When I first got pregnant I thought very narrow
mindedly. I thought I would go to my doctor appointments every week, have a
hospital birth and that would be it. Boy, was I wrong. My husband really didn't
want me to have a hospital birth because he knew I wouldn't enjoy everyone
looking at me, checking me all the time and I would be restrained. So, he
decided to persuade me into a homebirth by doing research and telling me about
how wonderful a homebirth could be. He threw facts at me like c-sections are on
the rise, I wouldn't be able to do what I wanted during delivery (especially
since we would have delivered at a military hospital... where it's your way or
no way), and I wouldn't have my thoughts and concerns taken into consideration.
He also pointed out to me that we had friends that had delivered at this
specific hospital and the hospital is now being sued for putting their infants
into cardiac arrest. I think that was the final deciding factor that we would do
our birth at home, and have it the way we wanted it.
After that, it was all up to the night of
delivery. I had been 13 days over due and I was getting cranky and tired of
being pregnant. Who wouldn't? Then the afternoon of July 20, 2000 I started to
feel braxton hicks contractions. I was hoping that this would be it. So that
night when my husband got home we went for a walk around Walmart that took a
couple hours and helped the contractions increase. Then when we got home I
wanted to go for another walk. I had energy then and I wanted this walking to
work and push things along. So after we arrived home I knew this baby was going
to come one way or another. We prepared by putting extra sheets on our bed and
painter sheets around the bed to catch any blood. At about 10 pm that night the
contractions started and about an hour after that the head appeared, yet I was
having so much trouble getting our little baby out.
My
husband called a near by midwife to ask her what to do after I had been pushing
for 4 hours. She said to have me switch positions and squat. Well my husband
convinced me to move off the bed and try to get into a squatting position, but
as soon as I tried I had one more contraction and our beautiful baby girl came
sliding out like on a water slide. I fell back on to the bed so relieved! In all
it took 4 1/2 hours and we were blessed with a new baby.
This is such an amazing thing to us that we were
able to do a home birth on our own and not have the baby rushed away right away
after delivery like in a hospital. We look back on this moment all the time and
cannot believe we delivered a child all on our own. It's something we will
always be proud of.
Heart and Hands : A Midwifes Guide to Pregnancy and Birth
by Elizabeth Davis
Amazon.com
Elizabeth Davis's Heart and Hands, though subtitled A
Midwife's Guide to Pregnancy and Birth, is not just for
midwives. It's an excellent and thorough resource for
parents-to-be who are thinking about delivering their child with a
midwife, or who are concerned about the medical establishment's
over-control of birth. (Two previous editions sold more than
100,000 copies and there are nowhere near 100,000 midwives or
midwifery students to buy this book, proving that parents-to-be
have looked to... read
more»
Revised edition (December 1997)
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My
husband called a near by midwife to ask her what to do after I had been pushing
for 4 hours. She said to have me switch positions and squat. Well my husband
convinced me to move off the bed and try to get into a squatting position, but
as soon as I tried I had one more contraction and our beautiful baby girl came
sliding out like on a water slide. I fell back on to the bed so relieved! In all
it took 4 1/2 hours and we were blessed with a new baby.
