Baby Girl Born at Home in Water with Midwife and Doula

My First Homebirth Assistance

Last Friday (May 13th) I called this couple to find out if they had decided about having me as their doula. I had offered to do it for free as it was my first home birth and knowing the date was May 19th wanted to try to do some prenatal work. They told me that mama’s water had broken around 12:30am Thursday night and they were meaning to call me to help. They were going ok but not having any pattern yet. They continued like this for a few days and were having trouble understanding what was going on and wrapping their heads around the situation as it was not what they expected.

I first went up to help them on Sunday with some massage and stuff to support them and try to get things into a better pattern. They didn’t want me to miss the meeting honoring the midwives so I was lucky enough to enjoy most of the meeting although it was hard to really be there…my mind was all about this birth! I got a chance to see Cara and honor her at the meeting which was really cool and she said we should all try to rest. Yeah right.

Monday we started inducing…Cara was pumping her and I went up to do massage and help out however I could. When I got there the dad was there but mom and Cara had gone to the Dr’s office to check the fluid and try to figure things out. It seemed that there had been a high tear and it re-sealed so the induction was called off. We all tried to rest. Ha!

I got a call from mama around 12:45am Tuesday night…she was still really not able to relax and yet not in a pattern that Cara wanted. I tried to reassure her over the phone and had trouble sleeping after we hung up when she had a contraction. We spoke in the the morning and around 11:15am they decided they wanted me to come up and take care of mom so dad could go get benadryl to help mom rest!

I got there just before 1pm (long ride from Park Slope to Inwood) and dad dashed out. At that point the last I heard she was still having contractions around 15 min’s apart. But now here was mama telling me she felt like she needed to poop and felt some urge to push but it really hurt. She was having a lot of pain & pressure and loosing it a bit. I wasn’t sure if it was transition or lack of rest. I took her to the toilet to see what happened there and she asked me “was that fluid?”. I couldn’t tell because we were in the bathroom. We ended up slowly making our way through the hall and back to the bedroom. I had her lie down on her left side to try to massage and calm her a bit and her water broke.

So back out of bed and doing the doula dance in the hall as she leaked, moaned and worried. I told her she was doing really well (she was) and when she asked me if this was going to be a lot longer I told her I didn’t think so. I felt we were really connecting and she was responding and working really well. When she was loosing it I did somewhat of a take charge routine and made her look at me which helped calm her. I told her that when her husband got home we were going to call Cara and everything was going to be fine. We made noise together and danced until dad got back. Cara was called around 1:30 (I think)and I found out we had a 5-6 minute pattern going since around 11am. Cara was on the phone with me trying to figure out what was going on and she listened to a couple of contractions. She told me to have dad fill up the birthing tub and she was on the way.

I was really focused on helping and not time…I think Cara showed up around 2 or a little after. It was not too long when mama wanted to be checked. She was in the tub on all fours and when Cara checked…fully dilated! Yahoo! We worked hard on pushing as mama wanted to get this done! Cara suggested using gravity. She would stand up and lock arms with either Cara or myself and when the contraction came we would go down into a squat and lean back while she pushed! She also tried pushing in a few other positions like in the tub and on the toilet. Beautiful baby girl was born in the tub at 5:23pm with the tub by the window looking out on a sunny sky with puffy clouds and trees in the park across the street. Wow!

After looking at the babies head Cara said this baby was quite a trickster and had become opt at the last minute which explained the pro-dromal labor. I had suggested that was what was going on earlier but Cara said that baby was in such a good position for so long that she thought it was something else. We are all just so glad that everyone is happy and healthy.