Lisa's Homebirth Story of Gabriella
The natural homebirth story of Gabriella took place in our kitchen. She is our third child.
Baby
#2 was born in the car and I was determined to avoid highway birthing
again.
We arranged to have
our midwife come to
the house (an hour's drive for her) to deliver.
Toward
the end of my pregnancy, I began to find her presence
annoying. I decided to secretly not call her in
time for
the birth.
I woke up about
8am the morning of
Gabriella's
birth with absolutely no contractions, no mucous, no symptoms at all
that today would be the day, but I knew in my heart that it was.
I
invited my best friend and her daughter over to play with my girls and
we had fun
painting on my belly- we painted a globe, a smiley face and a
basketball (I couldn't possibly have 3 girls in a row?). We
also
took a few last-minute pictures.
Around
5pm I
started having noticeable contractions, and called everyone else who
had been invited to the birth.
At
6
pm they began to increase in intensity and I kept retreating to the
bathroom to be alone.
At
7pm I came out of the bathroom and frantically raged through the house,
making sure everything was in order (towels, blankets, cushions...) I
sounded like an OR surgeon saying "Get me the fuzzy slippers, STAT"!
At
8pm I fell to my knees in the kitchen, gave the thumbs up to call the
midwife (there's no way she'd make it now) and my mommy. When
they got the midwife on the line, I was between contractions, and tried
to give her the impression that I wasn't very far along. When
My
mom was on the line, I couldn't even talk on the phone, I was in the
middle of an enormous contraction - I just had to hear her voice.
Gabriella
was born at around 8:30pm.
Meagan
(age 4 at the time) was so very excited, she shouted "she
looks
like a monkey, Mommy. Our baby is a monkey" and the
way she
was jumping with excitement made me think that she looked
very
much like a monkey herself at that moment.
