Fast, furious, beautiful and miraculous! Every birth is such a wonderful event. I’m so thankful that I was able to have the birth that we’ve been planning for here at home!
Since I was induced with my first two, I felt sort of like a first-time mom in wondering if I would “know” when I was in labor. Thankfully, with Rich’s prodding, we were able to figure out quickly that it was the real deal. I had only had 5-6 contractions before we called the
midwife. As you all know, I’ve been having contractions for a LONG time. There were several times in the last couple of weeks when contractions picked up again in frequency and intensity only to die down again. Sunday morning, around 7:30, I felt a weird inner pop/crack sensation. But when I stood up there was no “gush” like I thought I would have if my water had broke. I was having a little bit of “leaking” though. Even though I had only had a few contractions at this point, Sue was amazing and knew right away that things were going fast and was over quickly. Unfortunately, mom stopped long enough to make herself a cup of coffee and missed the birth. Neither one of us realized how fast things were going. That was the only part of the entire experience that I wish had been different. We had so much fun preparing as she was going to be playing the role of my doula. Next time, I won't care about false alarms and will just call right away! Instead, Alexander stepped up and helped his daddy out in coaching me thru the contractions. He was so sweet and kept telling me not to cry. I explained that having a baby is hard work and sometimes it helps to moan and sigh a bit... He rubbed my back and comforted me as I slowly made my way up the stairs. Things progressed rapidly from there. I hopped in the pool before it was even finished filling. They aren’t kidding when referring to water as the “midwife’s epidural”. At the very end I became quite vocal (boy am I glad we didn’t video the birth!) and it scared Xander. He ran and hid in the laundry room, crying… I was afraid something like this would happen which is why we hadn’t planned on having the kids present at the birth. Keegan on the other hand was clueless and just wandered around the room bringing books to Rich and Sue. The pushing phase soon started and lasted only 6 minutes. The amazing part is that I did not tear, so no stitches afterwards (hurray for midwives and water), even though his hand was right next to his big head as he came out. We ended up with both a home and
water birth. (I hadn’t decided if I wanted to birth in the water or not and just planned on seeing how things went!) So at 8:56am, just a little over an hour after the first contraction hit and just under an hour and a half from when my water broke, Treyton burst onto the scene!
Recovering at home has been amazing. It was so nice to take a shower right away (wasn’t able to do this with my two previous epidural births) and then slide between the sheets of my very own bed and cuddle with our newest addition! The midwives did all of the newborn checks right there on the bed! And the best part of all was having the entire family in bed cuddling with and bonding with their newest family member. Keegan is such an active little bugger that I can’t imagine trying to coral him at the hospital. This was such a nice way for us as a family to bond!
So, did it hurt? Yup. Would I do it again? Absolutely!
