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Liam's Arrival By Eva-Marie |
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Birth Stories -
Homebirth Birth Stories
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Tuesday, 03 February 2009 08:13 |
Just to premise Liam's birth I should include some facts, my first birth was with a Registered midwife at home also and was approxiamately six hours from when I started contractions to the end of the delivery. My first son was born naturally with no tears and with minimal intervention, she had to break my water for me to reach a full ten centimeters. His daddy caught him.
Well, Liam was due on the second of September, his older brother Josiah's birthday is on the sixth of September, when I went over my worst fear was to have their birthdays closer together. Well I was a few days past and I was getting more and more anxious, I tried to get myself busy and not to just think about having the baby. He had dropped really low into my pelvis and I was beginning to think he was going to reach out and shake my hand.
My husband and I spent most of the day at our church as there was a barbeque that day. Late that night around 10:30p.m. my husband was falling asleep on the couch and I told him I was going to go to bed. I went to the washroom and discovered I had some bloody 'show'. I was sooo excited I remember running out and showing my husband, while exclaiming I'm going to go into labour. He said, 'That's great Eve do you want me to frame it?' I couldn't understand how he couldn't share in my excitement? He was very tired as he had been up since 4:00am. to do chores.
Anyhow, I tried to remain optimistic about how quickly things would progress, I paced (to keep things moving) as I called my midwife and my two friends Jody and Tracey who were going to attend the birth also. When I started to feel some mild contractions it was about 11:30p.m. and I called Jody to come as I knew it would take her 1/2 hr. to get here. My exhausted husband started to prepare things here and when Jody arrived at 12:00a.m.
We started to time the contractions, throughout the next hour they began to get closer together and at 1:00 a.m. they were 5 mins apart and we called Maggie our midwife. She kind of got lost and her cell phone died, but she did make it here at about 1:30, 1:45a.m.
By this time they were definitely started to come quickly and I had been in the bath tub a couple times, my husband's job was to rub my stomach with each contraction and if he forgot I reminded him. I remember thinking this was moving along faster than Josiah's birth but the contractions were much stronger. Maggie had Jeff inflate a birthing ball and this experience was new to me and I loved it. It really helped the baby move further down into the birth canal and was much more comfortable than just sitting or standing. I sat on it and rolled myself in a circular motion.
After I used it as much as I wanted to, Maggie asked if she could check my dilation, when she did she said I was almost dilated but the bag of water was bulging and kind of holding me back of dilating fully. She asked if I wanted to wait to see if it would break on it's own or if I'd like her to break it. I said I'd like her to break it and I knew at this point everything would pick up much faster and it did!
The contractions started coming almost one on top of the other (I should add this was the hardest part, but definitely the shortest part of my labour) it only lastest 10-15 mins.
I threw up, I knew I would like last time signaling to me I had reached 10 cm. At that point I got on our futon with my husband behind me, as he continued to rub my stomach with the contractions, as they got more intense I started to moan very deeply, I said I sounded like a cow dying.
I sat up a little more and I said I thought I might want to push, Maggie said 'You do whatever you feel,' and I started to push. With that first push I started to hear everyone say, 'The heads right there Eve' He was already starting to crown I couldn't believe it! I gave another push and the head came out and begin to rotate. Maggie asked if I would like to catch him as I said I might earlier. I said,'No, just get it out!' Nice eh?
I gave another two more pushes and he came out. They put him on my stomach and boy was he purple. His body began to pink up right away and he began to cry but his face remained purple, which was odd. To this day my midwife is not quite sure why it stayed like that. They said it was bruising, but thought it might be a birth mark. I'm happy to report a week later it's almost completely gone. We also noticed a knot in the cord that was produced during the delivery but that wouldn't have caused it necessarily also.
Anyhow, Liam Alfred Stephen weighed in at 8lbs 13 oz and was 21 inches long. He was born at 3:10 a.m. on September 6th,1999. It was labour day and also our first son's second birthday! It was a wonderful birth and I received the best care that I could ask for. I had no tears, thanks to the hot clothes and the midwife delivering the head slowly, as slow as she could. I was told to blow through the last contraction and that helped also. Liam's older brother woke up in the morning and was happy to meet his new baby brother.
If you have any qustions about this birth or midwifes or homebirths, please feel free to e-mail me at
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Sincerely, Eva-Marie Harden
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