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Joel
Jeremiah |
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Proud parents Myriam and
Kevin |
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Myriam 's Story |
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(Belly cast making) |
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My husband and I talked about having a homebirth but worried about the finances. I really wanted to have more control and less intervention in my next birth and Kevin thought it would be great not to have to go and stay and park at the hospital. We finally made the decision to birth at home despite the expense. Emotionally, I needed it. The pregnancy was much more freeing. We didn’t have to take time to go to OB appointments. We didn’t have to wait in the waiting room for one plus hours. We didn’t have to deal with a caregiver who would prescribe us drugs for any little symptom that I complained about. Geri Lehner, our midwife, was very supportive of my reluctance to take drugs. She became our introduction to natural remedies and homeopathy. She also made the time to address EVERY concern we had and even spent extra time being a friend when I suffered from depression after my fifth or sixth month. This pregnancy had caught Kevin and I off-guard. We had to have an ultrasound done to determine gestation and a due date. The due date that was given to me was September 24, 2006. Two weeks prior to the due date I started having contractions. Two days after that, I had another long episode of contractions and we set up our birth pool, only to stop having contractions. Geri said my cervix was about 60% effaced and that everything was very soft. She and I thought I could go into labour at any time and so we left the birth pool set up. We had to empty it about five times to keep bacteria from building up before we actually went into labour three weeks later. The day I went into labour I was about 41 weeks and 5 days. Or so I thought. I was getting so impatient about the three weeks of prepping and no baby that we tried a Castor Oil induction. It worked and we were in labour late the same night. At 12:35am, on October 6th, I woke up from contractions. I called my midwife shortly after that and explained to her where I was at. I was having contractions between two and three minutes apart but they were still tolerable. Geri said she would get her gear together and arrived about two hours later. By then the contractions were a little harder, the same distance apart, and I was handling it well. She suggested that I get into the water. I thought that it was too soon but I think she wanted to see if the contractions would slow down or stop. They maintained their pattern so I stayed in and floated around while Geri made me breakfast. Kevin was in charge of bringing my son to my in-laws and getting me apple juice from a nearby 7-eleven for my labour. When Kevin came back we pulled up our TV and started watching a movie while we waited for labour to get harder. After about a half hour we decided to go for a walk. While walking, the contractions progressed to the point where coping was getting difficult. We started back towards home where I laboured on the toilet for a while. I went back into the birth pool after an internal exam put me at three centimeters dilation. Cathy (our other midwife) and Lindsay Davies (my doula) were called over and by the time Lindsay arrived at 6:20am I was screaming through contractions. Her presence was very soothing. She helped me moan through my contractions. She said the low moaning would help me open up. Well in less than an hour I was surprising everyone by saying over and over “I have to push.” Geri checked my dilation and sure enough, there was his little head. She called Cathy again to come because I was pushing. After a bit of pushing my water broke. It was such a neat little gush. I could feel it even in the water. As our baby got closer to the opening we lost track of his little heart beat and his scalp looked a little blue so I had to push harder to get him out so Geri could make sure he was getting enough oxygen. I tore unfortunately but my baby is beautiful and healthy and I wouldn’t have risked that for all of the intact perineums in the world. The experience was so empowering. I spent days looking at my little man and smiling saying “I can’t believe I pushed you out all by myself in my own house.” The other reward was the way my baby and I bonded. We bonded much faster than I did with my first. Being able to hold him and not be all drowsy from the drugs helped me get a great start at being his mommy. The other bonus was his alertness (also from the lack of drugs) and his ability to latch on to breastfeeding almost immediately. After the birth, our birth team (Geri, Cathy, Lindsay and my hubby), cleaned up the house and helped me get comfortable. Geri left the herbs to make sitz baths (which were very soothing) and she left some other little things to help my recovery come quickly. I am so happy with my homebirth and my new son, Joel Jeremiah Black. Joel was born at 7:35am and weighed 9 lbs. When Geri and Cathy did his gestational age assessment they determined that the ultrasound was off by about three weeks and that Joel was, in reality, closer to 39 weeks. We love him very much.
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by
Barbara Harper. The book had been recommended to me by my doula