The (home) birth was much quicker than I had anticipated — only 3 hours (compared to Takeshi’s which was close to 15 hours from start to finish). It probably sounds psychotic, but it think it could have been a lot faster if I wasn’t freaking out so badly and had just let things happen. But the reality is that I wasn’t prepared for things to happen as quickly as they did which is why I was freaking out. Overall, it was a great experience and for the most part, things happened just as I wanted. One of my biggest fears was being transported to the hospital because I couldn’t stand the pain but when it came down to it, there was no way in hell I was going to make the move not only downstairs and out to the car but from the car to the hospital and then once in the hospital, all the way down to the delivery ward, etc etc etc. No, I was content where I was. I was also concerned about Takeshi; I didn’t want him to worry if he saw me in ‘pain,’ so for a long time, I remained as quiet as possible so that I wouldn’t upset him. All this accomplished was more pain and suffering on my end because I was fighting with my body.

People kept trying to put in my head the fear of needing a c-section and not being able to have one if I was at home. First of all, I did my research. I knew what a home birth entailed and I had all my supplies. I also did my research on the midwife that I chose and she had an incredible amount of experience, not to mention glowing recommendations. I also did a LOT of reading on birth in general so I was not walking into this blindly.

I was also not going to risk my life and/or my baby’s life by insisting on having a home birth if the pregnancy and/or the baby were not completely healthy. We had our ultrasound, we did our prenatal visits, I ate well and I also did pre-birth exercises every day. I wanted a home birth because I felt that I was healthy, the baby was healthy and that my body was able to handle a birth without hospital intervention. In fact, now that I’ve had a home birth, I feel that the hospital only hindered my birthing experience with Takeshi.

The only thing I would change about the home birth is the relaxation techniques used (or rather, not used) to help calm me down. My body did not give birth to Kenji gradually — he was flying down the chute at breakneck speed. Although I was physically ready, I was not emotionally ready and that slowed the process down and caused a lot of pain (both physically and mentally). Our midwife did an excellent job of helping me to focus and calm me down and if I had 5 more of her, I think I would have been fine. But just one of her could not handle/control one of me; I have an extremely strong will and I needed to be guided and shown how to relax and not just told to “get it together.” I read Ina May’s book many, many, many times and wondered why they didn’t try any of those things with me.

Once things started getting intense (right about the time I threw up), I shut my eyes and they remained that way until the baby was born. My mind and body were trying to concentrate and I felt that when my eyes were open, I was over-stimulated and couldn’t focus on the task at hand. I never felt closer to ‘losing it’ than when my eyes were open. The primitive part of my brain had taken over and when I actually had to think, I would lose focus and it made whatever I was going through so much more difficult.

Should we decide to have another child, I absolutely want another home birth. It was an amazing experience. The birth was one of deep bonding (not just for me and the baby but for me and Jay as well) and bringing another person into our family. We were not surrounded by bright lights or beeping machines and the baby was not taken from me to be poked and prodded, jeopardizing my milk supply. He was with me at all times and when he was examined after birth, he was never further than arm’s reach.

In some ways I am glad that Takeshi had a hospital birth; it gave me deep perspective on Kenji’s birth. Plus, I was a different person and was absolutely scared of the birthing process. I was a first-time mother-to-be and was terrified of what might happen to myself and my baby during the birth and felt safe surrounded by doctors and all those bright, shiny machines. I was reading too many books and magazines and watching too many shows about what can go wrong with a pregnancy/birth that I became completely obsessed with all the negatives. But Takeshi was never a high risk pregnancy; he was actually the perfect pregnancy and was a perfect candidate for a home birth. I am actually a little sad that I couldn’t give that to him but he is happy and healthy and in the end, that is really all that matters.

On Saturday night (April 5th), while putting Takeshi to bed, I noticed that my abdominal area was tightening. It wasn’t painful at all; the only reason I noticed it was because Takeshi would occasionally kick me and that was when it would hurt. I placed my hand on my stomach and timed the tightenings and they were happening every 3-5 minutes. I told Jay and he said if it didn’t hurt to not worry; they were probably just Braxton Hicks.

I tried to get to bed early but I wanted to make sure that if I went into labor the next day that I would be prepared so I ran around making sure everything was in place and ready to go. Even though I had heard of people getting Braxton Hicks weeks before they delivered, I had already progressed further in the pregnancy than I had with Takeshi and I didn’t want to take any chances. I finally got to bed at 11 pm and woke up at 11:58 pm because I heard Jay in the bathroom. I thought, “Jesus Christ, I need to get some sleep in case I have this baby tomorrow!” I walked downstairs to pee and as I walked back up the stairs, I realized that I was sort of crampy. I was going to tell Jay but he was already asleep so I lay back in bed and tried to get some rest but the cramps were getting more and more painful. I decided to time them and they were coming every 3 minutes. It was getting more difficult to breath and concentrate; at this point I was next to the bed, on all fours, watching my iPod to time the contractions. Then I felt something warm and wet running down my leg. I knew that it was definitely time to wake Jay up so I (quietly, so as not to wake Takeshi) yelled his name a few times and told him, “I think my water broke.”

