go to the bathroom and I didn't want him to leave - so the poor guy stayed beside me for the whole labor no allowed to let go of my hand.

Another neat thing was that, before labor, I got to speak with both Linda and Kate (I had meetings with both of them in the months before labor) about how I wanted my labor to go. I said that want I really wanted to replicate was Precious’s birth - I wanted to be left alone as much as possible. So Linda and Kate were just great and non-existent. They hung out in the kitchen (I figured this out later) during most of the labor, and when they felt it was time to monitor me a little more closely, they sat on the floor so I wouldn’t see them. I really felt like Hubby and I were the only people in the world. To be honest - and I am SO glad Hubby was lying right there beside me - I think for much of the time I was completely within myself. I really felt like I was the only person in the world.

Ok, a surreal moment. I’m in bed working my way through contractions and back pain. It’s the middle of the night of a nice spring day. It’s obvious things are happening pretty fast, so the 4 of us have a brief talk about the window, which was currently open. Was I warm, would it be OK to shut the window, did I want it open, but gosh it would be best to shut the window just in case I got loud. Weird. Life is stranger than fiction, part II. So next we have a discussion - an actual discussion, mind you - about what to do with the kids. They are both sound asleep. Should we just pray that they don’t wake up? Or should we take them over to the Willis’s? Hubby and I discuss the pros and cons to this (between contractions) and decide to shut the window and that the kids will fall asleep. It will be better to unload them the next day when we are zombies. But it was so sureal to be having detailed conversations while in labor.

Midwives have lots of little tricks up their sleaves to make labor more bareable. One of them is to get a crock pot and fill it with hot water, and just keep that warm water to use as a compress. Labor got intense (and it always does) so Linda asked if I would like a hot compress. Originally I was like, “No. Get away from me!! Grrrrrrrrrr.” I tend not to like anyone near me when I am in pain. During labor they had my crock pot on the floor in the bathroom with hot water. Well, spur of the moment I changed my mind! My heavens, was that the best feeling in my life! It was beyond indescribable! So you are in tons of pain and miserable - and then they put this warm washcloth against your back and also against your private parts (to help stretching) and it is so wonderful feeling!! So you have two totally conflicting emotions at once - pain and wonderful warmth. The contrast is awesome. Boy was that wonderful.

At this point labor things began to get strange. Since I had Precious naturally, I had a vague idea of what to expect. So at around 2:30 I asked for an exam. This is one of the differences with midwives and doctors. Midwives don’t touch you in private places unless you ask or there is clearly a problem. They checked the baby’s heartbeat occationally - but none of this, “every hour we have to check your dialation.” (Not that they had many hours to check, really.) So Kate said - you are fully dialated. Everything is good to go whenever you are ready. This was weird - because I really didn’t have the urge to push. I instinctively knew that I was in or just past transition. But I didn’t have the urge to push. Kate marked down in her notes that at 2:44 I had the urge to push - but that’s not right. That’s when I asked her what she thought was up, and said I DIDN’T have the urge to push, but thought that I should.

So we discussed this a little bit, that I was unsure what my body was telling me to do. So she suggested that I bear down really hard and break my bag of waters. This was also pretty amusing - at this point my contractions are 3 or 4 minutes apart so I’m actually feeling OK - and I remember almost laughing at how Kate was standing waaaay back when I pushed. And you should have heard the noise when the bag broke! An honest to goodness POP. This was at 2:53. And it was amazing how different my stomach looked after all of the water gushed out. I remember looking down at my stomach and suddenly being able to really see the baby move around with no cushioning around it.

I still knew that something was wrong. No urge to push. No signals from my body. So I waited all of 3 minutes for the next contraction and I was like - “Look. I just know something is not right.” So Kate thought she’d have a better ‘look’ around. -- This still amazes me. I said, "Something in wrong" and without further discussion Kate believed me. Everyone in the room was totally commited to trusting my body with this labor! What followed was about the 20 scariest seconds in my life. If you were to ask me, I would say that it lasted minutes of Kate feeling around trying to find the position of the baby. God was I scared. See, it wasn’t like she put her fingers up, pulled them out and said - you’re fine, just push. But it was obvious she was kind of feeling around too, that she wasn’t sure what was going on. I’m lying on the bed thinking, My God, what have I done having the baby at home. I was terrified!

Late, Kate told me that she originally wasn't sure what position the baby was in - upon inspection she felt his nose - and thought, is this the child's scrotum? How can this baby possibly be breech? But then as she moved her fingers around exploring she placed one in his mouth. . . and he began sucking on it in-utero!!

