This is how I came to decide on homebirth, and why it was the best choice for me. I have a friend who was studying to be a midwife when my husband and I were first married. She was the one who first started talking to me about the physiology of birth and how hospital practices can interfere with the biological processes. Over the next couple of years I went from “No way – what if something goes wrong?” to “I would like to have a midwife, but be in the hospital” to “I want to stay home.” I have a strong background in biology and started reading everything I could on natural childbirth. I read textbooks, birth stories, internet forums, anything I could devour.
It took us 14 months to conceive our first baby, so I had a long time to take in all this info. By the time I was finally pregnant, I had decided that homebirth was what I wanted. My husband agreed with having a midwife, but wasn’t thrilled with the idea of homebirth. We had a lot of discussions with the midwife: about how they handle specific emergencies, how the treatment would differ between home and hospital, what equipment comes to the house, what medical situations would rule out a homebirth, etc. By the time we were halfway through the pregnancy, he had reluctantly agreed to the homebirth.
I have issues with control. I need to be in control of my body and my health care. The thought of going to the hospital and having to follow their rules and regulations terrified me more than anything else. I generally avoid medication (have all my life), so even if I had a hospital birth I had no intention of using pain meds unless I needed a c-section.
I never had any doubt that I could birth my baby. I was young (late 20’s), very fit and healthy. Birth is a natural process and the baby would be born no matter what I felt, so being relaxed and comfortable was going to make that easiest.
On Saturday November 24, 2001, my husband and I spent the day putting up the Christmas tree and decorating the house. By about 6:00 pm I was feeling tired and a little crampy. I figured that I had spent too much time on my feet. On Sunday I felt much the same. I went for a long walk on Sunday, but that didn’t trigger any contractions. On Monday I had a midwife appointment with K. I told her about the cramps and she checked the baby’s position. She felt that the baby was 2/5 engaged and that my cervix was soft and thinned to about 1.5 cm thickness. On Tuesday I had the occasional contraction, but nothing worse than menstrual cramps. Bloody show also started that day.
On Wednesday I didn’t feel any contractions in the morning so I went for a walk. The walk didn’t bring on any contractions, and I was starting to feel discouraged. My sister-in-law brought over some lunch, and I went for another walk in the afternoon. I had three contractions that were strong enough to make me pause, so I went home after about half an hour. When I got home I tried some nipple stimulation (to encourage labour) for about half an hour, but the contractions were getting too uncomfortable.
From Wednesday afternoon onwards I was running to the bathroom every 10 minutes to pee. The cramping in my cervix was getting more uncomfortable, but my back hurt worse. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch on my side with a back massager. Still, I was very excited to go into labour.
I started to make dinner at about 5:00 pm , but I had to stop and get my husband to finish it. I went back to the couch. During dinner I had to stop eating because I couldn’t sit. I had my husband cut up my dinner into small pieces so I could stand and eat. The contractions were still irregular, about 5 – 7 minutes apart and only one out of every three or four were strong enough to stop me from doing things.
At about 8:00 pm we paged K to talk to her about our progress. She suggested that I have a glass of wine to relax. I went to bed at 9:00 pm after having a glass of white wine. My back was really sore; I was lying on my side. I had to get up every 10 minutes to go to the bathroom. For the rest of the night, I was up and in the bathroom frequently. I slept very little, if at all.
At about 3:00 am I woke up and was hungry (unusual for me). I went downstairs and had a Power Bar and a small glass of milk. I went back to bed. Some time later I woke up feeling kind of nauseous. At about 4:30 am I was lying on my back and I felt (heard?) a pop around my cervix. I didn’t feel any liquid. I got up to go to the bathroom and didn’t notice any liquid. I was wearing a pantyliner because of the bloody show, so it is possible that I just didn’t notice. In the bathroom I vomited, then I went back to bed for a while.
At about 5:30 am I woke up again and decided to have a bath because my back was hurting so much. I let the water out of the bath at 6:00 am and vomited again. My husband took me back to bed and we discussed whether or not to call K.
We decided to call K at 6:45 am and she was at our house at 7:20. I was lying on my side on the bed when she arrived. She checked my vitals and checked my dilation: I was at 7 cm. Even during labour I kept expecting it to hurt more than it did, so when we did finally call the midwife I really thought I was in early labour, not transition and 7 cm.
The next four hours were a big blur for me. When I was in labour I really went off into my own head. I just moved the way it felt right. The midwives gave some guidance on positions – some I followed, others I didn’t. I really felt like I was completely stoned or drunk. I had trouble focusing on what people were saying to me because I was so far off into my own little world.
I remember the Doppler being used to check the baby’s heartbeat frequently. I remember spending some contractions on the toilet. My husband would hold my hand every time a contraction would hit. The midwives were very supportive and encouraging. When I started to feel the urge to push I moved back to the bedroom. I remember spending time on the toilet, birthing stool, and supported squat, but I don’t remember which order. I remember being able to feel Jackson’s head while he was still inside me. It was so warm and soft.
When I was close to pushing him out I moved to the bed so that my husband could catch Jackson. My husband stayed beside me until the very end, then the backup midwife came on the bed beside me and my husband caught the baby and brought him up to my chest. This was at 11:16 am. I remember him being covered right away. We didn’t even check to see if he was a boy or a girl for about a minute. I was given a shot of oxytocin and delivered the placenta within 7 minutes of Jackson being born. K then stitched up some minor lacerations. This was by far the most painful part of the whole experience. I then went in the bath with Jackson. He was really awake and looking around.
Once the midwives had cleaned up the bedroom they took Jackson back to the bedroom with my husband and they measured him. I came out of the bath and settled in the bed. Jackson fed hungrily. K stayed for lunch and left at about 3:30 pm, but came back to check on us later that evening.
My husband and I were very pleased with how the whole birth went. We both felt very empowered by the whole experience. We both felt that we were in control of the birth and were kept informed as things progressed. We couldn’t have expected a better birth experience. For our next child we would definitely have a midwife attended homebirth again.
When everything was done I had such an amazing sense of accomplishment. I really had a great appreciation for my body and what it could do. From that point on I really let go any hangups I had about my body. Function was so much more important than aesthetics and I proved to myself that my body was amazing.
The same mindset followed me into breastfeeding. I knew I could do it, I knew where I could get help if I needed it (La Leche League) and I read everything I could. I knew what normal breastfeeding behaviour was, so I wasn’t worried about frequent feeding in the early days. The midwives followed up for the first 6 weeks, so I had lots of weight checks to confirm Jackson was growing well. I knew babies cried and didn’t sleep, so when I ended up with a colicky non-sleeping baby, I just rolled with it.
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Shared by Tania Archbold from Ontario, Canada. To read about the birth of Tania’s second son, please click here. To read about the birth of her daughter, click here.