Significantly Simple: The Planned Unassisted Homebirth of Noah...

*sigh*

Noah turns 3 today. My baby is growing up so fast and time seems to be flying even faster. It was this day 3 years ago I birthed Noah into the world. It was an extraordinary experience, incredibly humbling and one of the most empowering moments of my life.

Here is his birth story for posterity's sake...

I woke up that morning, August 6th, 2007 knowing that real labour was imminent. I posted on a private message board with some close online friends around 11:45am or so my time letting them know the contractions were close and getting stronger, but I could still walk and talk through them if I wanted to and well, I was posting on the internet so I figured I had at least until supper time if not a bit longer.

I made sure to take one last belly picture. He we are about 6 hours before he was born:

I sent Chad and the kids off to the park around noon-ish. I didn't really know what to do with myself, so I had a bath.

The contractions *seemed* to totally ease off in the bath which kinda pissed me off at the time, but I knew that he was going to be born that day so I just welcomed the R & R. I didn't realize that in actual fact the ctx were starting to get closer, it's just the bath completely took the pressure of them away. I can now see why water births are so highly regarded because I was NOT feeling a thing at all in that water!

Chad and the kids got home around 2pm or so.

Matthew came upstairs and promptly kicked me out of my bathtub. :Þ

So he decides to get in the bath and I decide to labour on the toilet - it seemed to be the most comfy to sit there. By this time I was needing to moan a little through each contraction. I was feeling a lot of pressure. It wasn't painful at all, but moaning through each contraction seemed to help with the intensity.

The kids were a little startled by this bizarre guttural noise I was making, so we made a game of it and with the next ones they would growl really loudly with me through each one and then after the contraction was over we would all burst out laughing because it was so funny, seeing them make the same noises and faces I was making. :lol

So there we were in our little en-suite bathroom, me, Chad and the kids, all doing this together - laughing and giggling Noah into the world. It was a moment that I won't forget.

After a few minutes, Mara and Matty were bored of playing this game with me so they head downstairs to watch TV for a bit. I think by now it must have been around 3 pm or so.

Now, I was starting to hit transition. I remember thinking "WHY THE F&*K AM I DOING THIS AT HOME?" and thinking I wanted drugs. That is when Chad and I knew I was in transition. My labouring mind was like "OMFG" and the rational mind that was recalling all the natural birthing stories and books I read was like "Wooohoo we're almost done". :lol

So I got out of the bathroom and ended up on the bed and all I could do was kinda squat and quite honestly make sounds I didn't know I was capable of making to get through it. My water broke at this point. And then it was nice, I had about 10 or 15 minutes of a break and Chad and I just sat there, snuggled and rested for that time until I felt the urge to push.

It wasn't honestly painful through all this. Not at all (not until he was crowning). It was just such an intense energy that I didn't quite know what to do with, so making these really weird primal noises :lol

seemed to help me focus where I wanted that energy to go. I'm sure all of Medicine Hat, no actually, all of Southern Alberta heard me give birth that Monday. Thank goodness it was a holiday on Monday and my neighbours were all out of town.

At any rate, it was just me and Chad who welcomed Noah into the world. I didn't really even have to push him out, my body did it all by itself. It was wild. I just kind of kept myself in the best position I could to make it easy, which was kind of a squatting position with Chad holding me up under my arms.

The only time I chose to actually push was when he was crowning and that was just to get the "burning ring of fire" over and done with. But ya, Noah came flying out so fast neither Chad or I could catch him, he just slid right out onto the bed. He was screaming immediately, didn't need any suctioning at all and within about 2 minutes he was rooting around wanting to nurse (which is pretty much where he has been since {and 3 years later in 2010 I can still attest to that! LOL :D ). I didn't tear anywhere at all, which was nice.

It was exactly the way I wanted it to be. I was so relaxed, and felt so safe and totally in control and really felt I could let go and be myself and do what I needed to do to bring him into this world without being surrounded by strangers. It was so nice not having anyone tell me what to do, or how to push etc etc.

And right after it was just me and Chad and Noah for about 10 minutes and there was such a special sense of intimacy that I wasn't expecting. I was a bawling, blubbering mess. I couldn't stop laughing, I couldn't stop crying. Chad, I think was just in shock. ;o) It was just a huge surge of emotions. The kids came flying up the stairs when they heard Noah crying a little bit and were just in awe of him and that he was finally here.

So then we weighed him! @_@

I remember thinking, wow, he is so tiny (compared of course to Maria and Matthew he was tiny). But then when I put his diaper on, the newborn ones up to 10 lbs or whatever, it didn't really fit - it was too small. And then I tried putting him in one of Matty's old sleepers that I had saved. (Matty was 7lb 13oz at birth). And that sleeper was wayyyyyyyyyyyy too small for Noah (it was size 7-11 lbs). I though ooh, we better weigh him and sure enough on our scale it said 10 lbs 1oz. :crazy

It makes sense though, Maria was overdue as well and was 9 lbs. Matty was about 2 weeks early, so I imagine had he been born at the same gestational age (approx 41+ weeks) he would have been a 9 or 10 pounder too I'm sure.

Here he is, just minutes old!