My Home Birth Story: Delivering

I left you in part one of my Home Birth Story with my water breaking and things getting way more intense.

Intense is not even the right word.  After my water broke, it allowed (though really felt like it forced) the baby's head to start emerging.  There is no way to describe this pressure to someone who has never had a natural birth.  It was so intense, I actually screamed.  I am not a screamer in general.  I have a rather high pain tolerance, and I never thought that I would be during labor/birth.  However I had no other way to express the intensity of what was happening.  My midwife and her assistant encouraged me to use that "energy" I was letting escape from my mouth towards pushing out the baby.  I started pushing.  I felt like I couldn't, but I knew that I could and had to.  I ended up hanging on the tub, on my knees for delivery.  Soon my baby's head emerged and with another push, the rest of her slid out.  (No, there are no pictures of this.  Yes, I have them.  No, I am not posting these VERY personal and somewhat graphic pictures on my blog.)

It was nothing sort of amazing.  The relief from the pressure when she came out, the joy of birthing a child.  With in 30 seconds of her entering the world, the midwife had done a quick check, she started crying, I positioned myself and was holding my daughter.

 

The rest of what was needed to be done to her was done while she was on my chest.  Her APGAR scores were 8 and then 10.  She was perfect.  A healthy beautiful baby girl.  My husband got to cut the ambilical cord awhile later, while she was still on my chest.

 

Then we got to hang out together and bond for a bit.

 

 I then passed her off to my hubby to bond, so that he could hold his new baby girl.  While I delivered the placenta, then I got up and got to rest in bed for awhile and nurse her.  About an hour after I had her, I had showered, was resting in my bed, cuddling with my new baby girl.  Daddy got some good cuddle time in too!

We also did the new baby check, where we got to see her weight and make sure everything was good.  This is hubby holding up the portable newborn scale my midwife carries with her to weigh the new babies.  Pretty cool!

We invited family over about 3 hours after she was born, to meet her and hang out.  I was glad to have family, but since I had just given birth and only slept two hours the night before I was understandably exhausted.  I napped on and off, and enjoyed my family. 

This experience was so different than my last birthing experience.  It was amazing.  Honestly, after birth was so nice, I fell asleep and my midwife waited to do things until I was ready.  I wasn't woken up to get prodded unnecessarily. It was so peaceful, relaxing and wonderful.  Well as peaceful, relaxing and wonderful as a home birth can be.  Honestly, should we have any more kids, I would do a home birth again in a heart beat.  It was an absolutely amazing experience, one of the best of my life.  I would recommend it over a hospital for anyone who has a low risk pregnancy.  That being said, I am very open to questions about this, and would love to share more with you about this experience.  Please feel free to comment and ask questions, I will be as open as possible.

Cheers!

Ashley