Casey’s Precipitous Home Birth

Born at 41 weeks 6 days, only 1 hour and 24 minutes of active labor, no pain, no pushing, no tearing… half delivered by dad and our 2 year old on the bathroom floor before our speedy midwife arrived!

Here we go… In the weeks leading up to our ‘due date’ we prepared the birth pool, practiced labor management techniques, hung twinkly lights, planned what music would play, hung birth affirmations… little did we know, we would use none of it and this little boy had his own plans coming earthside.

6/9/22

4:15pm: We were 41 weeks and 5 days and had an appointment with our midwife. No signs of labor, so we decided to try some natural encouragement methods to get things moving. When doing my ‘sweep’, my midwife said I was at 4cm and she could feel baby’s head pretty low.

6:45pm: Felt my first contraction while eating dinner (Chick-fil-A). It was similar to a period cramp, so we continued our evening like normal. We played outside with friends and did our normal bedtime routine. I had a few days/nights of similar cramps that went away as soon as we went to bed, so I thought that might be the case here too.

9pm: Cramp-like contractions were still happening, so after all the kiddos we asleep I climbed into bed and started listen to birth affirmations tracks on YouTube which encourage complete relaxation (similar to hypnobabies).

10:15pm: Thought it ‘might’ be labor, so we cleaned up, showered, did some last minute preparations… just in case. Moving around didn’t stop or intensify anything and I could still ignore the contractions.

10:30pm: Back in bed, listened to more labor tracks. We timed a few contractions and they were 30-40 seconds long and 3-4 minutes apart. I could still talk though contractions and they were still very mild at this point and figured I should try to sleep and they might stop or might pickup.

10:50pm: We officially decided it was real labor but still considered it early labor and tried to sleep thinking labor was far off and we’d need our rest.

11:30pm (44 minutes before birth): Half asleep and completely relaxed, I felt a rubberband-type pop in my stomach. I’ve never had my water break naturally before, so I wasn’t sure. I stood up and had a gush, and smaller gushes with the next few contractions (which were still mild at this point). It was definitely my water breaking.

I started going silent during contractions to concentrate and my whole body started shaking (in all of my past births I shook during ‘transition’ in the thick of labor… but did NOT think this was the case since the contractions we not strong or painful. Looking back now, it WAS transition). I figured I was just cold, as we adjusted the thermostat down and my pants were wet from my water breaking… so I decided to take a shower to get clean and warm. We timed a few more contractions and they were still on 30-40 seconds long, but weirdly close together (only 2 minutes apart) for the ‘level’ of labor I thought was in.

11:44 (exactly 30 min before birth): We called our midwife from the shower. We told her my water broke and joked if we could use our hottub test strips to see if the ph levels were similar to bag of waters to confirm. I had a few contractions in the shower when she was on the phone. She said she would be on her way. Even though I told her we’d just call back in an hour to let her know how things were progressing… she must have known! We also called our family who wanted to be there and to help watch the kiddos.

Timing after that is all fuzzy… our 2 year old woke up and hubby left to take care of him and something changed. No pain, no pressure… just change. I can’t describe it. I turned off the shower and literally climbed on all fours just outside of the shower doors and I yelled to hubby. He came and covered me with a towel and brought our 2 year old into the bathroom (one of my favorite memories is hubby asking my 2 year old to get him a towel… like his little assistant).

I heard myself bearing down during contractions, but still had no pain, no pressure, no pushing feeling… but I just heard myself making my typical labor noise that I recall from my last two unmedicated deliveries.

12:12pm (2 minutes before birth): I told hubby I could feel the baby’s head, he set up the camera on the bathroom counter to record (knowing our photographer and family member were not there) and we have all those next moments captured.

Hubby readied himself by my bottom and was completely read to catch this baby. His head came out between contractions even though I was trying my hardest to lift my chin and avoid it all from happening so quickly. Hubby spotted a nuchal hand (hand delivered up by baby’s face) and eventually a nuchal cord wrapped around baby’s neck. He remained so calm… my two year old cried in confusion, not knowing what was happening.

We heard our dog bark, knowing our midwife had arrived. We both called out to her, not wanting her to worry about equipment or anything… just to come straight upstairs. Our midwife rushed in (like superwoman), knelt down, confirmed the cord was wrapped and instructed me to push (luckily I was having a contraction at that very moment).

He was born, our midwife did a twisty spinning maneuver, passed him to me, and checked the time on her phone (12:14am). Real-life superwoman midwife!

We all sat there in disbelief of what just happened. Our 4 year old daughter walked in just after birth and calmly sat with me. She didn’t leave my side for a long while.

Our midwife gave him an initial check (but his loud cries, let us know he was perfect). After the placenta was out, we stood up and moved to our big bed about 30 minutes later.

Our 6 year old sleepily walked in wrapped in a blanket and sat on the bed as well. Grandma arrived and took all the big kids downstairs to make a ‘birthday cake’. Daddy cut the umbilical cord and did skin-to-skin while I was cleaned up and examined. And then baby was weighed, measured, and looked over by both our midwife and her midwife-trainee, who arrived eventually.

Everyone left about 3am and we all just snuggled in bed with everything that just happened felt like almost a dream. It was definitely not the dreamy, calm waterbirth that I had envisioned for the last 10 months, but he was here, we were healthy, and we have one heck of a story from it.

Our hearts are so full welcoming this little boy. Seeing the older kids be so smitten with him and so eager to help has been one of my favorite adjustments. He was definitely needed in our family. Baby #4, welcome to the world, with the details of your pregnancy and birth, I think you’ll fit right in! You are so loved!

Watch her birth video here!