Liesl's Homebirth Story (written by Meg)
I was starting to feel really ready for my baby to arrive. It felt like it was almost time. Around the end of the week, I started having some real contractions – irregular, but promising. They were strong enough to feel like they were getting some real work done, and it was exciting to feel like my body was getting ready to give birth.
On Wednesday evening, I told Thom that if I didn’t already have a baby by Saturday, I wanted to hike up Mt. Sugarloaf (a small mountain with a great view near our home). This baby had been all over the place the last few weeks, and I had a feeling that a good, rocky, uneven hike might just jostle that little body into position. So on Saturday morning, I woke Thom and told him to pack some snacks and water. I think he was a little surprised that I was serious, but I was feeling very determined.
I was having some fairly intense contractions in the car on the way there. I was starting to “go away” when they came—spacing out and focusing on the sensation. We hiked up the mountain pretty fast. I was pausing now and then to have a contraction, but generally moving very quickly. It was a beautiful morning, everything glistening with the dampness of the snowmelt, and little rivulets of water streaming down the rocks on the side of the path. Fiddleheads were poking up through rich loam, and a woodpecker was hard at work overhead. The world felt vital, rich with newness.
At the top, we took a bunch of pictures, thinking these just might be the last photos we got of my gigantic, ripe belly. I did a bunch of lunges and squats to further encourage the baby to descend. Eventually, we ambled down and went into town for a big lunch. I was having contractions intermittently all this time, but they were gentle and not picking up at all. When we got home, I put myself down for a nap
.
That evening we had arranged for our friends Megan & Ben to come be with Aviva so Thom and I could go out for dinner to celebrate my birthday, which was the next day (Sunday). I was feeling great. We went to a lovely small restaurant, and I had a glass of wine to see if that might relax me enough to let things get going a little bit more. The contractions started to pick up, and Thom really started to notice them. Now I was stopping mid-sentence when they came on, and I could feel myself becoming very distant. There happened to be a gigantic clock just across from where I was sitting, and I noticed that they were coming quite regularly now. I kept imagining hot sunlight pouring through my pelvis and smiling. It was really a beautiful sensation.
By the time we finished dinner, Thom was starting to get nervous, but I felt wonderful, and I was not to be deterred from having a birthday dessert at my favorite dessert place. I had to keep pausing to experience the contractions on the way there, and Thom was laughing and shaking his head at my determination, but I was thoroughly enjoying myself and was so excited about the sensations of my baby starting to make her way towards my arms.
When we got home, I still wasn’t sure whether the baby would come that night, so I didn’t say anything to Megan and Ben. I brewed an extra-strong infusion of raspberry leaf and told Thom that if things really started cooking, he should bring it to me and remind me to drink it. “Anything else?” he asked. I think my preternatural calm was making him a little nervous. But there was nothing else; only to try to get some sleep. I called my midwife to give her a heads-up, but I certainly didn’t need her there at that point.
I slept for maybe twenty minutes before I was awakened by an especially intense contraction. From then on, I could sleep in little spurts between them, but certainly not through them. I started having to get up quickly onto my hands and knees when I felt a surge coming over me. Being in this position and rocking my hips back and forth was helping me to integrate the increasingly overpowering sensations. Soon I was also having to vocalize during each one, a very low “Oooooooh” sound (which Thom slept right through). The surges were getting considerably more intense, and I had to remind myself to surrender to them and let them do their work. I felt very strong. In my labor with Aviva, I hadn’t wanted to be alone at all, and really needed the support of my midwives to feel like I could manage. This time, I was feeling very glad to be laboring alone, glad that Thom was sleeping undisturbed beside me. I was surprised to find myself thinking that if no one woke up, I could easily do this alone and birth my baby.
During this time, I was going back and forth frequently to the bathroom, keeping my bladder empty and taking the opportunity to do some squatting on the bathroom floor. I felt like I could make more noise in the bathroom without worrying about waking Thom up, and I appreciated the occasional walk across the apartment and change of scenery.
Eventually, I could no longer sleep at all between contractions because they were coming too quickly. At this point, I was tempted to stop trying to rest and spend my energy on trying to get things moving a little more, but I was having a hard time evaluating where I was in the process of labor, and decided to call my midwife, Beth, for advice. It was about 3am. “Keep trying to sleep,” she advised. “Don’t give labor any more energy than you absolutely have to.”
I tried to go back to bed. Thom had awakened now, and Aviva was stirring in the next room. I sent him to be with her and tried to heed Beth’s advice. It soon became obvious that to sleep was an entirely futile effort, and at that point I made a conscious decision to try to get things going even more. I moved into the living room and knelt over my birth ball (that hands-and knees position was essential to my well-being) and started moaning “Ooooopeeeeeen….” during the contractions. Pretty soon, Aviva was awake and beside me, wanting sweetly to help. I loved seeing her and hugging her, but with her presence, I felt some of the intensity I had built slipping away a little. I asked Thom to call Megan and have her come over. We had arranged that she would come during the birth to be Aviva’s “person”. Since she was pregnant with her first baby herself, I felt glad to be able to share a little of the birth experience with her.
