Mica Is Born

I am posting this birth story as part of the Birth Story Carnival hosted by GreenStyleMom. If birth stories aren’t your thing, keep scrolling (and scrolling) for the other good stuff.

Here is the story of Mica’s unassisted homebirth.

Mica was born at home, into his papa’s hands, on October 25th at 2:03 PM.

I woke up at 1:30 AM the night before with deep, low contractions. They were about ten minutes apart, and I could sleep between them. A couple of hours later, I woke up Rom to tell him what was happening and not to go to work in the morning. We went down to the birth room and spent a little time together before we decided to go back to sleep. Toward dawn, I started timing the contractions again and could feel that something was happening. I got up and went to the bathroom and had a lot of bloody show. It was almost six in the morning.

I remember noticing that it felt better to get through the contractions standing rather than lying down, so I woke Rom up. We had breakfast, with me stopping for the contractions and pretty soon, things seemed to be going fast. We called for the tub and talked to Suzanne, our midwife. And then the sun came up, Orlando and my mom got up, the tub person and the midwife were on their way, and everything slowed way down, with the contractions spacing out and getting a bit more sporadic. We called our midwife back and asked her not to come. She told us that she was already on her way and would just pop in and then head for a nearby cafe.

Conveniently, I was upstairs when she arrived and she literally just said Hi to Rom and then went on her way. I stayed upstairs for a while — I hadn’t anticipated how distracting it would be for me to hear Orlando. But things stayed slow, and I began to feel discouraged. I asked Rom to stop timing the contractions. I also asked him to call the midwives and ask them to leave the cafe. I just felt like I wanted more space. He called and came back in the room. I told him, “It’s okay. You can just tell me they left, even if they didn’t.” He said they left and I could just tell he was telling the truth.

We decided to go for a walk. I think it was around 11 AM. We went four or five blocks to this little look-out park near our house. I had to stop for each contraction… Rom stood next to me. I remember hearing a car drive by and I thought, “Well, they’re seeing something interesting!” We walked real slow, and it was really wonderful to be in the park, in the weak fall sunshine with the leaves all around.

I think we got back about an hour later, and I am pretty sure (now) that I was already heading out to laborland, but I didn’t know it at the time. Rom later told me that the contractions were five minutes apart on the walk. I didn’t even know he was timing them.

Once we got home, I tried to eat a bit but couldn’t really. I felt pressure and like sitting on the toilet. I used a mirror to see if I could see anything. I didn’t see anything but sat back down. I closed my eyes and had this thought: “I trust you, Baby.” And then I had a really intense contraction with the first hint of pushing. Toward the end of that contraction, I heard Orlando upstairs with Grammy, “la-la-la-la BANG! Pause… Waaaah! I want to nurse some!” He had fallen down and hurt himself. He came in the bathroom, crying, and nursed. I could see how tired he was and suggested that he and Grammy go for a walk-nap. My mom asked when they should be back and I said with certainty, “In an hour.” (They left at 1 PM).

Right after they left, I wanted to go to the birth room. I was standing up, leaning on the birth ball and then I went through transition in one DOOZY of a contraction. I tore off my glasses and clothes, broke out in a sweat, my legs started shaking, and the contraction seemed to last an unusually long time. As it ended, I broke into tears and wept. I expected many more of the same, but only had two more small-ish contractions, where my legs shook and that was it. Rom was crying, too, and he said, “Honey, when you’re ready, let’s call the midwives.” I tried to talk to Suzanne but couldn’t really form any coherent sentences. I remember tossing the phone down and having another contraction.

I could feel my body pushing… But we had just called the midwives so I tried to “wait.” It was horrible to not push! Emotionally, physically, psychically horrible. I was starting to panic and trying to walk up and out of the contractions. It was impossible to not push.

I don’t remember if/what we actually said, but I remember Rom and I looking at each other. Finally, we both said YES to having this baby on our own! I climbed onto the bed on hands and knees and began humming/singing (or something!) through the pushes. The bag of waters came out, and then broke. I asked Rom what color the water was, though I could see that it had a bit of light meconium. And then I felt the baby’s head coming out in a long sustained contraction, and then I waited for him to turn his shoulders, and then he was out in another push.

Right into Rom’s hands! (He can’t get over how slippery he was!) And later we talked about how when the baby came out, his head was still in the bag of waters. We can’t believe it (and I intuitively knew it, since I had the urge to reach down and rub the baby’s face when he first came out, but I stopped myself)… Since the bag had already broken, he slipped through when he came the rest of the way out.

I climbed over and saw the baby, unwrapped the cord (it was around his neck twice) and Rom and I brought the child to my chest and covered him with a blanket. I held him and blew on his face. He started crying (and grunting). I was a little worried, but kept holding him and watching him as Rom ran around to get the suctioner thingy. Since the baby was making noise, I knew he was breathing, but we thought we should have it nearby.

My mom came in right as Rom was running around getting the suctioner-thing (exactly one hour after they left), though Orlando was still alseep in the stroller. And then the midwife came a few minutes after that. She watched the baby, and he cleared his lungs on his own. The baby started nuzzling the breast, and I birthed the placenta. We tried to wake Orlando for that, but he wouldn’t wake. He did wake up shortly after that, though, since he came in and nursed together with the baby. Then he saw the placenta, the cord-cutting, and the baby’s little toes. He kept saying, “He’s so tiny!!”

It was awesome to do the birth on our own, and equally awesome to have the midwives there to help us with clean-up.

Oh, some “stats” – he was 6 lbs 8 oz at birth and 21 inches long. We think he was born at 2:03! No one looked…

Read more about his name.

And a bit more about unassisted birth…
We considered doing this birth unassisted (planned home birth without a midwife). I first heard about that idea before I was even pregnant with Mica – and when I read about it, I was like, Hm, whatever. But then a few months later, I heard about it again and spent a few hours reading this website.

Once we got pregnant, Rom and I talked about it, though it was clear that Rom was not ready for the idea, and to be honest, I felt so overwhelmed with exhaustion and caring for Orlando, I just wanted someone to take care of me!

We found the most low-key, low-intervention midwife possible and had a very low-tech pregnancy (no screening, no tests, no ultrasounds, etc.). But as time went on and I started to feel more centered and strong in the pregnancy, I started to feel more interested in unassisted birth again. But it wasn’t until almost the end (last six weeke maybe) that I started to feel that way, and even later (the last few weeks before birth) until Rom and I talked honestly about it. A big catalyst was watching the movies A Clear Road to Birth and Birth Day. We felt like it was what we wanted, but we didn’t feel there was enough time left… We talked about how odd it was to be in this “in-between” state – to have a midwife but feel like doing it on our own.

But it turns out that the in-between state was just exactly where we were – and what we got! Unassisted birth but midwives right afterward… Interesting. Maybe it was an unconsciously unplanned unassisted birth after all!