Home sweet home birth

I've been gone from my blog for some time. Pregnancy, working FT, birth of a second child (little Dragon), maternity leave, now back to work. It all seems to have gone by very quickly. Now four months postpartum, I've been reflecting a lot on my birth experience with Dragon. My wonderful home birth. How incredibly fortunate I was to give birth in the most normalized way possible - in our own bed without any intervention! I had planned for that birth and hoped everything would follow according to plan and although, as it always is with birth, things didn't go exactly as planned, I had the birth experience I had hoped for. I am so glad for having had the experience of a home birth with family in attendance and midwives who just barely made it (my fault!). It was a truly transformative experience, as every birth is. But this one will always be a sweet memory. It was a true experience of all I've espoused and taught during my time as a birth advocate and doula. Wow. There are no words for laboring in your own space in between bites of food at the dinner table with your two year old and your mom, on the living room floor, in the bedroom on the ball while watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", in the rented birth pool. No words for going through transition clutching the picture of your Buddhist teacher and changing the mantra "I love you I love you" over and over as the awesome power of birth just takes over and you swim in an ocean of fear with no choice but to let go and trust in the process, trust in your body. No words for your water breaking as the baby descends into the birth canal and your uterus starts pushing him out - not you, your uterus doing all the work and wait! Shit! The midwives aren't here! Because you waited so long and it went so quickly that you hadn't called them yet. Progressing from 3 Cms at 5:30 pm to delivering at 10:08 pm? That's some powerful stuff. And it all just HAPPENED. And it was all normal and fine. My midwife got there in time to help me with those last crucial pushes - getting the baby's head out without a tear. My mom played assistant when the other midwife hadn't arrived yet. The videographer was there to film the first precious moments after birth, at least. My 2 year old was there until transition and left at the perfect moment for his first sleepover away from home. He helped me breathe through contractions, gave me kisses and made me laugh in between, running his trains along the edge of the birth pool. I was alone for so much of it - the poignant coming together of birth and death- both of which we do alone no matter how much we kid ourselves. DH and my mom taking care of Tiger, no one realizing how quickly it was all going. I kept saying to DH "I don't remember it being this intense in the beginning. I don't know if I can do this if its already so intense." And the exquisite pain. Swearing I'd never do it again or if I did, I wanted the drugs next time - GIVE ME THE DRUGS!!! I wanted to birth in the pool, but we needed to slow things down - give our midwife time to arrive -so I ended up on our bed, which felt safer, literally singing out our baby boy who was born after only 20 minutes of pushing. 7 lbs 1 oz with dark hair and looking the twin of his older brother. He laid on my chest, eventually nursing, and after the placenta was born, everyone cleaned me up, cleared out and brought me and DH pumpkin pie. We laid in bed, the three of us, and ate pie and snuggled. Thanksgiving indeed. In the warmth of our own home, mommy and baby were relaxed and loved. Dragon was born two days before thanksgiving, 4 years to the day after we lost our first baby in a miscarriage at 13 weeks pregnant. He is a smiley, joyful, snuggly and chilled out baby. I attribute much of this to the way he was brought into the world. He's never spent a day in a hospital. All visits by midwives and check ups for baby were done at home in our bed. I am deeply grateful. I am deeply humbled. What our bodies can do, ladies. How can we be anything but awed and grateful to be a woman?