For me, it was like the world stopped spinning. I can see what happened next with bright clearity, almost like I was an observer in the room. Kate figured out what was going on and explained that the baby’s head was flexed, and instead of coming out top of the head first was coming out face first. And as she explained, she tipped her head back so that the back of her head rested on the nape of her shoulders with her chin pointed to the ceiling. You can only imagine my horror looking at her. It looked like the baby would break it’s neck coming out that way. I blurted out, “Do I need to go to the hospital,” and Kate smiled and said (this is the greatest quote in the world,) “You’ve got plenty of room. You’ll just have to push harder.” However, to give me more pelvic room Kate and Linda wanted me to roll from my side (I’ve been on my left side the whole evening) onto my back and brace my back up with a bunch of pillows (not a problem since I sleep with like 6.) I also remember that turning over like this hurt like hell. Funny, I don’t remember the pushing; but I remember how much it hurt sitting on the toilet when a contraction hit (and hating them) and how godawful it felt to have them roll me. I feebly tried to resisit a little and I even said something stupid like, “I’m not moving! Go away!”

So now the pushing. What usually saves you is that your body WANTS you to push. All the nerves are signalling that it’s time to push. So even though you hurt, you are overwhelmed with the urge to push. Like with Precious - I was SO ready to push it was like she fell out on her own. I didn't want any of that 'bear down while people scream at you to push and count to 10.' That's a bunch of bull!! When your baby is ready to come out, well, your body tells you and you don't need a cheering section. (Of course, when your medicated, you don't have any idea what your body is telling you, which is why 30 percent of women end up with c-sections!) Well, wouldn’t you know that because Stealth Baby’s head was in the wrong place he’s not hitting the right nerves? So I don’t have the urge to push. All I have in the desire to get this damn show over with. I don’t remember the pushing. I remember thinking that it was so ironic that, when planning my labor, I had decided to go with the flow and not push until I was overwhelmed with the urge - that I was just going to let my body take charge, and here I was pushing my heart out, brute force method.

3:06 am, Saturday morning: And when Stealth Baby came out, he was face up instead of face down. (Which is why Dula’s call babies born sunny-side-up “Angel Faced Babies”, because they are born facing the heavens.) Anyway, they suctioned him out right as he was coming out because he seemed to be swallowing (choking?) on his birth fluid. So he didn’t scream right away. I remember being worried that he wasn’t screaming. So then they placed him on my stomach. Shock! He was so very dark, and so very bruised.

So right away they place this beautiful, black stranger on my belly, wrap him in an electric blanket (to help keep him warm) and waved the oxygen wand under his nose. They were concerned that his throat may be a little bruised coming out the way he did, so they wanted to give him as much O2 as possible. Stealth Baby only coughed a couple of times and but really didn’t seem all that upset by the birthing process. Without a doubt he was the most laid back baby ever! Unlike the other two he wasn’t just dying to nurse. From the very beginning Stealth Baby was more calm, and just stared at us. Very within himself. He seemed pretty content to just hang out there in my arms.

I guess we sat like that for awhile, cuddled together in our darkened bedroom, before cutting the cord - and I even got to cut the cord, which was cool! I don't remember passing the placenta, but Kate put in a tupperware container so I could see what it looked like.

So the midwives hung around until about 7 in the morning. We sent Hubby to bed downstairs on the couch with the hope he could be more coherent than me the next morning, and thus be able to entertain the kids at least until we could convince the Willis to take them. The one thing I missed, which I really regret, is that I was going to the bathroom when they weighed Stealth Baby. What they do is weigh the baby by wrapping him up in a blanket and then hanging him like a bag of fruit from this large scale. I wish I had a picture of it. And I just couldn’t believe it when they said how big he was! 9 and a half pounds. Wow!

And right away he was a calm, alert baby - Hubby even said that the home birth must not have been very tramatic, because Stealth Baby was the happiest newborn he'd ever seen. (Of course, we've only seen 3) He was so alert and intense. He opened his big eyes and watched us.

The next morning was right out of my dreams. Really. It was exactly how I imagined it would be. I’m in bed wrapped in love with my newborn and Pumpkin comes bounding up the stairs - he sees me in bed and stops dead. “The baby is out of Mommy’s tummy!!” SO that shout woke up Precious. So Hubby brings her into bed too and all 5 of us sat happily together in the comfort of our own home, with our own pillows and comforters and even the cat, watching Barney.

P.S. My Husband told me several times over the next couple of days how happy he was we choose a home birth and that he wished we had Pumpkin and Precious at home too. So Hubby is also now a home birth advocate!

Quote of the day: Asking Pumpkin how babies are born he replies: "Well, first you go to bed. . . "