Home Visit

My first two births were in the hospital (two different hospitals, as the labor and delivery services built a new building in the interim). My second two births were at home (two different bedrooms and two different midwives, as my first midwife moved in the interim). As we prepare for, Lord willing, a third home birth, the question arose: how to have a home birth without a home? The cramped space in the trailer is not ideal (besides the lack of floor space, there is no running water). We thought about the RV, as it has a sink, but the bed only descends to about waist-height. And there is also a lack of floor space.

When I had Jadon, we asked Denise, a nurse friend from church, to be the doula/support person. I've never been a big fan of meds, and was far more scared of the epidural needle than the contractions, but for both Phil and I, we wanted someone there to support both Phil and I. Jadon's labor was very mellow for the first nineteen hours, and we went to Denise's house for dinner, where I ran stairs to ensure the periodic light contractions didn't stop. And at 2am, we asked Denise to come over, and she looked at me and said, "It's time to go to the hospital." The last seven hours were intense, but manageable.

Denise moved to this area a few years before we did, and she volunteered her house for our home birth. That wasn't a hard decision: lovely flower gardens, a bathtub, a house ... yes!

Today, at 36 weeks, we met the midwife and her assistant at Denise's house. Phil went with me, because the midwife wanted to give instruction on what to do if the baby "arrives precipitously." For us, because we have a 20-minute drive, she suggested that if I felt the baby was coming, it would be better to birth at home than to try to make it to Denise's—a birth on a bed at home is better than a birth on the side of the road. Good point.

Also, she explained the actual birth. Phil has always focused on my face, and I haven't paid attention to the actual birth. It was very interesting. She said that the head comes out, and then usually everything takes a break. Phil and I should both take a few deep breaths, and in that pause, the baby turns its head so the shoulders turn, too. She said, "The baby's face will look squashed and the color will not be pink, but a greyish-blue, and covered with mucus and blood. That's normal." Then, on the next push, we could grab the baby under the arms as it comes.

But hopefully none of that will be necessary.

In other news, Phil has plenty of little tasks to do, but nothing that is urgent. I think the lull in immediate big tasks is enough of a let down that we both wanted to sleep all day. We are tired! But he headed down and worked in the crawl space, and foamed and shimmed around the windows.

Joe didn't make it all night by himself up in his new bed. Sometime shortly after midnight he cried out and Phil lifted him down. A little later I accidentally brushed a cord with a heavy plug on the end. It hit my eye socket and even in my sleep I saw stars. Ouch.

And the boys and I went to harvest the apples. I had guessed that out of our 300ish trees, we would maybe have 20. Jadon was hoping for 100. I was probably closer. The trees had a scant number of small, hard fruits. I am so thankful we don't have to rely on the trees for our financial well-being.