C.P. Water Birth

My due date, September 29, started like a regular day – I took my oldest to school, and my mom was at my house like she often is, so she stayed with my other kids so I could try to fit in a couple of appointments. I was so ready to meet my baby, so I got a drop-in appointment with my chiropractor, and I wanted to get in for acupuncture too, but wasn’t able to get in touch with him until later in the day. The chiro did some cranial work to try to stimulate some contractions, and when I got home I decided to take the kids somewhere for a long walk. My mom had to head over to my sister’s to babysit my nephew, so she suggested that we go over too and we could all go to a park together.

Walking around the playground gave me some pretty strong contractions, but when I sat down, they went away. I had a few really intense ones that stopped me in my tracks when I walked to the playground bathroom, so we went back to my sister’s house and I hung out until it was time to pick up my oldest at 3:00. My mom wanted me to ask my husband to pick her up, but he was on his way back from San Clemente and I didn’t want to make him rush home if this was another false alarm (we had a few of those already). My 4 year old son stayed with my mom, and I left with my 2 year old to head to school. At this point any standing or walking gave me some good strong contractions, and then my sleepy toddler refused to walk up the 2 flights of stairs to get to my daughter’s classroom, so I carried her. I ran into a few friends on the way, and they could tell that something was up, and begged me to hurry home.

As soon as I made it back to the car I told my husband to come home, and texted the photographer and midwife to give them a heads up that baby was coming tonight. Luckily I only had 1 contraction on the 15 minute drive home. At the house I stayed sitting until my husband got there, and did some work to pass the time. When he got there he started filling the birth tub. I ordered some pizza for dinner and paced around to keep the contractions coming. At 6:45 I laid down on our bed so I could take a break, and Dave and I decided that we’d try to get the kids down for bed at their usual 7:30 bedtime, and then we could ask the midwives to come over.

He stepped out of the bedroom to finish filling the tub and I had 2 strong contractions back to back, with lots of pressure. At 7:00ish I got up and came into the hallway and yelled to Dave “call Gerri NOW!” He had his phone in his hand already and said she just texted to say she was on her way. I stripped quickly and climbed into the tub and she showed up 5 minutes later. The water felt wonderful and I was able to catch my breath for a few minutes before the contractions came on strong again. I changed positions and was so surprised to be feeling like I wanted to push already – I kind of fought through it for a few contractions, thinking it was too soon for for that. Once I realized that it was ok to push and went with it, it felt like my body was ejecting the baby – the sensation was so overwhelming, more than it was with any of my other births. I reached out to grab the side of the tub for support, and instead there was a hand there. Later I found out it was my 6 year old’s hand, and was so thrilled that she had the opportunity to be that support for me. Baby boy was born at 7:47pm, sunny side up, with his grandma and auntie all his siblings and birth team there to welcome him. Even our dog, Penny, came running into the room to be there for his birth.