Wells Peter - A Homebirth Story

I’ve been meaning to get these details down on paper (screen?) for weeks now, but it always seemed a daunting task. The whole day was surreal, so how could I accurately and adequately tell the story of how my surprise 10-lb beast baby roared into the world? But I suppose I have to try…so here goes.

For the two days leading up to his birth day, I had pretty strong contractions (not exactly braxton hicks, but I could tell they weren’t “real”, if that makes sense). The evening before my stomach just felt like it was going to burst…like it was so stretched and painful no matter if I was sitting, standing or lying down. Sleep was hard to come by, but at that point in the pregnancy, I had gotten pretty used to crappy sleep.

At 2:30 am that Friday morning, I felt a pretty big gush and hurried to the bathroom. I was calm, but excited. Once I went to the bathroom, I realized there wasn’t a trickle or anything happening, so I wasn’t 100% sure it was my water (although it was a significant amount of fluid…enough for me to have to change my clothes). When my water broke with my older son, Nash, it never stopped leaking out once it gushed, so this was new. I decided to just go back to bed and see what happens. For the next two hours, I felt pretty regular contractions - about every twenty minutes or so - and these felt real. They wrapped around from back to front and had a mild painful quality. Then at around 4:30 am, I felt another, smaller gush. So I again went to the bathroom, decided this really was my water breaking, so I changed my clothes, put on a pad, and tried to get some sleep.

That next morning, I woke up and told Joe that my water broke in the middle of the night. He was like, “What?” I think he was surprised that I didn’t wake him, that it wasn’t at all dramatic like the last time. I told him I would call the midwife around 8 or 9 and let her know. I skipped about during the day, just getting mentally ready and doing all the ball bouncing I could muster. When I spoke to the midwife, she asked me to call her when the contractions picked up, but let me know I only had 18 hours from when my water broke before I had to be in active labor or else I would no longer be able to deliver at home. I asked what she meant by active labor and she said 6 centimeters. This devastated me. Six felt like a lot, but I resolved to just do what I could to get things going.

By the middle of the afternoon, I was definitely having consistent contractions, every 3-7 minutes, but they were short and mild. They would range from 30-55 seconds, but never got progressively longer or stronger. I sent the midwife a screenshot of my contraction timer and she concurred…I wasn’t progressing. She told me to do the Miles Circuit and that she would pop by shortly to do a cervical check to see what was going on. I struggled with the Miles Circuit for the next few hours because every time I would lie down, my contractions would stop completely (the first two positions require you to be lying down in a way for 30 minutes each). When the midwife arrived, it turns out I was only 2 cms dilated. She tried to find the amnio testing strips to make absolutely sure my water had broken, but they were left out of my homebirth kit for some reason. We agreed it was more likely than not that my water had broken, so she told me to keep doing the Miles and start considering if we wanted to try castor oil if we started to run out of time. I REALLY didn’t want to go the castor oil route, but I also didn’t want to give up my dream of a home birth. I mean, shoot, I didn’t even have a bag packed for the hospital and couldn’t imagine trying to pull all that together at the last minute.

I threw myself head first into lunges, sideways step-ups, ball bouncing, etc… I rubbed Clary Sage oil all over my belly multiple times and had it going in the diffuser. I tried pumping here and there. All those tricks. Around 5 pm or so, something changed. Suddenly, I had to turn the tv off, which had been playing in the background to keep me busy. I sat on the ball with my head and hands on the back of the bed and didn’t want to move. The contractions were averaging about a minute and were definitely stronger, so around 6 or so, I asked Joe to text the midwife. She asked him if I wanted her to come and I just wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to waste her time (hello, people pleaser), but I also felt like I must be getting somewhere and maybe she should just check me so I knew I was safe from having to go to the hospital. She said it would take her about an hour to get there, so she would start to get herself ready. Around that same time, I got a text from the birth photographer, whom I’d totally forgotten to text, and let her know where we were at. She offered me some tips and then said she would head our way for some laboring shots.

A short while later, I decided I wanted to get in the shower. I’d heard that water helped with the pain, especially running water, so I decided to sit under the water on my yoga ball. I tell you what, I’m so grateful for that shower, and even more grateful for my tankless water heater that kept the hot water coming for over an hour. The photographer arrived. Contractions picked up. I asked Joe to bring me the step stool so I had something to lean on. Once I had that, I literally couldn’t move. I just kept my forehead on my hands on the handle of the step stool and just breathed through every contraction. I actually did a lot of what’s called rainbow breathing (it’s a hypnobirthing technique, I believe), so I just breathed in and out the colors of the rainbow until each contraction passed. It was helpful because it took some mental energy to remember the colors in order, so it helped me focus on something other than the pain. Things were getting really intense and my contractions were on top of each other. I could hear the photographer telling Joe that he needed to get in the shower with me because the midwife wasn’t going to make it and he was going to have to deliver this baby. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell I was pushing this baby out until the midwife arrived, but I didn’t have the energy to pipe up about it. Soon, the midwife texted that she was about 20 minutes out and they started to fill up the tub.

