I was pregnant with my 2nd child as my father was dying of cancer, and I was planning my first homebirth. We were living in a rental house on NE 33rd, across from Grant Park, and I was doing childcare for a living. This was to be the first child of my husband, and my son was 7 years old. We found wonderful midwives, and were excited for our baby despite the stress of dealing with my father's progressing illness.
I was 41 weeks pregnant, and my SIL came to town with her two year old (to help care for my son during labor), we went out to dinner at Old Wives Tales and as we were leaving, I had my first contraction. Then, as I stepped out of the car to go into my house, my water broke. Excited, I went upstairs to change out of my wet pants, and there was the mucus plug, and then I had diarrhea. I called my midwives, but told them not to hurry (I ALWAYS worry that midwives will be sitting around waiting and I will be inconveniencing them!) and I walked up and down my stairs for about an hour...my SIL left to a hotel with my son (having OCD, he opted not to be home for the birth, and my husband was clear that he wanted it to be "just us" anyway) and my midwives arrived. I lit candles, put on music, showered, and got into the birth tub and labored with my dh behind me, and after about 10-12 contractions I just wanted to be out of the tub (I was too hot), so I got out and onto my bed, but that wasn't feeling good either, even though I was actively pushing by this time. So I sat on the birth stool and things happened very fast, the head was out, I was panting, and then the chest and body, wow, relief! And then my husband was crying, and I asked what the gender was, and my midwife said "I think I saw balls" and indeed he was a boy, Seth Obsidian, 9 lbs., 2oz. at 2:09am on August 14th, 1999, after 3-4 hours of labor total, and I was so happy not to have torn at all. I felt great, like I could go out for a hike right then. Instead I took a shower and snuggled in bed with my baby and husband. This was such a healing experience for me, the perfect homebirth, after my history of sexual abuse, c-section, and hospital birth trauma, I NEEDED this birth. Only 5 days after my baby was born my father died, the last of my living relatives, and I became an orphan at 28 years old. When Seth was only 10 days old we flew down to LA for the memorial and started the long process of going through my dad's house and posessions, and grieving, I'm so very sad that my dad never got to see the baby, or the next two....
We moved to Ojai, CA when I was pregnant with my third child, and had no idea that we'd have to go "underground" to have a homebirth...because of my prior c-section I wasn't "allowed" to have a homebirth in California, but we found a midwife who was willing to take us, secretly. Even though I had already had a hospital VBAC AND a homebirth ("proving my uterine scar) they still wanted me to birth in a hospital with continuos IV, monitoring, etc.
At almost 43 weeks gestation, and after countless unsuccessful attempts to induce labor, I decided to stop obsessing on the birth, and clean my house instead...I started having contractions while doing the dishes and called the midwife but told her not to rush and then started having REALLY strong contractions, told my husband to fill the tub, the things happened really fast - got in the shower, water broke, baby dropped with a "thunk", I got out of the shower because I thought I needed to poo, made it to the toilet, felt the baby crowning, YELLED for my husband to bring the birth stool and a chux pad, he rushed in and I made it over to the stool with his help and the baby came out, without even one push, right into his hands and he lifted her to my arms...I had a GIRL! My own girl. Sara Kate was born at 12:26pm on July 31, 2001. She cried right away and my midwife walked in to see us all sitting in the bathroom and she got the basin for the placenta and then we moved to the bed and she started pounding on my belly and gave me a shot of pit, and then more pounding, all without telling me why she was doing this and I was crying and begging her to stop and finally she left, and then the photographer arrived, as did the friend we had asked to come and be with our son at the birth, they were amazed that they missed it all12. The whole thing, from start to finish, was just 40 minutes. Everyone had lunch and we made the calls to my husband's family and our friends. Later that night my husband and 2 year old Seth took a bath in the filled but never used AquaDoula birth tub, and in the dats that followed I learned how to tandem nurse while having afterpains that put my labor contractions to shame, oh, I practically cried for an epidural for those afterpains!
My fourth child was also born at home, with my 3 and 5 year olds present, this time a waterbirth, after 3-4 hours of labor...again, I didn't want to call the midwives for fear that I wasn't really close enough, but they ended up arriving about an hour before the birth. I already knew what to do at this point, my body automatically made that low moaning sound that I had to be coached on during my first homebirth, and I was dealing with the contractions really well. My daughter, then 3.5 years, had watched MANY birth videos and at some point asked to get in the tub with me...I glanced up at the midwife and saw her look of disapproval, so I said "no" even though I wanted to say yes - I wanted my midwife's approval more I guess - it's a decision I still regret. My daughter started to cry and I tried to empathize with her and comfort her and hug her over the side of the tub while dealing with the hardest part of my labor (transition). She was so tired and upset and probably sensed that my "no" was uncertain too...I heard one of the midwives say "we need to get this over with" and so I started pushing and gave birth fairly quickly and quite painfully (as opposed to the others), to my 8 lb. son under the water. Jacob Orion was born at 6:14pm on December 17th, 2004. He wasn't breathing at all, just seemed to me to be sleeping actually, so they sent the kids out and gave him some oxygen, and he started up right away. Then we moved over to the couch and I pushed out the placenta and we called the kids back in to cut the cord and as we were admiring the baby we noticed that he had 6 fingers on each hand and 6 toes on each foot. At first, I was quite amused, I thought it had to have some spiritual significance or something- I was wondering how he would learn to count and joked about the metric system and saying "gimmee six!", etc. and then I saw the look on my midwives' faces, they were very concerned because polydactyly is often the sign of a much more severe defect, often a heart defect, and they needed to give him a complete exam, but they still didn't say anything to me, didn't really know what to do or say I think because they had never had this kind of case before. When my midwife checked me afterwards she said I didn't tear at all (she actually said "you could practically have sex tonight" which was kind of weird). I started to cry about my son, wondering if he would live, wanting reassurance he would be OK, and the midwives left, without really saying much at all to reassure me. I was up all night, researching on the internet, having terrible afterpains, holding my newborn son to my chest, bleeding through my pants down to the floor, and feeling very alone, and this started a downward spiral of questions, research, tests that I didn't want him subjected to, worry, severe postpartum depression, surgeries, and deep wounds to my marriage and all of my other relationships...
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