Random, but I thought I'd share it anyway

I belong to several online forums and I was recently asked to share my first home birth experience. I typed it out and got it posted when I decided I'd like to share it with everyone. My hope is that someone who may have thought about home birth or maybe someone who has hated their hospital experiences will be able to somehow be enlightened by anothers story. I hope you enjoy reading. Oh, don't worry....I won't post any pictures with this one!

A lot of things lead up to Sterling’s birth. My first two children were born in the hospital and those births were awful experiences. Of course I had all the interventions you can think of with both of them. The second one was so traumatic that I left the hospital in tears and a sever depression set in and lasted for months. I had also experienced "baby blues" with my first, but nothing like the depression with the second one. I feel very strongly that the experiences in the hospital led up to the emotional roller coaster I called life after their births, I say this, because with my next birth and the subsequence births, I experienced NOTHING of the sort, and they were all born at home. With the exception of Seth who was too early.

After my second was born, I knew that I could never give birth in a hospital again, but this was in 2001, and no one I knew did anything other than hospital births. If you had suggested I give birth at home I probably would have looked at you like you were nuts. As Sebastian grew older and we started talk of the next one coming, I started to really think about what my options were. I feel like things in our lives happen for a reason and we had chosen the "perfect" house to buy after our second was born, but before our next one was conceived. Little did I know that our perfect house came with perfect neighbors. My neighbor had three children and her youngest was three months younger than Sebastian and had been born at home. Of course I thought she was nuts. At first. Then I got pregnant. All of my feelings and emotions from the horrible hospital experiences came rushing back and I couldn't get enough information about home births. I borrowed every book and magazine she had about it. I was hooked. We planned it all out and then I confronted my husband. He didn't react like I was hoping. I started hoping the baby would come during the day and come really fast so I could "sneak" a home birth. Since he wasn't at all on board with the idea of having the baby at home, I decided that I should look for other options. I discovered a free standing birthing center in a neighboring town and decided that was the perfect compromise. I was thrilled! So the pregnancy continued and came to an end, as they always do. But this ending was so unexpected. Spencer decided he wanted no part of the birthing center and wanted to be born unassisted at home, after 50 minutes of labor. Remember, what you think about, you bring about. As crazy as the experience was, it was more amazing than crazy. My husband caught the baby and loved it so much that he immediately said the next one was as home, no questions asked.

When I got pregnant 18 months later, it was a no brainer. This baby was going to be born at home...planned this time. We sought out and found a midwife that we both liked and continued on with the pregnancy. On August 27, 2005, I woke up at 3:00am with contractions and called the midwife. She lived about an hour away, so it was important to call her as soon as labor started. As is the case with most "fast" labors, the contractions waste no time at all getting intense. I was able to talk and breath through the first hour or so, and then they started getting too strong to talk through, so I started really turning into myself and concentrating on my body and what it was doing. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I climbed onto my bed and sat with my knees up and my legs open. I was still having contractions, and still waiting for our midwife to get there. I didn't feel like pushing, but in my mind I thought it might feel better if I bore down a little during the contraction. I did that a couple of times and then told my husband what I was doing, so he looked to see if he could see anything. He said he could see everything opening up when I bore down, so I continued to bare down and started to push soon after. My husband soon saw the head and that got me really motivated to push. This was my forth baby and I had never pushed more than 10 minutes and usually they were out in two or three pushes. But this little (big) guy wanted to make an entrance I guess. I, at this point, am starting to scream, because I'm pushing and he's just not coming out. And then the fire came...for the first time ever, I experienced the "ring of fire" burning I had heard about. Man did it hurt. And it kept hurting. It did not stop with his 14.5" head but continued on with his 14.5" chest, stomach and butt. Yes, it took three more huge pushes after his head was out. At one point, I was yelling at my husband to PULL HIM OUT. I'm usually a silent person in labor, but this time I woke up the whole house. The boys came in just in time to see their little brother make his first appearance into the world. Oh, and that's about the time the midwife got there too. Just in time to help deliver the placenta, check out the baby and get home for breakfast. Sterling weighed in at 9.8lbs and was 21." It was an amazing experience. There is nothing like curling up in your own bed with your own little sweet newborn and being with your family in your own home. I wouldn't change that experience for anything in the world.