Birth Story of the Week- Forest + Bennett

This week Forest shares his perspective of their peaceful home birth. I'll be here swooning over how he describes her after just giving birth. I encourage all my clients to write down their experience very shortly after the birth while things are fresh and then share with each other. It's amazing to hear the events told through different eyes.  Check out Stephanie's story here

 Thank you for your submission!!

************************************************************************

In the days leading up to the due date I found myself thinking about how the particular day felt. Did this day feel any different? What would the day of my child's’ birth feel like?

On the evening of January 3rd I went about my normal routine, getting ready for the next work day. When I finally got myself into bed around 10:30 or 11:00 I had no idea that 2 hours later I would be helping Stephanie through contractions.

Stephanie woke me up around 1:20am January 4th. She had been awake for an hour and a half or so with what she thought might have been braxton-hicks, practice contractions. She came to the conclusion that her contractions were possibly not braxton-hicks. I was already suspicious that I would not be going back to sleep that morning and I began to feel a sleepy excitement through my body.

After a quick few questions, I removed myself from bed to join Stephanie downstairs where we had a short conversation about her contractions. She brought to my attention, an app on her phone with which she had been tracking her contractions.

 

The app showed that Stephs contractions were 30-45 seconds long and 2-3 minutes from the start of one contraction to the start of the next. After helping her through a couple of the contractions, Steph made the decision and asked me to call the midwives, I agreed, picked up my phone and dialed the midwives pager number.  Shortly after I left a message, and the midwife called back, I explained what I knew to her and handed the phone to Stephanie. Steph went through a contraction while on the phone which may have helped our midwife make the decision to make her way to our house.

While we waited for her to arrive, I continued to help Steph, who was seated on the medicine ball, through her contractions by pressing down on her sacrum. Making sure she was warm or had water, whatever she needed I was ready to provide.

Our midwife arrived around 2:40am, she first checked Stephanie’s cervix, which to all of our, surprise was dilated to 6cm. She started unpacking all of her gear and supplies and instructed me to start unpacking and preparing the birthing tub.

Doing tasks around the house was a bit tricky as I only had 30-40 seconds between Stephanie's contractions to work on the tasks.

Stephanie was brought into the tub once it was filled where she labored for what seems, in hindsight, like less than an hour.  However it was closer to 3. I did my best to help Stephanie through her contractions and keep her warm. During the time in the tub, Stephanie and our midwife decided together to break Steph’s water.

I don’t have a clear recollection as to how quickly Stephs labor advanced after her water was broken.

After a long period in the tub, Stephanie was becoming lightheaded while pushing into her contractions. Somewhere around here the second midwife was called on site along with her student. I tried to get Stephanie to drink some juice to help with her low blood pressure. During the labor process babies’ heart rate was monitored using a fetal heart monitor. There was a period where babies’ heart rate was very high, which caused me some worry, but the heart rate went down shortly after and remained steady until baby was in the birth canal where the heart rate goes down because baby is being squished.

Our midwife made the decision to bring Steph out of the tub to help with her light headedness. Stephanie took her place on the couch and I settled in at her head where I could hold her hand and guide her breathing through active labor. I was very impressed with how Stephanie appeared to trust her body and her labor went along very naturally, I reminded myself that not everyone is so lucky to experience labor like this and I was grateful.

With the midwives bracing her legs to help, Stephanie made great progress, with the babies head beginning to show, the top of a little head, covered in dark hair.  I started to feel more excited than I can recall myself being in my current memory. A few exhausting pushes later, the baby was out and on Stephanies chest.

This is the first time that I can recall that I have ever cried as a result of being happy. My beautiful girlfriend had a tiny human on her, she no longer looked exhausted aside from her wild hair, which had began to curl in some of the most gorgeous tight curls I’ve ever seen.

We were both anxious to find out what the gender of our little baby was, the midwives let us know that they were more concerned about getting his colour back as he was fairly blue. After the midwives  rubbed the baby up a bit, he let out a good healthy cry. Stephanie lifted the little baby up and boom! A penis, we had a baby boy!

I got to feel the last few pulses of blood coming through the umbilical cord, which I then cut after the midwives clamped it off.

 Steph was checked for tears and other injuries, she found nothing major. I asked Steph if she was thinking of the name Dawson for our new son, She was thinking of Bennett, which we had both liked for a long time, so we named our handsome baby.

The rest is a whirlwind of the amazing midwives doing paperwork and helping Bennett latch to Stephanie, they also got Steph into the bathtub for a bath, Bennett was bathed as well. I helped weigh Bennett, who came in at a very healthy 7lb 6oz, 2oz heavier than me when I was born.

The quickest 8 hours of my life.

I'm so excited to be sharing Birth Story of the Week as a regular feature! 
This project is about bringing our stories together and providing a wonderful resource for new and expecting families in our community. All births are wonderful and should be celebrated, no matter what type of birth (home, hospital, midwife/ OB, doula supported or not) if you would like to share your birth story please email it to info@nestedbirth.com a photo or two would also be great.

Stories will be featured on my social media platforms and blog. My hope is that we can educate families on the options available in our community, provide healing and empowerment through sharing and of course CONNECTION.