An awesome waterbirth!

Last night, I had the honor of being a part of a beautiful birth for a lovely couple. It was one of those "that's why I do this work" moments for me. In my blog, I try to protect the identity of the people I serve, so I am not using their names in this birth story.

I met this couple last spring at Peggy's Homebirth Meetup. I instantly felt a connection with them. I think they had been together for a long time as a couple, and had plans to eventually marry. She had recently become pregnant, and he had proposed to her the night before the meetup. They very excited about the baby and were really looking forward to having their baby at home. Over the next few months, I got to know them both pretty well through their prenatal visits and through my childbirth classes. They asked me to be at their birth, telling me they felt really connected to me and that they wanted to share the birth with me.

I'd been anxiously awaiting the call from Peggy. The due date passed, and then another week went by. Finally, some irregular contractions and bloody show. Not active labor yet, but definitely getting ready for the big day. Yesterday, after a few days of toying with active labor, I sat with them and we talked about what they were thinking and feeling about their labor, and the woman said that she was feeling discouraged and really wanted to do something to get labor going before they ended up having yet another sleepless night. After discussing some natural labor stimulation options, they decided to start nipple stimulation later that afternoon, and that if it didn't do the trick, they wanted to try castor oil.

Our study group was working on learning how to suture yesterday. Once we finished the suturing practice, we decided to watch the new birth movie "Orgasmic Birth." It wasn't what I expected, but I did enjoy it. I think I'll have to do a whole separate blog post on it, but I mention it in this birth story because it reminded me of how beautiful it is when a man and a woman work together during their birth. I knew it was just the thing I needed to see before I headed off to go help at this birth.

After the movie, Peggy and I called our laboring couple. They had tried nipple stimulation and had found it to be really effective at getting strong, regular contractions. When I arrived at their house, the husband greeted me at my car, saying that his wife had just had "a breakdown" and said she wanted us to be there. He looked out the window right then and saw my car's headlights, so the timing couldn't have been better!

I greeted his wife, and by her expression, she seemed to be in early active labor. She was serious during contractions, but she was coping really well, and between contractions she was pretty sociable. She wanted to see how far she was dilated, so I did a cervix check and she was about 4cm. Her contractions were moderately strong, but she wanted to make sure she was having stronger contractions that wouldn't fade if she got in the pool. So, we tried some homeopathics and some herbal tinctures a few times. The contractions got much stronger and our laboring mama got in the pool.

It didn't feel right to me, especially after watching Orgasmic Birth, for the husband to be sitting outside of the pool. I really thought, especially considering the depth of love these two people had for each other, that they needed to be in the pool together. So, I suggested he get in the pool and support her there. They cuddled and worked together beautifully. She wanted him to really experience the birth with her, so being together in the pool worked well for them.

After a few hours, she started gently pushing. Her membranes were still intact, so as the head started to be born, it was really amazing to see the amniotic sack in front of the head. It was the first time I ever saw a baby born in the caul. She took pushing really slowly. I think she was surprised by the stretching sensations and was a little fearful of pushing through it, but she stretched beautifully and slowly. There were moments in between contractions where she would reach down and touch her baby's head and say, "oh honey, there's our baby" or "oh this is so amazing," or something like that. Her husband and she would feel the baby together, and it was beautiful to see the love in their eyes. It was, as Aimee put it "truly exceptional."

As the baby was born, it burst through the amniotic sack. The dad lifted her up and put her on his wife's chest, and the three of them just fell in love with each other as a new family. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. Of course, Peggy, Aimee, and I sprang into action to do our job of making sure all was well, but in between checking on mom and baby I know I just watched for moments here and there and soaked up the emotion in the room. There were a few times I felt tears of joy stinging at my eyes even today, the day after the birth.

The mom and dad had chosen not to find out the baby's gender before the birth, and as we always do, we made sure they were the ones to decide when to look to see for themselves. While they were holding their baby, they said things like, "what do you think, boy or girl" and "honey, do you want to look and see yet." After about 10 minutes, they decided to take a peek and saw that they had a beautiful baby girl. They were overjoyed, and the tears flowed again!

Dad cut the cord a while later, and mom birthed a nice healthy placenta when she got out of the pool. The baby nursed right away! We did our usual postpartum watch, made some food for them, got the laundry started, and cleaned up after the birth. At about 6am, we packed up our stuff and left this new family to sleep in their bed and enjoy their first day as a family together.

What a BEAUTIFUL BIRTH!