This first week of July is National Unassisted Homebirth Week.   An “unassisted” birth is a birth that is not attended by a doctor or midwife.  We have had three unassisted home waterbirths (‘though I am not a fan of the phrasing, as I had the “assistance” of my husband and, more importantly, the God who created my babies!).  In honor of the occasion, I am going to share Livia’s birth story.

(If you’re not into that sort of thing, don’t worry about it.  I’m not much for reading birth stories, either.  But I know a lot of women love to read them!  If that’s not you, I’ll “see” you next week. 😉 Some of you who know me “in real life” will not want to read this because it’s personal!)

Livia’s birth was a little different from the others, as she ended up breech at delivery.  (I don’t believe I have ever posted Ariel’s or Sophia’s birth stories.  Maybe next year for Unassisted Homebirth Week. 🙂 )

I woke up in labor at about 4:40 a.m. Contractions were about 8 minutes-ish apart, I think – for about the first three contractions or so. (Just long enough for me to be confident that, yes, this is real labor, so my hubby could get prepared. And to post on Facebook! lol) Then they almost immediately moved to around 2 minutes apart, and continued this way ’til around 6:30. During this part of labor, I don’t find the contractions too bad. They’re intense, but they’re not really what I would call really painful. I mostly walk around, pausing when the contractions hit and just moving – I found myself sort of rocking/swaying back and forth like you do when you’re carrying a (post-birth) baby around. Somewhere around 6:30, I think the contractions moved to about a minute apart, and I felt like I was in transition. The overall feel of the contractions changes at that point – it’s as if they come from deeper down or something, and I start to feel sort of shaky or nauseated. And I start to wish I could just back out of the whole process. 😉 So by now I had parked myself in the bathroom, and was debating whether I wanted to get in the tub or not. At about 6:40, my water broke. It sort of looked and sounded as though we’d thrown a water balloon at the floor – it just kind of “exploded.” After that, I went ahead and got into the bathtub.

Everything from just before my water broke ’til after the baby was born happened in quick enough succession that it mostly runs together in my head. I think I found myself pushing right after getting into the tub, and I vaguely remember thinking, “Am I pushing? Why am I already pushing? I didn’t feel the baby descend yet.” (When my second daughter was born, I could feel her, between contractions, move down into the birth canal.) A moment later, I felt the “ring of fire,” and I was screaming. (The actual birthing part of the process is where I tend to really loud, and it’s screaming, rather than nice, earthy gutteral noises.) Hubby was acting confused, as he hadn’t seen a head yet and was trying to look and see if she was crowning, but I assured him that I didn’t need him to verify anything; I could feel the baby! I kept expecting, though, at any moment, for the head to finish slipping out so that ring of fire would go away, and it wasn’t going away. Then hubby said, “The baby is coming butt first; what do I do?!” It felt like he was pushing up on her butt (apparently he wasn’t; I don’t know if I felt her moving around, or what), so I said, “it’s fine. Just don’t push!” About this same time, I felt wiggling inside the birth canal – a hand or a leg kicking/wriggling/something, and then another immediate push or two, and she was out. Michael remembers seeing one leg out, but we don’t think she came out foot-first; from what I felt and he saw, we think she came out butt-first, and then unfolded one leg just before the other. It may even have been that foot unfolding that felt like “kicking” inside of me. There was very little delay, though, between her butt being out, and her head delivering. It took longer, and a bit more physical effort, to get her body out than her head would’ve taken, I think, because it was wider, overall, but once her bottom half was out, her head followed without any trouble.

Hubby lifted her out of the water, and she was so still and quiet that I asked, “Is he breathing?” (I wasn’t panicked or anything. It was a calm question. But the baby was so quiet, I couldn’t tell.) He said, “It’s a girl. And I think she’s asleep.” Sure enough, he turned her over sideways so I could see her face, and she was serenely asleep. (But, yes, she was breathing!)  Then she coughed and sputtered a bit and woke herself up. We held her with her head a little lower than the rest of her to help her get her lungs mostly cleared, and then he helped me out of the tub. A few minutes later, the placenta delivered, and then I sat there and nursed the baby for a little while until we were ready to go get her cleaned up, at which point we cut the cord.

We forgot to look at the clock immediately, but looking back a few minutes later, we think she was born right at 6:55. Poor baby had a pretty good bruise on her butt cheek, and she was a little rattly for the first little while, but otherwise, she and I were both in good shape.  Our chiropractor came over when the baby was about 3-1/2 hours old, and adjusted her and listened to her bowels and lungs, checked her joints, etc. (This ended up being really reassuring, as the baby struggled with some congestion on and off for about the first 24 hours, but we knew she was okay because we’d already been told that her lungs were clear. In hindsight, I think Sophia had the same difficulty with congestion for her first day – I’m wondering if they didn’t get as much of the junk squeezed out of them during the birth process because they were born so fast.)