Successful first time mom homebirth

I decided to jump right in at the deep end for my first baby and planned for a home birth from the very beginning. My prenatal care was provided by a trio of nurse midwives whose basic purpose throughout my pregnancy seemed to be confirming that my blood pressure was fine and my baby was positioned well and had a great heart beat and I pretty much never got one shred of bad news from them except one minor scare with my blood pressure towards the end which wound up being a one-off thing.

My whole pregnancy was honestly as perfect as you could hope for; conceived as soon as we tried to, all genetic screens came back low risk, I got the girl baby I always wanted, GBS negative, passed gestational diabetes screen, anterior placenta nowhere near my cervix, I slept fine the whole time, had no major cravings or aversions, minor nausea but never vomited, and my belly never made me super uncomfortable, I could breathe and eat the whole time even til the end, my last meal before she was born was a huge plate of cheese fries... Honestly I could not have asked for a better pregnancy experience. It feels a bit redemptive because while this is my first baby it was my second pregnancy. The first pregnancy ended in miscarriage actually almost exactly a year ago so she's a really well timed rainbow baby. 🌈

Anyway, the reason I included that not-so-humble-brag about how great being pregnant was is I also had what I could only describe as an ideal birth. Labor was long but once it was really underway, it was VERY fast.

I was having contractions on the evening of the 17th which I started timing, realizing they were getting somewhat regular. The next morning I called my midwives' office to let them know I'd been having contractions for 12 hours, at which point the midwife who answered told me there was no way I was in labor because I could talk to them on the phone. I was pretty annoyed about that because it was like ok well if I had a contraction while I was talking to you maybe things would be different but they were still about 5 to 15 minutes apart at that point so I could carry on a short conversation in between without issue. My midwife reminded me that I should schedule a non-stress test to check on the baby since I was past 41 weeks. The NST would be on Monday. I was so irritated. How could she possibly think I was not having this damn baby before Monday?? She only conceded that I "might" be in "very early" labor when I actually asked "so you're saying I'm not in labor right now?" Honestly I was incensed. But I continued laboring.

We called the midwife on call on Friday night to let her know that contractions had continued all day Friday. She echoed the original midwife's sentiment that labor was probably in very early stages, and suggested a sleep "cocktail" of wine and Benadryl to help me get some rest. So I drank a glass of sparkling rosé, popped a diphenhydramine tablet, and took a short bath. I was still up every 6-10 minutes all night groaning and carrying on, but I was at least able to drift off quickly in between contractions.

I got out of bed around 5am Saturday and moved my laboring to the living room of my one bedroom apartment, where my mom and my sister had spent the night. They were part of my labor support team. I ate an all fruit watermelon popsicle and drank some water, but I didn't really feel like eating more, in fact I really just wanted to throw up. Which I did do around 8am, and honestly it was great. I felt much better after I vomited a little.

A little after 6 am we called back the on call midwife and let her know the situation. That time thankfully I did have a contraction during the call and that was all it took for her to say she would be out in about an hour. When she got there shortly after 8, she checked my cervix and it was dilated to 4cm. She said technically to be considered "active labor" I should be at 6cm. Fortunately she did say I would be having the baby "tonight, probably," so at least my midwives weren't in denial anymore about my labor starting.

She said she was going to leave but stay nearby and suggested that I have my mom and sister leave too, and to just labor with my husband. So my mom and my sister left and took my place at a friend's local wedding my husband and I stupidly RSVPed "yes" to, when we were obviously cutting it VERY close to our baby's due date. Everyone left and my husband and I watched Tropic Thunder on Netflix, because I wanted to watch something we had seen before that wasn't too stressful while I was laboring. And because we had already both watched Hot Fuzz way too many times, and Parks and Recreation for the past two days clearly wasn't doing the trick. I ate a few berries and pieces of melon while laboring, but didn't have a lot of interest in food. Eventually I ended up on the floor bent over an ottoman. I liked the ottoman because it had a frame at the base that I could grip during a contraction, unlike my exercise ball. Eventually my husband was sitting behind me on the floor, applying pressure to my lower back during contractions and otherwise just hanging out. Apparently we did that for a couple hours but it didn't seem like very long at all to me. Around 12 I was having a hard time not bearing down during contractions (I'd been advised to avoid doing that to prevent my cervix from swelling before I was dilated enough to push) so my husband called the midwives back and told them they should probably come back. When they arrived shortly after 1 pm and checked my cervix, I was dilated to 9cm. Before they arrived I recall saying to my husband, "I hope I'm at least at a 6..." So 9 was pretty amazing.

One of the midwives was checking my baby's heart rate while I was laying down after getting my cervix checked and suggested I try a couple different positions since baby didn't seem to like being on my back (and I don't blame her- every time I had a contraction while on my back I thought I would die - one of many reasons I can totally see why people birthing in hospitals get epidurals!) So I got on my knees and leaned over my exercise ball. One midwife arranged supplies, I assume, I wasn't really paying attention to what they were doing, and the other helped with pressure on my back and I suppose keeping an eye on me laboring. Eventually I was pretty sure I was going to poop in my living room so I asked if I could go to the bathroom. According to my husband there were some sideways glances exchanged indicating that they knew more was up than just poop.

As I sat on the toilet, hoping to poop out poop before I pooped out my baby, my midwives chatted with my husband in the living room. I'm not sure at what point they all decided to join me in the bathroom but they did, and I did end up doing my entire pushing stage over the toilet. For the record, I did poop before I pushed out the baby. Also my mom and sister arrived right when I started pushing and watched from the hallway. My sister took a few pictures.

At one point my midwife did ask if I had "any strong feelings about where your baby is born," presumably figuring now was the time if I wanted to move out of the bathroom, and of course I didn't care. So I felt like my bottom half was going to tear in half and rip my whole body apart at that point, but baby was coming so I just pushed into it. Apparently I let her come down nice and slowly though because, although I felt like I was literally being ripped a new one, I ended up with only a couple tiny tears on top and bottom that didn't require stitching. My water never broke during labor and it only burst when my baby's shoulders were being born, so while she wasn't fully preserved in the caul when she came out, my midwives said they consider anything covering the face or more at birth to be en caul.

I was in pretty deep denial about the whole "human emerging from my vagina" thing until the very end. I was offered opportunities to reach to touch her head, feel the bag of water around it, etc, and I really did not want to. Fortunately, my husband who was stationed in the bath tub next to our toilet, kept telling me how great I was doing and generally marveling at the whole thing and his awe at the situation really kept me going. When the baby was born, my husband said my midwives were surprised because they thought I had gotten all the push I was going to get out of my last one and were not anticipating I had enough left in that one to get her out - but apparently I did! My midwife hastily advised my husband to catch his baby, I think my eyes might have been closed, the baby was brought up to me, and my first words to my daughter were a very classy "what the fuck?" 😂 I somehow still hadn't really grasped that there was a BABY IN MY BODY. WHICH WAS OUT. I'm still pretty amazed and slightly horrified at the whole thing.

Once baby was out my midwives tucked some huge underpads between my legs and we waddled to my bedroom where eventually baby's cord was clamped and cut and I delivered the placenta with no drama or fanfare. I was offered to have a look at it, which of course I declined because, you know, denial.

And then basically my apparently perfectly healthy baby and I got to cuddle in bed while we figured out how to feed her. After she ate I was directed to the shower to rinse some of the blood and funk off, and she stayed in the room with everyone else to be weighed and otherwise checked out, and have some of the more bloody spots wiped off of her.

My midwives went over some postpartum instructions, let me know when they'd call to check in, and left my apartment at 5:30pm.