My Second Home Birth: 3 Hour Birth

Both of my births where at home. Both of them were wonderful. But my last came at the speed of light. Technically by some standards, my first birth could be considered a precipitous birth (very fast birth), with everything concluding in nine hours. From the very first question mark of a contraction to his birth. My daughter was just under three hours by a couple of minutes.

When I teach my childbirth education classes, I usually let people know it is rarer for your labor to begin with your water breaking at around fifteen percent (Women’s Health Group). However, that is exactly what happened to me the second time around at 2:36am. I was completely asleep when I was startled awake by a gush of water in my bed. For a split second, I wondered if I had maybe been kicked in the bladder by the baby and wet myself, but I quickly dismissed that idea as I wasn’t having any issues with incontinence and it simply was too much water. I leapt from the bed waking my husband with a “Luke! My water just broke. Grab a towel.” As a stood up, more water rushed to the floor, however, it wasn’t in huge amounts. I knew that it couldn’t be all of my amniotic fluid.

I was filled with excitement because I was utterly over being pregnant, and I was beginning to spiral after the 40-week mark came and went. I had seen an acupuncturist less than 48 hours prior to try to help get things started. I hadn’t felt any contractions yet, and knew it was best to try to go back to sleep because it could take some time for things to actually turn into labor. I laid down to try to sleep, only to quickly get back up as more of my water was released at 3:00am and again at 3:30pm. At 3:30am I thought I felt the beginnings of a cramp, but still tried to get myself to calm down and sleep. By 3:58am, I logged my first real contraction. After having a previous baby, I knew this contraction was undeniable. From that moment, they started intensely and about ten minutes apart. I began to text my doula and midwives with updates.

My midwife practice does homebirths and has a free-standing house that operates as a birth center. They had let me know that there was another mom in labor at the same time and it was likely that I would need to come in so they could attend both births from the same location. I was growing concerned that I wasn’t going to make it the 25-minute drive to the center. I called them around 5:33am to let them know, I wasn’t confident that I would make it to the birth center. The midwife on call, encouraged me to come in. After I hung up on that call, I had a six minute and 21 second contraction! Everyone thinks fast births are great because they are over fast, but they don’t realize that your body is doing the work it would do over hours in mere minutes. I also felt my cervix dilate in what felt like three big expansions, each one bigger than the next. I never felt any sense of cervical dilation with my first. I was actually shocked during my first birth when on my first cervical check I was 10 centimeters dilated!

After that terribly long contraction, I stood up to walk towards our garage. I felt the baby descend deep in my pelvis. She had already been so low during the last weeks of pregnancy. I had another contraction right outside of the door to the garage, and called my midwife. After, hearing me during the contraction, they told me to stay put, which is a good thing, because at that point I knew if I got into that car, we would be having a baby on the side of the road. After the call ended, and between contractions, I quickly made my way back to my bedroom, and got down on the floor right after passing the threshold for my first pushing contraction. I did this less out of pain, and more so because I seem to prefer to labor on the floor. I’ve never been able to tolerate a contraction on the bed.

It was just me and my husband in the house. My team and doula were on the way, but so was my baby. I experienced the pushing reflex with both of my births, and have no control over when my body is pushing. I knew I would likely go fast if I was in a more upright position (which under other circumstances I would have moved into), but I was trying to slow the pushing phase down. I wanted to give my midwife a little time to arrive because I wanted extra assurance during delivery. However, I was mentally preparing to do this solo. My husband was also mentally preparing himself to catch the baby on his own. At 6:15am, as I was crowning, the midwife’s nurse assistant arrived and confirmed to my husband what he was looking at was in fact the top of the baby’s head. Now that we had someone from our team present, I no longer felt the need to try to contain or hold back from my pushing reflex. At 6:24am, I heard the front door open and midwife come through just in time to don some gloves and catch my baby girl three minutes later.

It took me a few minutes to come back to myself, as I laid on the floor with my daughter placed to my belly, still attached to the umbilical cord. After a few moments I looked down at the baby I just birthed. I brought her to my chest and my team helped me to the bed. Soon after, my doula arrived, amazed at the speed that things had progressed. She took some wonderful photos our of family.

Precipitous birth can be intense. Luckily, I had a previous faster birth so I was mentally prepared and familiar with the sensations. Yes, fast births have the advantage of not dragging on, but your body still has to go through the cervical and uterine changes, just in record speed time.

Reference:

https://www.womenshealthgroup.ie/water-breaking-during-pregnancy