Micheala Elizabeth-Home Waterbirth
Wednesday morning, November 30, 2005 at 2am I felt like I had to pee so I got up and went to the bathroom. I felt like I had to pee again 12 min. later. I started to get suspicious when I had to pee again 11 min. later. I tried to wake up Kendall but he just mumbled to tell him when the baby came out went back to sleep. He doesn't even remember me waking him the first several times and finally got up about 4:30 am. So I went out to the kitchen and I finished swiffering the kitchen and dining room floors and cleaned off the kitchen table. Contractions weren't so bad that I couldn't work through them. I just wrote them down so that I could tell how far apart they were. They got as close as 4 min. a part and then they lengthened back out to 12 min. apart. At four am, I decided to call my midwife at home. Her husband informed me that she was at a birth but if it was urgent I should call her cell. I spent 15 min. or so trying to figure out whether it was worth bothering her. I saw blood in the bathroom and then got on the computer to do a few things and when I was done, I called her cell phone. She informed me that she was a birth and there was no way she could leave. She would send a back up. I told her I'd call her back if the contractions got worse.

The contractions stayed separated but eventually hurt so bad that I had to get in the bath tub to get through them. About 6:45 am, I told Kendall to call the midwife and tell her she'd better send someone right then if she was going to send someone. She asked to speak to me and I told her it hurt really, really bad every time I got out of the water. She said "Well you're in labor, it's going to hurt." She called back in a few minutes and told me she was sending her assistant but it would take an hour and forty five minutes for her to get there. I later found out they were both at a birth that was technically two and a half hours away. She told Kendall that if I started pushing before the assistant got there to call and she’d walk him through it. At seven, I had Kendall call Gail, who'd offered to watch Mary. To my surprise Mary wanted to go to her house and was very excited to leave with her. She came in the bathroom all excited about leaving just as I was getting a really bad contraction but I was still able to smile at her and tell her to have good time. The contractions really didn't appear to be very close together while I was in the water and I could get through them by letting my body go limp. It was really bad, however, if i got out of the water. It would be like one big contraction that just kept getting stronger and stronger and never went away. Needless to say I was only out of the water for quick trips to the bathroom. About 8:30am, I got tired of the bathtub and asked kendall to finish filling the birth tub. He mumbled something about having plenty of time and I had to get pretty mean with him. He got to work. I told him at that point I didn't even care about the temperature. I just wanted to stretch my legs out and have deeper water and a softer bottom.

I got in the birth tub (an inflatable kiddie pool) and the relief was even better than the bathtub. However the contractions were now too bad to just go limp through. I started making some really ugly noises but not out of control noises. About 15 to 20 minutes into this I told Kendall to call the midwife's assistant and fine out where she was. She informed him she was just over a mile from our house. It seemed to take forever before she was standing in our bedroom.

The assistant will from here on be called the midwife since that is the role she played in our particular birth. The midwife began getting the birth supplies organized. She told me that my noises meant I was in transition which was not what I expected to hear. I figured I would just be in active labor because I was still able to carry on a conversation and smile between the contractions. The midwife later said I was probably complete when she walked in. She asked if i was pushing with my noises and I told her no. I told her that I absolutely did NOT want to push at all. It had been very painful with Mary and I just didn't want to. It wasn't long before I realized that my water had never broken. The midwife began to give instructions on how she would have to handle the situation if the water hadn't broken by the time the baby's head came out. The water not breaking was what had probably made the contractions to this point less painful and at and after this point more painful. The bag of waters was hitting my bowel but it didn't feel like I had to use the bathroom it just HURT. When I was informed of why this was happening I begged her to break my water. She said to push for 10 more minutes and if it didn't break she'd do it for me. I ended up pushing with my knees against her hands. And the water did infact break two pushes before the baby came out. It was instant relief. I did after several contractions in the pushing stage lose control and say that I couldn't do it not so calmly. I pushed out Michaela Elizabeth at 10:12 am in a very very small cloud of blood. She had apgars of 9 and 10 (she cried right way) and had more vernex on her than the midwife had seen on a full term baby before. I tried to rub some of it on both of us but there was just sooo much of it and it was so thick. The midwife commented what a big baby she was. Then later commented how little the placenta was for such a big baby and began looking carefully for missing parts. However when we weighed and measured we realized why the placenta was so small. Michaela was 7 lbs 6 oz and only 18 inches long. She had broad shoulders and a larger head. She was just "fat". For a few minutes there was concern that she was a little early but after counting the folds on her feet it was decided that she was definitely right on time at 39 weeks and 6 days.

I have no doubt that if I’d had Michaela in the hospital, I would have ended up with an epidural this time. The pain when I was out of the water was very unbearable and the contractions felt way different. The water was definitely what got me through this birth. One thing to note is how my water did not break until the very end. We were told to prevent a the rupture of membranes before labor started we should take extra vitamin C. This obviously worked well. This is particularly important is Group B strep is suspected. Also if you read birth stories where things to go wrong with the baby, it is almost always after the water breaks. I think that Michaela’s good apgars and alertness are also due to the very late rupture of membranes.

I’ve read that so many homebirthers get very negative comments about their decision. Everyone around us was so supportive and positive to our faces. While we didn’t care what everyone else thought, it definitely made for a positive experience for us. We found that younger people would imagine the beautiful water births that are occasionally shown on TV, older adults didn’t really think of it as different at all.

We decided on homebirth mostly because the hospital makes me very uneasy. We had a beautiful hospital birth with our first daughter Mary but I just felt lucky to get through it. We also liked that our first daughter Mary would be reunited with us quickly and may never have to leave us. And what hospital room gives you a king size bed, private kitchen, and your own private hallways to walk, two bathrooms, and your own stuff right there? My baby was handed to me immediately and not taken until I needed to have tears repaired. Even then she was in the arms of her father and not sitting in a warmer some where.

As far as waterbirth…I used to be really against it. Not for everyone, it just didn’t appeal to me. However sometime in the beginning of this pregnancy, I became absolutely sure that I wanted a water birth. It was the right decision for us.