Our Home Birth Story: Glad This Was Our Last Kid

After Aria was born a year and a half ago I wanted to have another child right away. Our first 2 kids are 10 months apart and this was something I was not afraid to duplicate with the next two.

We tried and tried and because of some health issues with me it took us longer than anticipated but we managed to get baby #4 to stick and I decided to take a road less traveled for myself.

My husband is thankfully pretty easy going with my ideas so he had no issues with me deciding to go the midwife route and with the referral of our family doctor we finally got the process going.

A midwife worked for us for a few reasons. The first being that we already knew what tests we wanted done while pregnant. A midwife will not force you to do anything but they will offer you the options. I was okay with having less ultrasounds and less testing done but I wanted to make sure that the baby was developing normally. They worked with my needs and it was nice.

Secondly, I had 3 midwives and a student assigned to my care so I saw them on a rotational schedule. This ensured that in case I went into labour at the same time as another mom (or my midwife was simply off) I would have someone I knew delivering my baby.

Also, when you make an appointment with your midwife it is always tentative. You page right before you go in to see if they are on schedule or something came up. I never had my midwife not be available for appointments but when I went into labour one of mine was off for the weekend.

Lastly, I never had to wait in the waiting room for more than 10 minutes at each of my appointments and each visit was 30 relaxed minutes where my answers were answered and I didn’t feel rushed.

Although I had no birth plan per se (you can read about that here) I was hoping to wait till my kids were sleeping to have my last. I was thinking we could drink coffee while in labour and surprise the kids in the morning with a brand new brother but as with every birth we were surprised.

I woke up Sunday with the urge to clean, I was feeling pains as always but nothing that I couldn’t handle. It wasn’t until 2 pm (5 hours from bed time) that I started to time my contractions thinking that maybe we would be having a baby. For 2 hours they came anywhere from 3-7 minutes apart lasting a minute but bearable. I called my midwife and let her know we might be having a baby and letting her know I would call her if the pain became unbearable but that I was planning on getting the kids to sleep first (wishful thinking)

By 5:30 things became pretty sketchy. I was lying on my kitchen floor hugging a wall (for real) with my son pushing on my back with his feet. I decided to give the kids a bath and get them ready for an early bedtime. I called my midwife at 6:00 telling her my contractions were unbearable and laid down in bed with the kids to put them to sleep. At 6:18 my water broke and thankfully at 6:20 my first midwife arrived because I was pretty much delirious with pain (and shock) AND my kids were awake.

My midwife and husband had my bed stripped and made up again with the mattress cover, tarp and absorbent pads in what seemed like seconds and while my husband brought all the midwives stuff upstairs from her car and all my stuff up from the living room I felt like I was going to die every 5 minutes for 30 seconds. Almost immediately the other 2 midwives came. At 6:30 I was 4 cm dilated, my toddler was laying beside me while I had contractions and my son was holding my hand and making weird noises with me.  Emma was helping the midwives and at 7:30 I was done. I sent the kids out of the room because I felt lots of pressure and the baby was born at 7:34 with my husband catching him. I don’t know why I kicked them out but I am glad I did because lots of fluid and blood came out and I was surprised, let alone what they would think**. BUT they came right back in after I delivered and got to be apart of the rest of the stuff.

I want to mention that from the moment I laid down on my bed I couldn’t move, the pain was so intense, but at least it was not forever. I have mirrored sliding doors that if I had raised my head even an inch I could have watched the baby be born BUT I couldn’t move 🙁 But the perk of not having an epidural was that I felt really good after the birth compared to my other births. My husband and sister in law both mentioned that I looked alive and after the epidurals I always looked pale and about to pass out. I was able to move around and use the washroom and by 9:00 pm I was back in bed with the kids putting them to sleep (a mommies job  is never done).

I wish I had done a home birth with my other kids. I got to sleep in my own bed, I threw in 1 load of laundry and threw out one bag of garbage that held the evidence of my home birth. My kids got to see the beauty and extremity of their brother coming into the world, they got a tour of the placenta and finally realize HOW the baby grows inside the mommy and how the umbilical cord is attached to the placenta. No amount of school could give them that experience.

Cyrus Alaei born 7:34 today loving his @lulujobaby swaddle

A photo posted by @homewithaneta on Apr 5, 2015 at 7:31pm PDT

So now our newest family member Cyrus has three very protective older siblings. The toddler has given him more kisses in his first day of life than she has given out to everyone else in her whole 18 month lifespan. Darius just sits watch over his bassinet and Emma loves to let him hold her finger.

This is our last baby, his firsts are bittersweet because they are our lasts. But our family is complete and we will get to have a lot of firsts together at last.

**Emma told me the next day that she was crying in my sons room when I was in labour because she thought I was going to die because of all the blood. There was only blood visible for an hour and it was cleaned up right after birth but poor thing was scared. Glad I decided to kick them out for the pushing part.

Aneta Alaei

Aneta is a Toronto-based mom of four that loves a good meal, great company, and learning something new. In her free time, you can find her trying to keep yet another plant alive.

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