Joshua’s Birth Story

Long before we knew this baby was on its way we had already started to think about what we might do differently the next time around. Geren's birth was a good one, but there were still some things we would have changed if we could. So we did a lot of thinking, talking, and praying, and Laura began researching options. At first we considered a birth center, but in the end we decided that home was really the place for us to be. That idea is foreign and scary to a lot of people (including us at first) but once we really studied things we found out that for uncomplicated pregnancies homebirth is as safe (or safer) than hospital birth and provides the laboring mother with a much more natural, supportive environment. After we learned that we were expecting, we quickly began to search for a midwife. We are fortunate enough to live in an area where there are plenty to choose from, so it was hard to narrow down the field. In the end we found just the right person for us and have really enjoyed and appreciated the care we've been given. The rest of this page is Laura's account of Joshua's entry into this world.

It's hard to know where to start with the actual "birth" story, but I guess I'll start here...

Saturday, March 16th:

I started having a menstrual cramp type thing very intermittently. I hadn't had any Braxton-Hicks contractions in a while, although I had lots early on. I saw this as a sign that things were in the early warm-up phase; I had them beginning about 5-6 days before Geren's birth. They continued very sporadically over the next several days. My due date (the 21st) came and went without any real changes.

Sunday, March 24th:

I started having some contractions around 3 p.m. They were pretty short and not all that impressive and came every 30-45 minutes all afternoon and evening. They went away later that night and I went to sleep without any problems.

Early the morning of the 25th:

The contractions returned and woke me up around 4 a.m. They started out about 30 minutes apart but were stronger than the day before. They gradually got closer together until by 6 a.m. they were about 10 minutes apart. I woke Read just to let him know what was going on; over the next hour they were between 5-10 minutes apart, still pretty short. I got up around 7 to go to the bathroom and put in my contacts and they spaced out then went away. Read was very disappointed that he had to go on in to work that day! Not much happened in the morning, but around noon I started having contractions again. They were about 45 minutes apart until around 4 p.m., and then they picked up again. By the time Allison, our midwife, came for her regular visit that evening at 7 they had gotten back to 5-10 minutes apart again. They were still relatively short (20-30 seconds) and stronger but not overly bothersome. I told her that I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before and she gave me some Chamomile tincture to take before bedtime. As the evening went on they spaced out again but didn't go away, and they came all night long ranging from 10-30 minutes apart. The Chamomile didn't help - I couldn't sleep. The contractions were increasingly uncomfortable and I found that they hurt much worse when I was lying down than when I was upright. I tried to sleep sitting up in bed but basically didn't get much rest.



Tuesday, March 26th:

The contractions got closer together in the early morning hours and by 5 a.m. I was having them every 4-5 minutes and lasting about 40 seconds and I started to have some show. Read called my parents to tell them to come, although I was worried that the contractions would die out again in the morning and my Mom would waste some of her days off waiting for the baby to come. Sure enough, they spaced back out again by 6 or 7 a.m. to every 20-30 minutes. I was tired and they were more uncomfortable though, and it frustrated me. I kept thinking that if the baby didn't come that day there was no way I could deal with another sleepless night. We called Allison around 8 a.m. to let her know what was going on and she advised me to keep trying to rest even if I couldn't sleep, so I spent most of the morning in bed. It was frustrating though, because I was so sleepy and couldn't sleep sitting up, and the contractions hurt too much to lie down. My parents got here around 9:30 and helped my mother-in-law entertain Geren (she was already here from visiting over the weekend). The contractions were all over the board - 5 minutes apart, then 15, then 20, then, 10 then 30 etc. No rhyme or reason to them at all. Around 11 a.m. I couldn't stand being in bed any longer and went out to sit on the couch and the birth ball with the family. We all ate lunch around 1 p.m. and then I tried to rest again. I got into the birth tub briefly beforehand; I figured that if the contractions wouldn't get on with it maybe I could get them to go away enough to rest. No real luck there - things were pretty much unchanged. So I tried plan B - get dressed and walk around the block with Read. Things picked up during the walk a little, but the contractions were still very irregular. The afternoon went on and I was really getting tired and frustrated - it seemed like we weren't really making any progress and I was afraid I would be at this for days. Around 4:30 Read and I were talking about things; I had had 2 or 3 contractions within the past couple of hours that were really long (90-120 seconds) and hard to deal with. I told him that they seemed like transition contractions, but that didn't make any sense because they were so far apart. I really wanted to get into the birth tub but was afraid that it was too early and I would slow things down. Read called Allison to update her again and she suggested that either she or my Mom (trained as a labor & delivery nurse) check to see how dilated I was. I hadn't really planned to do that and was afraid to - I didn't want to hear that I wasn't very dilated yet. But, I really wanted in the tub so I let Mom check me. She surprised us by telling me that I was a good 6-7 cm dilated! (Later she confessed that it was really more like 7-8 but she's a little out of practice and didn't want to overestimate things.) That was the best news I'd had all day. I immediately hopped in the tub and Allison said she'd get her things together and head over. The tub did help a lot, but as I was already in transition it was still pretty uncomfortable. I just kept moving around and trying to find a position that was comfortable. One of Allison's assistants got here around 5:30, checked my blood pressure and the baby's heart rate, and began to get set up. By the time Allison and her other assistant got here a little before 6 p.m. I was starting to feel a little pushy. I didn't push much at first and mostly just let things happen, but then I was ready to get it over! There was a point early on where the baby's heart rate went down a little; Allison was great about it and told me that I was "giving my baby a headache" and that I needed to go ahead and push him on through that spot. Sure enough with some good pushing on the next contraction the heart rate went back to normal and stayed that way. I started out pushing in sort of a dangling squat from Read's knees, but ended up in more of an upright hands and knees position (kind of like a frog, but resting on my shins instead of my feet). Pushing was really hard work. I know a lot of women like to push and say that it feels good, but that wasn't really my experience. It was pretty uncomfortable and by the end I really felt like I was going to be split in half! I remember at one point Allison asked me why I was backing off of pushing, and I said "hurts!” She asked what hurt, and I said "baby head!" Everyone thought that was pretty funny. I was much more vocal than I was with Geren's birth but it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. Thankfully, I only had to push for about 40 minutes before it was over. Towards the end they had me feel the baby's head, and then I was really motivated to finish the job. Then finally I could feel him coming out, and Allison had me sit up a little and reach down and pick him up. I never thought that catching my own baby was something that interested me, but it was awesome and I'm really glad I got that chance. As I pulled him up out of the water I saw that it was a boy! We snuggled up close in the tub and they wrapped him in a towel and kept pouring warm water over us. We called Geren in to meet his new brother (he'd been playing in the other room with my Dad and mother-in-law the whole time) and he was pretty excited. He kept saying "baby come out this water!" (We'd told him beforehand that that was what the tub was for, that Mommy was going to push the baby out in the water.) We took some pictures and rested for a few minutes and then I got out to deliver the placenta. Read cut the umbilical cord, which surprised me since he tends to be a little squeamish. We both got checked over and were doing great. Read and I took some time by ourselves to decide on his name - Joshua Wade. Then they finished up with the newborn exam and such; he weighed in at 8 lbs 12 oz., was 20 inches long, and had a head circumference of 14 inches. He seemed so small compared to his big brother (9 lbs 7 oz., 22 inches)! Then we all settled into bed and had some dinner and much needed rest. The whole experience was just wonderful, although hard work. I would definitely do it again; in fact, I can't imagine ever birthing anywhere else. Welcome home, little Joshua.