Birth Story from Jessica

I scanned my inbox, an open yogurt balancing on my belly shelf.  I licked the spoon, and stopped.  What was this?  My midwife was breaking up with me?  By email?  With six weeks (or so) left in my pregnancy?

I dropped the spoon.

She’d been hard to get a hold of, and I finally asked what was wrong, expecting an apology and an appointment for a prenatal. But instead she wrote to tell me she felt uncomfortable with the idea of assisting me with my homebirth. Said she couldn’t shake the feeling that I ought to give birth in a hospital. And then she offered her assistance as a doula.

As if.

It was true, we’d never really connected, but I was an independent birther. I really didn’t need all that huggy, hippy stuff. I just liked the idea of someone coming and hanging around if I needed them. There are only two homebirth midwives in our rural area and the other one was booked.

With a sinking heart, I gathered up a quilt I was taking to a neighbor’s house for some long arm quilting. On my way out to the car, I tripped in the garage and fell.

I broke my arm.

And then I had a panic attack.

And hyperventilated on the way to the hospital.

It was a really good day.

I had to stay in a Labor and Delivery room for hours after they splinted my arm for monitoring. I had a lot of time to myself to think about my birthing options. I looked at the dreary hospital walls, gazed at the machinery beeping away in the corner. Felt the heart monitor slipping under the stretchy layers of bandage-like material that kept it strapped to my stomach. The table paper crinkled beneath me. I had to press a button for bathroom assistance.  The pillows were crunchy.

I sighed.

I’d given birth once before in a hospital. My first baby. And I’m not knocking it, really. Loads of people give birth in rooms just like the one I sat in every single day. But I didn’t want to.

I wondered if it was some kind of message. Maybe the midwife was right, maybe something terrible would happen if I gave birth at home. Maybe I needed to be near emergency services this time. But why would this woman, this midwife, who I barely knew get the feeling (vibe, spiritual inspiration – whatever you want to call it) that I ought to give birth in a hospital? Shouldn’t I be the one to feel that? Shouldn’t I be the one to make that decision? It wasn’t as if I had any red flags medically to make her write me off.

My door swung open and the doctor strode in. He flipped through my chart wordlessly and glanced over the strips of paper showing zero contractions. He looked at me over his glasses and asked, “So. You’re going to have this baby at home?”

“I don’t know anymore,” I said.

“Well. Give my office a call, we can talk about a hospital birth if you’d like.” He smiled for the first time and told me I could go home in another hour if nothing had changed.

I was open to the possibility that I needed to have this baby in a traditional medical setting. But I had questions.  Two pages of them. I visited with the doctor in his office and asked whether or not I could skip the IV, whether or not I could push in any position I wanted. He said no, and he’d rather not. Then he said he’d had a bad experience during his residency wherein he was splashed.

Splashed?

During a birth?

Was this not expected? Planned for? At least treated as a possibility? Did he choose the wrong profession? Ought he not be in a splash free job if he didn’t like coming in contact with amniotic fluid?

I left just as unhappy as I had come.

My husband and I talked. And prayed. We visited other practitioners, I interviewed midwives outside of our area, we considered traveling to another state and giving birth at my mother’s house. Nothing felt right. And then one night, my husband put his hand over mine and said, “We’ve done this before. Let’s do it again.”

“Just us?”

“Yes. Just us.”

It was the first thing that felt good. That felt right and well and perfect. I know it was an option most wouldn’t even consider, but our second baby and our first homebirth was on our own. The midwife missed the birth. And it was beautiful and perfect in every way — and we weren’t even prepared.

This time I could prepare.

I updated my expired emergency CPR certificate. I dusted off my midwifery textbooks, I read emergency childbirth manuals. And I didn’t worry. Not one bit. I knew I would be fine. I knew the baby would be fine.

And we were. It was a beautiful birth. When it came right down to it, I was so busy dancing through my contractions I didn’t have time to think about nobody being there specifically trained to assist me. My husband filled the birth pool, my mother read stories to the children. My neighbor who is a nurse was put on alert. My other neighbor who is a doula was notified.

And then he was in my (healed and splint-free) arms. All 9 pounds 4 ounces of him.

I did it.

We found out later my midwife’s husband had a terrible heart attack just a couple days before I gave birth. Even if she hadn’t dumped me we would have been left high and dry with only two days notice. What would I have done in that situation? I don’t know, probably ended up in the hospital splashing a doctor that maybe should have been a moisture-free lawyer and fighting hospital policies I didn’t agree with. But with over a month to read, plan, pray, and prepare, the outcome of my child-bearing finale was much different.

Mysterious ways, indeed.

From Jessica of Balancing Everything.

P.S. — Here’s another homebirth story. It’s from Lovely Lindsay of Run Lucas Run. I love how she describes her husband assisting during the birth.

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Note from Design Mom: throughout my pregnancy, I’ve been posting advice, memories and stories about pregnancy, childbirth, adoption and growing a family on Wednesdays. I just had my baby and am taking a blogging break for a week or so. I’ve received so many wonderful stories and thought it would be great to post as many as I can during this little “maternity leave.” You can find all the stories in this series by clicking here.