A little bit of background information first...

This was my fourth homebirth. My first birth was in a hospital and lasted 16 hours, I had to fight the whole time to stay out of the OR, as they wanted to do a C-section as soon as I came in because he was a big baby. My second birth lasted 30 minutes and the midwife got there 7 minutes before he was born. My third birth was another 30 minute one, midwife was there in plenty of time. My fourth birth was 6 hours, and was wonderful, I was calm and in control the whole time. Before I went into labor I was 5cm dilated, completely effaced, and my cervix was anterior, so more than half of my work was already done. I was really expecting to have a short labor, and that was what I was mentally prepared for. I was also not expecting the midwife to be there. For some reason every time I pictured my birth, she wasn't there, neither was my husband. For the first time I was okay with the thought of her not being there, I wasn't scared or anxious. For all of my other births the thought of being alone terrified me.

I went into labor at 7:30pm on Thursday evening. As much as I was not looking forward to labor, I was so excited because I just knew that I would have my baby in my arms before morning. (Ha Ha!) Contractions were consistently 10-13 minutes apart. I went ahead and called my midwife around 9:30 to give her the heads up. We talked about the possibility that it was false labor since things were spaced so far out. In my heart though I knew that this was it. The midwife told me to call her back when there was change. At about 2:00am the intensity picked up to where I knew there was no chance it was false labor, but contractions were still 10-13 minutes apart. I called the midwife and she told me to walk around for 30 minutes and call her back. I did what she told me and nothing changed, so I called her back. She told me to go lay back down and try to doze in between the contractions and just rest. I was really hoping she would come out and jump start the labor for me, I was ready to be finished and have my baby. I didn't know at the time that she had another mom (a first timer) in labor too.

I lay in bed on my side all night, not able to rest, and finally, it was 6am. I woke up Ryan and asked him to call our friend to come and get the children. He got everyone dressed and fed breakfast while I stayed in bed and tried to rest. My midwife called at 8:30 and told me she was at another birth. She said that she really thought she would be done by noon. At this point I really didn't know if I was going to make it until then. I was so exhausted, and I wanted to be done. I honestly felt a little abandoned.

At around 10:30 the intensity kicked up another notch, it was getting harder and harder to breath through the contractions. I called back the midwife and let her know what was happening. She said that the other baby had just been born, and she needed to get the mom cleaned up and make sure that everyone was safe before she could leave. Again, I felt so discouraged.

I stayed laying in bed, I figured this would keep things slower than being upright and letting gravity take over. Ryan started getting the living room set up for the birth and would come and check on me occasionally. I don't think he realized at this point how close I was. I was still being completely silent through contractions. He knew that things were getting more serious though.

At 11:50 I called the midwife back and I told her the contractions were around 8 minutes apart now, but that they were very intense. I got the feeling she really wasn't taking them seriously because they were so far apart, but in hindsight I know that she understood exactly what was going on. She was just trying to keep me calm. She said she would be leaving in 30 minutes. I asked her if she could leave sooner, and she said if she hurried she could leave in 20, but she had to make sure the other mom was safe.

At that point I knew that I was on my own, there was no way she would make it, because it was at least a 40 minute drive. After the next contraction where I felt the urge to bear down I asked Ryan to help me into the living room. We moved as quickly as I could, but as soon as I stood up it felt like an earthquake. I got into the living room and started following the instructions that the midwife had given us for if she wasn't there.

She had instructed me to be on hands and knees until I felt the urge to push at the beginning of a contraction. Once I needed to push at the beginning of a contraction I was to go into a low squatting position paying attention to how much room there was between me and the floor. We were to pad the flood with some towels. I asked Ryan to hold the hand mirror for me so that I could see what was happening, but we couldn't get the position right, so I told him that I needed him to be my eyes and tell me exactly what was happening so that I would know what to do. He was also in charge of getting the cord off of her neck. 4 out of 5 of my babies have had the cord around their necks, so I was anticipating this.

I started feeling the urge to push so I went slow and when it started to sting I blew. Ryan did a great job telling me exactly what was coming out when. My water broke about ten seconds before she crowned. When her head was out he got the cord off of her neck, it was around her neck twice. And then I guided her out onto the towels the rest of the way. We turned her over onto her tummy to rub her down as instructed. Ryan is so smart, he had seen the midwife put the heating pad under a towel for all of the other births, so when he did that when he was setting the area up. We put the baby on the nice warm towel while we rubbed the vernix off of her body. She started crying within seconds, and we were so excited. Ryan called the midwife to let her know that she was here, and she instructed us to have me sit down and put the baby up on my chest and to keep us warm, have me drink something, and not do anything with the placenta.

About ten minutes later I told Ryan I wanted to deliver the placenta because I was getting crampy. He called back the midwife and she told him what to have me do.

Ryan did such an amazing job of helping me. He took the initiative when I needed him to, but also let me handle what I wanted to handle. He knew that I wanted more than anything to deliver this baby myself. Even had the midwife been there I was planning on catching the baby. He struck the perfect balance of being there and supporting me, but not taking over, which I really appreciate. He was so calm the whole time, and acted as though he did this sort of thing every day. I didn't have to worry about him loosing his cool or being panicky. It was so great, he was the perfect support.

The midwife got there about 40 minutes after the birth and the first thing she said when she walked in was "I am so PROUD of you guys!" Everything checked out really well. She helped me get cleaned up, and got my herb bath going. She weighed Hosanna and she was 8lb 12oz. and 20 inches long.

Although while I was in labor I was genuinely annoyed that the midwife wasn't going to be at the birth, now I am so glad that we flew solo. It's hard to explain, but the experience between me and Ryan was almost romantic. I'm so glad that I didn't miss out on that. I'm not going to go and plan an unassisted birth for the next one or anything, but if she doesn't make it again, we'll be just fine.

While I was going through the labor that was really frustrating I just kept thinking to myself, "Natural childbirth is so over-rated. I am so over this. I am just going to go to the hospital and ask for a c-section. This is dumb." I never said any of this out loud, but it was constantly going through my head. After the birth I told Ryan and he didn't believe me at first, lol. I was in a really funny place during this labor. But it all turned out so well, and I'm really glad that it turned out the way it did.

You can read more from me at my Baby Care site.