Accidental home birth

Let me start by saying that you should always trust your instincts! If I hadn’t, I would have absolutely had my baby in the car.

Birth story:

We had been waiting for our second, surprise gender baby with no signs of labor, and I was approaching 9 days past my due date. My midwife expected it to be at least a few more days.

Starting to get desperate to avoid possible induction since we were planning for another natural birth with our midwife, I decided to get acupuncture to encourage labor. I had to do this with my son, so I knew that it would only work if baby was truly ready.

That night, I took a little bit of castor oil, red raspberry leaf and went to bed. At 2 am, I woke up with painful contractions, but figured I’d labor by myself until I knew it was real. So I watched tv, but contractions were feeling rough so decided to hop in the shower at 3:45 am before calling my midwife and waking my husband.

I woke my husband and called the midwife, who said that since contractions were so irregular, we’d wait and touch base in an hour. I was weary because the contractions were really ramping up and hitting back-to-back, but agreed. My parents arrived to take care of our soon shortly thereafter.

As the hour went by, my contractions continued to intensify, but never regulated and I was getting concerned that I could achieve another natural birth if they kept up. At the hour, so about 5:15, we called the midwife back, but at this point, I was barely able to communicate, having to really focus through each contraction. She said to meet at the birth center in an hour.

About 15 minutes later, contractions were hitting hard and fast, and I told my husband that we wouldn’t make it. He was shocked, he had no idea I was in so much pain, so he called the midwife back and told her to head to our house. I then decided to go to the bathroom, but quickly realized that this baby was on its way at that moment.

My mom, stepdad - a former cop who had delivered a baby, and my husband were in our bathroom. They called 911 who coached us through it, because there was no stopping it. In less 10 minutes, my husband caught the baby as I was standing up. It all happened so fast, the paramedics and midwife didn’t make it. Baby came out crying, and help arrived shortly thereafter. It was insane and crazy, but also really powerful and special. She was 8 lbs, 15 oz and luckily, I only needed one stitch. Looking forward to sharing the story of how her dad delivered one day!