Around 8:30 pm, the midwife Rene arrived. She immediately wanted to check the baby’s heart rate, so she asked me to stand up. It took me a few tries, but I was finally able to stand up enough for her to get the monitor going, but couldn’t really get the heart rate. She asked if I wanted to get in the tub and I said yes. They started milling about and I breathed through another contraction. After it was over, I said outloud, “It’s now or never” about if I was going to get in the tub, so they opened the door, and I quickly tried to step over into the tub. The water wasn’t very high in the tub though, so that first contraction hurt like hell in my back that was no longer being soothed by the water. But along with that contraction, I started to feel pushy. Rene asked me if I felt pushy, and I nodded yes. I mumbled that I wasn’t trying to, but my body was ready. She gave me the go ahead, so with the next contraction, I just let go, gripping the side of the tub. My body literally bore down with everything it had…but nothing happened. Again, again, again, nothing. I’d read so many stories of women who had the fetal ejection reflex and described it as 3-4 contractions and you’re baby is out. Let me tell you…I must have had 30 of these suckers (which I can best describe as forceful vomiting out of your vagina) before I felt him moving down. It was brutal and I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. Eventually I laid down in the tub and was able to get some relief on my back and push with the reflex, so then things started to happen. I felt this intense stinging as his head was crowning (hello, ring of fire), but I knew that meant we were so close. At 8:57 pm, his head came out. I felt such relief and immediately kept pushing in hopes to just get his darn body out. But my contraction had passed, so it was useless. Then the midwife asked me to get on my knees to try to get him out a different way, but I told her I couldn’t move (because I was in the middle of a contraction). She said, “You have to do this for your baby.” Who can argue with that?

So I got on my knees at the edge of the tub again and tried a few pushes, but he was not coming out. At this point, she told Joe to call 9-1-1 and let them know to come because of a possible shoulder dystocia. I knew exactly what that was because of my pregnancy with Nova where they told me because I had Gestational Diabetes, I was at risk for SD if she was large. I felt a wave of fear wash over me, and then determination. The midwife told me to stand up and put my one leg on the edge of the tub while she tried to turn him to get him out. Mentally, I told myself that I’m getting this baby out…I worked too damn hard to grow him these last 9 months, there’s no way this is ending any other way than a sweet baby in my arms. So I pushed with all my might and she pulled and bam…at 9:03 pm, he was born. We called off the ambulance and the other midwives walked in right as the chaos was subsiding. Rene handed him up to me and I just held him standing in the middle of the tub while they got things ready. I was bleeding quite a bit, so they wanted me to get out of the tub and into the bed, so she could give me a shot of pitocin in my thigh to squelch the bleeding.

We crawled into bed and just soaked each other in. I delivered the placenta no problem (although that’s a whole experience no one really talks about…), then got one single stitch, which I did without any medication since the numbing shot would’ve taken two pricks, then the stitch, and the stitch was just one quick in and out. And I honestly didn’t feel it at all. The midwives cleaned everything up, took care of the placenta (we were having it encapsulated the next day), then set to the newborn exam. When they took him from me for the checks, they said I could very well have a 9-lb baby. As background, in the weeks leading up to this, there was talk that he was still moving from side to side and sitting crooked because he was likely on the smaller side and “had plenty of room in there.” Turns out this sucker was 10 pounds and a whole inch longer than my other two. Which explains why I had this terrible stretching pain in my right rib cage whenever I would lay on my left side to sleep. Total shocker. But we nursed and we ate and took pictures to remember the details, then everyone went home and we went to sleep. In our bed. With the kiddos and Grandmom just a few rooms away. It was glorious.

Despite all the drama, despite the anxiety I had no doubt my husband felt when we were in the thick of it, and despite how much harder it was than I anticipated, It was exactly what I dreamed up, what I’d hoped for… Definitely not saying I’m signing up for another one any time soon (especially knowing my history of brewing beast babies), but I’m so grateful we decided to do that and will always cherish the memories of this sweet boy being born right here in our house.