Stories

The night before my guess date, I had some quality time with James, my husband. I had convinced him that we needed to take advantage of every opportunity to be intimate since we wouldn’t be able to for weeks after the baby was born (a much more enticing way of asking him to insert some prostaglandin-rich semen near my cervix to soften things up). I fell asleep to a hypnosis track like I did every night and woke up when I felt something that was a bit different than all the braxton hicks I had been having. I looked at the clock--it was 1:50 am. I felt it again and decided to get up and go to the bathroom. The second I moved, I felt a trickle down my leg--pretty sure I had just leaked some amniotic fluid. I was giddy thinking that this was probably going to be the day--and on my guess date none the less. I knew I should get some sleep. I decided to do a fear clearing session since my water was leaking, and I didn’t want to worry about infection or worry about labor not really starting for a long time. I was still awake when that track finished, and then I listened to Birthing Day Affirmations. 

He’s here.

It’s been 32 hours and I still can’t believe that a) I have a baby and b) I made it through labor alive! Over the coarse of the pregnancy I hadn’t thought much about how much pain a natural childbirth would bring and boy am I glad I didn’t. If I had thought about it I might have not made it through it. I’m going to try and remember the details but some things are a little fuzzy, which is probably a good thing. For those of you who get embarrassed easily you probably don’t want to read this. In order to really get people to understand what a home birth is I’m not going to be so discrete so don’t read if you are squeamish or if you will look at me funny from now on after you know what I went through.