Well, this won't be as polished as I'd like but at least it'll be here!!
On Thursday, November 9th I woke up at 1am with contractions 3 minutes apart but only about 30 seconds long. Called the midwife at 1:30 and she said they're not long enough, go watch TV and see if it changes. 2am turned on "Fear Factor" - thought to myself "Yeah, right! Try having a baby at home with no drugs!!" By the first commercial had another contraction and felt I needed to go upstairs to the bathroom. Contractions still didn't seem strong enough to me though - I knew from experience with DS1 they were going to get much worse.
Went to the bathroom to labour .. Called to J to wake him up and told him to call midwife. By the time he returned to the bathroom from calling my water broke - he says it sounded like a water balloon bursting! - thankfully all in the toilet. Suddenly I knew it was the baby's head pressing down and said to him "it's the head, grab a towel and catch him!!" I could see from Josh's face he could see the head! Head came out so fast, then the shoulders very quickly after. J somehow managed to catch the baby and call "9-1-1-1" at the same time - by the time they answered DS2 was out and he told them his colour and that he was breathing.
J handed DS2 to me and went to open the door. The paramedics came in and clamped the cord, J cut it. They took DS2 and massaged him to make sure his circulation was ok. Then they had me sign a waiver saying I didn't want to go to the hospital or have DS2 taken there. By then my midwife was there. She weighed DS2, measured him, gave him his vitamin K shot, etc.
So that's pretty much it... J has been off one week and is off one more so we are doing ok :-)
That's an awesome story. Your kids are pretty close in age to my kids. Daughter (March 2004) Son (2006) Son (2008)
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was unintentionally unassisted and I'm so glad my husband handled it so well!
ReplyDeleteThe second half of the story would be the hassle it was to try to register my son's birth since they didn't know how to register unassisted births and said it rarely happened. I pointed out it was highly unlikely that in a city our size (6th largest in Canada?) I was the only woman with an unassisted birth that year!