Our dear little Susan Scarlett was born late Thursday night. This is the story of how we got her.
Before Arwen was born nearly two years ago, I knew that there was one more child that needed to come to our family. After Arwen came, my body was pretty weak. I had a harder time pushing her out and it took me months to heal. Knowing that I was supposed to have another child, I continued to take prenatal vitamins and began exercising regularly to strengthen my muscles. I am horrible with exercising, but knowing that I was doing it for something more important than myself, helped me to continue. After a few months of regular exercise the hip and leg problems that I had after carrying and delivering Arwen healed. Around that time, John lost his job.
In the months that followed, I knew I was getting older, that conceiving and carrying a baby would undoubtedly be harder, and with John out of work with no serious prospects, I found myself praying about whether or not we should even be considering another baby. The answer remained the same.
I wanted a June baby. We have birthdays throughout the year and I wanted to fill in our little May/June birthday gap. A little silly, I know. However, to get a June baby that meant conceiving the baby in September. September 1, 2013 came and John still did not have a job. On September 15th, John was hired at Mycore and my period started. We prayed and asked if it was time. The answer was yes. We quit preventing pregnancy right away. On Oct 17th, I had a positive pregnancy test.
At the time, we did not have health insurance. We could apply for it in November, but with Christmas coming, we really didn't want that extra money taken out of every paycheck and decided to wait until January to get insurance. I was not sure what the insurance would cover once we did get it, and I didn't feel comfortable contacting my OB from the last two births.
In December. I began looking into the possibility of a homebirth. Instead of being $7,000 to $8,000 it was $3,000. I contacted a couple of midwives that delivered in our area. The first that got back to me was BirthWise Midwives. I hesitantly made an appointment for Dec 30th. As the time arrived for the appointment and we were in the process of getting health insurance, I wondered if I had made a mistake and if I should just go with the traditional hospital birth. Knowing how John's family would react to a homebirth, I almost cancelled the appointment, but it felt wrong-- very wrong.
For the first time, John and I prayed about what to do together. We knew that going ahead with the homebrth was the right choice. I went to my Dec 30th appointment and met Heather. The whole experience was so different from any OB appointment I had had with my 9 previous pregnancies. Instead of the 15 minutes hurry you in and out of the doctor's office, Heather spent 45 minutes getting to know me, my health, and my previous birth experiences.
The following month, Heather talked to me about nutrition. I didn't like it, but she had me write down what I ate and then talked to me about how to get more protein. I had been extremely tired. I thought that it was just my age combined with having 9 other children. I took Heather's advice and found that my energy levels improved significantly. An OB would have never taken the time to help improve my energy levels through nutrition. In the past, if I even bothered to complain about fatigue or anything, all the different OB's I had would shrug it off and tell me that it was par for the course. At this point, I wondered why I hadn't gone to a midwife before.
By the end of March, John had lost his job, we had lost health insurance, we had paid for the homebirth with the tax return. Mid-April, I applied for medicaid, but as of today, I have not yet received my medicaid card. If we had not gone ahead with the homebirth, we may very well have been slapped with a $7,000 hospital bill, the stress trying to get that fixed, and I would not yet be released from the hospital.
Two weeks ago, I had a positive strep B test. If I was having a hospital birth, they would not release me until 48 hours after the baby was born, making for an even larger hospital bill.
Having a positive strep B test changed the homebirth plan a bit. Midwives can administer IV's and give IV antibiotics in your home. Because I have a history of laboring quickly, we decided it would be best to plan a homebirth induction. This meant that when my cervix was soft and ready and the baby was low enough, Heather would come in, give me an IV and then come back a little later to break my water. We planned this for Thursday night.
Heather came over just after 6pm. She checked me and stripped my membranes. I was 5cm to 6cm dilated. By 6:45, I had received the standard dose of IV antibiotics. Heather went home to take care of her family, and John and I got our kids fed and sent to bed.
Heather returned around 9:30. We had our little kids in bed, though not quite asleep. Heather checked me again and I was a good 6cm dilated. At 9:45, she pushed the baby down a little more and broke my water. I sat on the toilet as a lot of fluid dripped from me. Then I took a short bath and got in bed with a TV show while I waited for contractions to start. Contractions started at 10:30.
Between 10:30 and 10:50, I had 4 mild contractions. At 10:52, I had a much harder contraction. Another harder contraction came at 10:54. At 10:56, I moved back to the toilet, another gush of fluid came, so John got Heather to check the baby's heart rate. Heather told me that she would need to check the baby every 25 minutes. I told her that I did not think the baby would be that much longer.After another contraction, I moved to the bath tub. The cool water helped me to deal with the pain. My contractions stayed about 1 to 2 minutes apart and were quite painful. I had probably 3 to 5 more contractions when I knew it was time to push. I held my hand down over my bottom. I could feel the baby's head there, though it had not crowned yet. At first, I felt scared and nervous to push, but I knew that bearing down and pushing was the only way to stop the pain. I was up on my knees in a tub full of cool water with my head resting on a towel on the side of the tub. I made the choice to push. I pushed through, I think 3 contractions, when the head came out. I asked Heather if she could just pull the baby out at that point. She said no and told me to wait for one more contraction. I had Susan's head in my hand and I could feel her face. John touched her head, and then that contraction started. I gave one good push and the shoulders came out. I grabbed the shoulders and pulled Susan out of me and out of the water. Heather handed me a towel to wrap her in. Susan started crying and breathing without any suction or anything. She was a nice red color and looked beautiful and healthy. I relaxed and held Susan to my chest. John came in closer and stroked her. After a few more minutes, I asked what time she was born-- 11:29pm. I basically delivered her myself with my own hands.
John and I took some time just holding and stroking and welcoming Susan to our family. The nurse, Melanie who had arrived around the time I was pushing, got our 4 oldest kids. They came in surrounded the bathtub. We let them stroke Susan and welcome her to the family. I loved having my older kids there to see their baby sister just after she entered the world.
After a few minutes we sent the kids out and delivered the placenta. John took Susan and I showered and got into bed. We didn't cut the cord until John, Susan, and I were in bed together.
Melanie examined Susan and got her foot prints. Heather and Melanie cleaned everything up and left us. I loved having a homebirth.
Because I pushed Susan kneeling, I did not tear. I am not swollen. I have had the least bloody delivery and cleanest 2 days after birth ever. I feel good. Susan is healthy. I never had to leave home. John is not exhausted from hauling kids back and forth to the hospital. John and I are not stressed from having the kids play on the hospital floor and push buttons they should not push. The kids have had a lot of time holding and welcoming their little sister. Life is good and we are very grateful that Heavenly Father saw fit to send Susan to our family.
