Grant's Birth Story

I suppose Grant's birth story began quite a while ago when we decided to have a home birth with our next child. When I discovered I was pregnant I already had an appointment made with a doctor's office. I kept it and they did the initial pregnancy bloodwork. I asked the midwife for referrals for other midwives who did homebirths, but she didn't have any names for me. I continued to go to this office while I searched for a midwife who would attend our homebirth. Having never hired a medical professional like this before I was a little nervous. I really wanted someone who came recommended and not just from an ad I found. There was another family at church who had done a homebirth, but their midwife was planning a trip right around when I was due, another midwife I heard of wasn't doing homebirths any more and only worked at the hospital.

During my search for a midwife my bloodwork results came back with some negative news. My thyroid hormone levels were off. This, I was afraid would make me too high risk to have a homebirth. At the endocrine's office it was discovered that I had a tumor on my thyroid. After a biopsy the Endocrine dr. said I would need further surgery to remove the tumor, but it could wait until after the baby was born, and my hormone levels, while outside of the normal range, weren't bad enough to need medicating and that I was a low risk pregnancy. Hooray!

Now I just needed to find a midwife. I was asking online friends and one who was a doula networked for me and found some recommendations from a doula near me. I interviewed the woman who was recommended and was happy with what I found. She was a CNM who had been attending births since I was born! She had a lot of experience and education, plus (and this was important to me) her voice was low and soothing. There is just no way I would want to have someone at my birth whose voice was high-pitched or annoying. So at just after 20 weeks I transferred my care.

There are several reasons for a person to choose homebirth for their birth. My reasons included: not having to drive anywhere while in labor; being able to avoid having random hospital personnel be part of our personal family event; being able to have a more supportive birth attendant, a midwife who I had chosen, who did the prenatal care and the delivery and wouldn't have someone else on call to cover her on the weekend or whenever I might deliver; be able to have the highest chance of a good outcome, since hospitals historically have more unnecessary interventions and issues from those interventions than homebirths.

The rest of the pregnancy progressed without incident. I had several of the normal pregnancy symptoms, but nothing out of the ordinary. We did have fun with not knowing the sex of our baby and having friends, family and random strangers guess (or knowingly inform us) the sex they guessed our baby was.

From 2009_08_29

This picture was taken four days before I gave birth. I had planned to have some pregnancy portraits taken, but my baby came before my appointment.

Tuesday night I woke up in the night with contractions. They would stop went I got up but would start again if I laid down. I ended up doing housework in the middle of the night. I had an appointment with my midwife the next day. She advised me to get a nap since she didn't want me to be too tired if I happened to have a baby later that night. I don't think she thought it was too likely though, since I was three weeks before my due date. I did go home and took a nap as soon as Gordon came home from work. That evening went on as normal, we had a curriculum night at school that I went to with Lily, after that Lily and I ran to Saver's to look for some stuff for her Halloween costume. I went to bed at the normal time.

I woke up at midnight with contractions again. I got up and tried walking around to see if they would go away again like they had the night before. They didn't with walking around and they were very intense already. I ran a bath to see if the contractions would ease in warm water, they still didn't stop. So I woke up Gordon and asked him to call my midwife. She was surprised to be hearing from us and was really surprised that we were calling her already after only 10 minutes of contractions. She talked to me a little bit and was concerned that it might be false labor again. But she said she'd come if I wanted her to check me, I said I did.

Labor progressed very quickly and Gordon was hurrying to finish gathering the supplies we needed from around the house. Gordon woke up Lily who had wanted to be present for the birth. He also called my visiting teacher to come. We wanted a friend to be present in case Lily needed support, or if we needed to transport to the hospital.

I stayed in the bathtub for the entire labor. The water didn't make the pain of the contractions go away. But it did help me to be more buoyant and able to move around easily as my body adjusted to the different pressures of labor. Gordon and Lily held my hand my midwife showed up around 12:50 and my visiting teacher showed up just after her. I started pushing very soon after my midwife had set up her equipment.

I pushed him out of my body at 1:20 a.m. after only being awake for an hour and 20 minutes. He was immediately handed up to me and draped with a towel. I was the one who discovered that we had a son first. Gordon and I were both stunned. We really didn't expect a boy. I think the warm water did help me to have a better delivery since this is the first time I didn't tear during the delivery. After the tub was drained I delivered the placenta then Grant and I moved to our bed.

My midwife checked Grant out while he was resting on me. He was given a gold star for health.

Grant being weighed.

From 2009_09_03

Lily and my visiting teacher

From 2009_09_03

My Midwife, Hilary Schlinger

From 2009_09_14

From 2009_09_03

The new boy!

From 2009_09_03

The big sisters meeting their new brother

From 2009_09_03

From 2009_09_03

From 2009_09_03

We are so happy with our new son/brother. The girls love him and love to have a turn holding him. It's nice to have a newborn to hold. We are still having very interrupted sleep, but love him regardless. :)