My beautiful 3rd daughter was born April 16th at 10:19pm. She was suppose to be born at home but we ended up going into the hospital and she was born 20 minutes after we arrived. I had been in labor all day. Everything was fine, progressing normally. Labor was very similar to my 2nd daughter's labor who was born at home. I spent a lot of time in the shower and at about 8pm I was fully dilated and pushing some. At that point contractions were very intense. I was standing and trying to squat and my midwife said that I was tensing up too much and had very strong muscles. After a little while I asked the midwife to check to see if the baby was coming down at all. She found that my cervix had started to swell slightly and told me to stop pushing. Babies heart rate was also a little elevated. So, I decided to hop back into the shower to help me relax. After the shower baby's heart rate was in the 180's and I was having these contractions that seemed to not let up and some tenderness on one side of my uterus where the placenta was attached. Due to this the midwife thought it might be wise to go into the hospital in case there was a placental issue. I was worried about this as well. I am a homebirth midwife myself. So, we got into the car and drove to the hospital. The ride was horrendous. My contractions were so intense and I was basically screaming through them. My 14 year old DD and 5 year old DD were in the back seat. We went to a smaller hospital. They actually had no one else in labor. When they heard I was a homebirth transport we got some of the usual rolling of the eyes. Got into the room, the nurse wanted me to lay down so they could put the monitors on. I could not lay down because I was hurting so bad. So, they held the heart rate monitor up to me, got a reading, it was normal. By this time I was yelling for pain medicine. Not like me at all but I was so outside of myself at this point. The nurse checked me and said I was complete and to just push the baby out. I was yelling, I can't do this. My mom was with me and she had drug free births as well and she said, of course you can do this. I will push with you. So, I climbed onto the bed on hands and knees and held onto my husband who was in front of me and my mom stood beside me and she grunted and groaned through each contraction too, and three contractions my baby came. The nurse caught her. The doctor they called in had not even arrived yet. As soon as I felt her come out my midwife had the nurse pass the baby between my legs and I grabbed her up. We had no interventions. They waited to cut the cord until I instructed. The doctor arrived about 10 minutes after the birth. She was not even an OB which was awesome. She helped me with the placenta and we instructed them that we would take it home. Not a problem. They placed it in a bucket for us. The doctor did a quick exam of the baby. And we checked out of the hospital 2 hours later AMA and it was not a fight at all. The nurse actually laughed when she brought in the AMA paperwork because they had not even gotten me admitted to the hospital yet. And I walked out the door with my baby in my arms. I literally had walked in the hospital, they checked the baby's heart rate, I pushed her out, peed in their toilet and walked out. The only instrument we even used off the delivery cart was the scissors to cut the cord. I am not sure if the hospital was just shell shocked at me and did not know what to do with me or if the people working that night were generally respectful of people's choices.
So here is where I have mixed feelings. I so wanted my other 2 daughters to experience a beautiful homebirth. I of course had all of these day dreams in my head where I push my baby out in the bedroom she was created in and everything is serene and quiet. I did not think I would end up the screaming banchy who was yelling for pain meds at the end. This was my 3rd baby, I had never done that before so why did I act this way now? Both my girls did watch the birth and thought it was really neat. I am also not shy about my feelings on homebirth and I would tell anyone that would listen how my baby's are born at home and how it is so great etc. And now when people start asking how the birth went I can't tell them how she was born at home. I am now a homebirth transport and I feel like I will get the negative comments about how this is why people should not try to give birth at home.
I feel like my body would not relax and give up the baby. I was holding on so tight and clenching my muscles and she could not descend. Why did my body do that? And now I think if I could just go back and redo it, if I could have just relaxed and pushed she would have been born at home.
She is nursing great and I am enjoying her so much. I just want to cry over her birth though.
Lisa
So here is where I have mixed feelings. I so wanted my other 2 daughters to experience a beautiful homebirth. I of course had all of these day dreams in my head where I push my baby out in the bedroom she was created in and everything is serene and quiet. I did not think I would end up the screaming banchy who was yelling for pain meds at the end. This was my 3rd baby, I had never done that before so why did I act this way now? Both my girls did watch the birth and thought it was really neat. I am also not shy about my feelings on homebirth and I would tell anyone that would listen how my baby's are born at home and how it is so great etc. And now when people start asking how the birth went I can't tell them how she was born at home. I am now a homebirth transport and I feel like I will get the negative comments about how this is why people should not try to give birth at home.
I feel like my body would not relax and give up the baby. I was holding on so tight and clenching my muscles and she could not descend. Why did my body do that? And now I think if I could just go back and redo it, if I could have just relaxed and pushed she would have been born at home.
She is nursing great and I am enjoying her so much. I just want to cry over her birth though.
Lisa