Thom called Beth again at this point, too. I still didn’t need her there, so Thom told her to make her way over… but slowly. It was about 5am.
With Aviva well cared-for by Megan, Thom came to be with me. It was clear that my baby would arrive soon, and I was eager now to ratchet up the intensity as much as possible. I found that my beloved hands-and-knees kept the contractions strongest, so I kept to that position. I had to work hard at relaxing my shoulders and pelvis, which wanted to tense up with the contractions, but if I just remembered to consciously do it, I was able to release them. Even though I’d always thought Ina May was crazy to suggest it, I felt inspired to try out her famous “make out with your husband” prescription, and I’ll admit that it did heat things up a bit more.
I felt so happy that things were really cooking now, and I kept saying, “Oh, I’m do glad to be doing this! I can’t wait to meet my baby!” I was happy to be laboring, at last.
I went to the bathroom, and discovered that sitting on the toilet really ramped up the intensity a few more notches, so I stayed there. “It’s harder here,” I said to Thom, “This is good.” The sensations were becoming really hard to bear, which I took as a good sign. When I heard myself start to scream during one of the contractions, I quickly lowered my tones… but I felt pretty sure that that meant I was approaching, or in, transition. Still, I wasn’t sure. I was so completely lucid between contractions that I had my doubts. In my labor with Aviva, I was far away in “labor-land” by this time, and I wondered if I could really be as far along as I seemed to be if I was still so present and rational.
Thom didn’t really have any doubts, and called Beth one more time to tell her to go ahead and hurry. He got her husband on the phone: she was already on her way.
At some point, I blurted out, “the raspberry leaf infusion! Bring it to me!” and downed it in a few gulps. The contractions were extremely intense and very hard to manage. I was struggling to integrate the sensations, and working very hard not to tense every muscle in my body and scream when they came over me. I wanted desperately to get through this and into the work of pushing, which I had really enjoyed with Aviva. Thom sat with me and reassured me a bit. I was very glad to have his calm presence there with me.
In the midst of this, at about 7am, Beth walked in. The timing was good: I was very grateful for an experienced female voice to tell me that I was doing it, and to reassure me that this work was helping me make progress. She could tell I was impatient to get to pushing, and she reminded me to just be present with the work that I was doing now. I felt better able to stay calm during the contractions after she arrived, and very soon I began to feel grunty pushing sensations at the tops of the contractions. This hurt tremendously, but I remembered the sensation well from my first birth, and I knew it meant there was just a tiny bit of cervix left to move.
I heard Beth telling Thom to go get the tub, which we had never gotten around to filling. (It was still on the front porch.) It was a 100-gallon tub, and dragging it in and filling it at this late hour seemed pretty far-fetched. But I wasn’t sure how close I was, and anyway, there was no way I could speak in that moment.
After a few more of these grunty, painful contractions, a really massive contraction came over me, and my body pushed mightily. I heard myself roaring and felt my baby moving downward, and I began to stand up, trying to figure out whether there was time to get down on all fours, as I had hoped to do to birth this baby. I could hear Beth yelling, “Thom! THOM!” I kept thinking there would be a pause in the pushing; the “ring of fire” of crowning; a head. But suddenly, there she was, between my legs. Not just her head—her entire little vernix-covered body. (It was a good thing Beth was there to catch her, because I wouldn’t have!) I was flabbergasted. This child arrived with just one massive push. She never stopped or even rotated on her way out. Her papa and sister missed her glorious entrance. It was 7:20am on April 27th—my 27th birthday, and now my daughter’s birthday, too.
As soon as I saw her, I knew she was a girl and I thought her name was Liesl (though we wouldn’t decide on that for sure for a few days). I couldn’t stop exclaiming that she had arrived, that she was perfect, that I was SO GLAD that she was born. I just couldn’t believe it.
She was pink all over and began breathing right away. She cried just a bit and then just looked calmly around. She had a short cord, so I couldn’t get her much higher than my thighs. A few minutes after her birth, our other midwife, Jenn, arrived and brought in some blankets, and I moved to a chair. Megan and Aviva, having heard my roar and then the little cries, came in to see her. The placenta wasn’t coming yet, so Jenn and Beth helped me to move to my bed to rest. The cord had stopped pulsing (it had been about 20 minutes) and I was eager to offer her my breast, so we decided to cut the cord so that I could bring her up high enough to do so. Thom cut the cord while Aviva looked on intently. Liesl nursed eagerly. She took to it beautifully.
At this point, I was eager to birth the placenta so I could settle into bed for a nap. Beth helped me into a squatting position, and it came out easily. I was bleeding a bit, and Beth looked a tiny bit concerned. She said to me, joking, “Ok, you can stop bleeding now.” Then she looked down, looked back to me, and said, “Thanks.” I had stopped, just like that. Beth then helped me to get warmly dressed (I had the shakes), and tucked us into bed. In spite of Liesl’s remarkably forceful emergence, I didn’t have any tearing at all.
Aviva asked if she could go to Megan’s house, and Thom and I settled into bed with our beautiful new baby for a long nap.
It was absolutely lovely. Welcome, baby girl.
