My Pandemic (Home) Birth Story
I have written previously about our decision to switch from a hospital to a home birth while pregnant with our second child during the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. You can read that story here. This post recounts the story of the birth itself.
The day started like every other preggo Monday in quarantine — a bit of Bible reading and prayers, some light exercise, family breakfast, shower, and getting our toddler off to her in-home daycare so we could both start work at home. I was 39 weeks and 2 days along in my pregnancy.
We had enjoyed a restful, enjoyable weekend as a family. Across much of Sunday morning I had mild contractions every 10–15 minutes, and our toddler was treating me ‘oddly’ — laying across my big stomach (a first) and wanting extra snuggles. All this made me think Sunday might be the big day, but no! Since our first daughter waited until 42 weeks to make her arrival, I knew I had to be prepared to go a few more weeks. And, 7 weeks into quarantine, I also knew I needed to keep up what little routines we still had in order to stay sane.
So I started a load of laundry and dug into my work emails.
At 11:00am I emailed colleagues with an agenda for a 1:00pm meeting I was leading. Shortly thereafter I started having contractions, but since I’d been having mild contractions for weeks, I mostly ignored them. But around 11:30 I realized I needed to tune into them — I couldn’t ignore them, or keep working, and they were coming more regularly. I moved from the office to our bedroom to time a few contractions and try to rest. From the first contractions I started timing, they were coming every 3–4 minutes and lasting about 1.5 minutes. So around noon I texted my husband that he should wrap up his meeting and come upstairs.
It seemed likely it was go time.
After about 9 contractions at that cadence, we called our midwife as well as our doula. Both said they’d be at the house within 40 minutes. I also called my manager to let her know I would not in fact be attending the 1:00pm meeting, and asked her to lead it. Then we continued on, laying on an exercise ball as surges came. Our midwife’s birth assistant arrived first, about 12:35pm, and our doula and midwife both arrived by 1:00pm.
I labored until about 2:00pm in our bedroom with the exercise ball, with my husband or our doula applying counter pressure to my lower back for pain relief. Just after 2:00pm I moved to the birth pool the team had set up in our guest bedroom/office. The immediate and immense pain relief of being in water was incredible. I drank pineapple coconut water, bone broth, and water in between surges. The surges gradually intensified, and I realized I was probably in transition as I grew nauseous. Just before 3:00pm I asked for an exam, as I was curious how things were progressing (though of course it isn’t always or usually a helpful indicator; for example, I was 9cm for 9 hours with my first baby!).
I was almost 8cm.
Things were certainly moving along, but I tried to stay focused on getting through one contraction at a time.
By 3:45pm I felt a lot more pressure, lower, and the “I need to poop” feeling of the baby descending. My waters broke just after 4:00pm, when I was having intense contractions in which I was pushing at just the peak of the contraction. From there pushing intensified. My husband got in the pool with me and sat behind me, his body grounding me and providing support during the pushing.
I felt our daughter’s head emerging at 4:35pm, and she was born at 4:44pm, after a couple more pushes. She shot out and floated in the water for a few seconds before our midwife used one hand to gently guide her over to where I could pull her out of the water and onto my chest. What a peaceful and gentle entry into this world! She was covered in a thick layer of vernix, and also had lanugo.
It was incredible to have her on my chest and to hear her cry. Truly a joy and surge of all the positive feels unlike anything else in this life!
We stayed in the water enjoying her for just over 10 minutes, laughing, crying happy tears, singing to her, and telling her how much we loved her. I got out of the birth tub, delivered the placenta, and we moved into our bedroom.
We revelled in our precious new baby, essentially uninterrupted for an entire hour.
For my postpartum meal we ordered Shake Shack and had it delivered to our house — oh the wonders of modernity. I devoured my burger, fries, and chocolate shake, plus a beer I had specifically chosen for that moment.
We had informed our toddler’s caregiver we were in labor, so our daughter stayed a bit late and ate dinner there. My husband went to pick her up around 6:30pm, and we introduced her to her new sister when she arrived home. She was initially a little hesitant and somewhat overwhelmed both by the number of people in the house and the fact that they were all wearing masks. She was, however, very thrilled about eating fries and a shake in mom and dad’s bed! But overall she seemed excited to meet her baby sister. My husband then did her bedtime routine and got her settled for sleep.
Our midwife sat with us on our bed and chatted through the discharge instructions and follow-up plan — she would stop by the next day, and the birth assistant the day after. We snapped a selfie with the whole birth team, and everyone was gone by 8:30pm. The birth tub was fully taken down, everything cleaned up, garbage taken out, and laundry started!
Then my husband and I collapsed for night of sleep, in our own bed. No monitors, no one coming in and out of our room, no beeping, no fluorescent lights, just home sweet home.
I could (and may) write an entire post comparing my experiences with a hospital and a home birth. But suffice it to say, our home birth was a peaceful, empowering, encouraging, and joyful experience. Perhaps especially so given the chaos and uncertainty swirling in the pandemic world generally, and in hospitals specifically.
While I hadn’t initially planned on having a home birth, I am deeply grateful that it is now a part of our — and her — story.
