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Katara's homebirth

I have a few minutes as my newborn is sleeping with her daddy, so I'm going to attempt to write this up as fast, but as clear as possible.

Obviously this will all be from my point of view, and some things may be missing from others perspectives but here is my birth story. :)

On March 5th, being 40 weeks and 6 days I went to my midwives house and she did a stretch and sweep on me, which is just a way of saying she did a much gentler and slower version of a membrane sweep.   She was able to get me open to a 5, but I kept going back to 3, but still some progress.  We went to Walmart after, walked around, and bought some groceries to make some eggplant parmesan.  We got home, ate dinner and started on the eggplant pamesan which ended up taking us till midnight to make.  I ate some of that and then we headed to bed.  I was having a few contractions, but nothing significant.

We woke up the next morning and I was still having some contractions, but I was feeling slightly defeated.  I ate more eggplant pamesan (which is very yummy btw) and then bounced on my birth ball, and walked around the house for a bit.  I drank lots of water, and eventually about 8:30am I decided to go lay down for a bit.  I got into a pattern of taking a couple of big gulps of water and then laying down.  About 30-45 min later I'd wake up and go to the restroom where I'd have a HUGE contraction, then start the pattern over again.  Drink some water, lay down, wake up, pee and have a huge contraction.  After 4-5 times of that I went back out to the living room to be with my family but I found that I was too wound up with the kids around so I went back in my room, and Michael joined me after putting something on the TV for the kids.  Once he got in there, around 1:30ish.  That's when things started picking up.  The contractions started coming about every 8-10 min.  It was about that point I messaged my doula and said that I'm praying this is it and she started heading over.  I then texted my midwife at the same time, but she hadn't responded so as soon as Laura said she was on her way I gave Christine a call.  She was coming over too.

By the time everyone started showing up my contractions were about 5 min apart and some of them were lasting a really LOOOONG time.  At this point I wasn't aware of time passing, I was just concentrating on breathing through the contractions.  It wasn't long before I was needing to vocalize during them and I knew this was finally it!  The tub was ready and I got in it and the position that felt best to me was squatting down, where I could support my stomach during the contraction and lean my head on the side of the tub.  My doula and my husband did some counter-pressure on my lower back where I was having a lot of pain, and eventually rubbing my feet because they were going numb.  Time passed, and I knew my contractions were lasting an awful long time, and because they were my midwife requested to check my progress, to make sure the contractions were actually doing something.  It hurt incredibly bad, but I managed to lean back for her to check and I was around 8-9 cent.

I'm not sure how much longer I labored past that, I was leaning on my husband at that point, still supporting my stomach, and then I had to move again, and I pretty much just turned in the tub to face another direction and I felt a huge urge to push.  I remember being slightly scared of the pain but mentally forced myself to give in to my body, so I moved up so I could push easier, and I felt my water break, and mentioned it, and then suddenly the urge to push was nearly 10 fold.  So I pushed.  I remember everyone telling me to slow down and I just couldn't, the instinct to push was just too strong.  I remember pushing and feeling her head start to come out, and I tried to cough, to slow it down, and instead pushed again and I could feel more of her head come out, and then finally another and I could tell her head was out completely.  I gave one last push and her body just slipped out.

Then it was like slow motion.  I saw her floating below me, coming up to the surface of the water and I reached down to her and grabbed her up to me and just exclaimed, "I caught her! I caught her!"  It was the most empowering, surreal moment!  I caught my baby!

Katara Lily was born on March 6, 2013 at 5:23 PM after only 3 hours and 48 minutes of labor and four pushes.  She was 20 3/4" and only 7lbs 8oz!  So much smaller than we expected as a 41 weeker!  She's so wonderful, and a true blessing to our family!

This is a new experience for me

I've never gone this far past my due date, and while I still feel fine physically I'm starting to get a little discouraged emotionally.  Michael leaves soon, and I don't have a whole lot of help after he leaves and I'm afraid I won't be able to take care of all the kids, making them food, making sure they stay clean etc after he leaves.

I'll be 41 weeks tomorrow and normally, as I'm usually completely natural, I wouldn't consider any type of intervention but my midwife is going to do a stretch and sweep on me today and we're hoping that will put me into labor.  It'll at least help, as she thinks she can get me a couple more cent dilated than I already am.

So today *may* be baby day.

:)