In the meantime, I moved on over to the bathroom so that whatever was leaking out of me wouldn’t get all over the carpet. At first I thought that maybe I was peeing myself; I was so distracted by the pain I thought that maybe I didn’t have full control over my bladder but when I looked down at the floor, I knew it wasn’t urine. It was brownish and thick and it kept coming out and I soaked through an entire towel. Once Jay saw that stuff running out of me, he knew he had to get the midwife on the phone. So about 30 seconds after he woke up (at 12:40), he was calling the midwife (Evelyn), letting her know that my bag of waters had broken. Then he called Stacey (my lifesaver and also Takeshi’s designated babysitter for the birth of the baby). After the obligatory phone calls, he started running around getting things set up (filling up the crockpot, laying down a drop cloth, stripping down the bed to lay down the shower curtain liner and clean sheets, setting up the camcorder, etc) and he even managed to coral Takeshi (who woke up in the middle of all the action) into the kitchen. He also managed to get me my birth ball so I could lean on/over it. (If we have any more children, I’ll have to make sure to get a smaller ball since the one I have seemed too big; I wanted to wrap my arms around something and squeeze but my ball was much too large for that.)

Somehow I managed to get completely naked (because my clothes, although loose, felt extremely claustrophobic) so that when Evelyn got to our house (around 1:15 am), I was in the bathroom on all fours, hugging that birth ball, trying to squeeze away the contractions. Evelyn quickly brought all her supplies in and by the time she decided to check me, it must have been about 1:30am. I wasn’t keen on moving but she said she needed to see how I was doing. I moved back over to the bed and she had me lay on my back so she could check my cervix (although I was hoping she could check me while I was on my hands and knees). Whether it was the timing or the fact that she was touching my cervix, I was hit with another contraction and being on my back was torturous. But she let me know that I was 7 cm dialated and that my bag of waters was still intact — Jay and I were both a bit surprised at this and asked her if she was sure. She said yes, it was still intact and that perhaps what we saw was mucous; if it was, that was a whooole lotta mucous. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be that far along and that I’d have a while before I saw any real progress but when I heard that number I thought, “Thank GOD! I’m almost done!” I also remember thinking that it was at this point in Takeshi’s birth that I begged for an epidural but with Kenji’s birth that was never a thought; when we first met Evelyn and her birth assistant (Casey), they told us straight away that they did not use any drugs so I knew it wasn’t an option. Then the contractions started getting more intense and suddenly I wanted to throw up. Evelyn grabbed a hamper, which we had lined and designated a trash receptical, and my body started purging. I was sitting on the edge of the bed with the hamper in front of me and I distinctly remember wanting my head to be lower. I don’t know how to describe it other than I wanted to pull myself through the hamper.

Then I started crying and Evelyn suggested getting in the bathtub. The only bathtub available was the one in our guest bathroom (which is small and could not accommodate all four of us). They filled it about a third with water and had me walk over to it; again, that was torturous. I wanted nothing more than to just stay where I was and get that baby out of me. Once I was in the water, I was so mad that it was so damn shallow. The part of me that was in the water felt fine (my hands and my legs) but I wanted my belly in the water and once again, I couldn’t get that low. If we had been able to get the birth tub up and filled with water, I think it would have really helped because once I was in the tub I wanted so badly to be submerged in the warm water.

Then what I’d like to call the MAKE IT STOP contractions came on. I was on all fours in the bathtub, facing the back wall with Jay next to me on the edge of the bathtub when the contractions were at their most intense. I firmly believe that I was fully dialated at this point and my body was trying to push the baby out but because of where I was located, I couldn’t (or rather, I wasn’t allowed to) push. I started bucking like a wild horse and rammed Jay into the wall. I had so much energy, it was insane. More than the hurting, I just felt like I wanted to DO something — anything! I started screaming at the top of my lungs — so loud that it was bouncing off the bathroom walls and giving me a headache. I eventually buried my face in Jay’s shirt and that helped stifle the screams (and save all of our hearing). I didn’t know what to do; I just wanted it to stop (and I was actually begging Jay to “please make it stop”). I was exhausted and yet full of energy and I felt like no one was helping me. Casey started telling me to “get it together” which pissed me off because seriously, if I could have “gotten it together” I damn sure would have. I needed someone to guide me and tell me what to do with this energy and these feelings but all I kept hearing was Casey (and then Jay) tell me to “get a grip”. (Later Jay told me that he had to be harsh with me because he said seeing me in that much pain was killing him and he felt like if I didn’t take control of the situation soon that he was going to lose it and then we’d both be a crying mess, which definitely would not have helped.) Evelyn wanted to check me but couldn’t because the bathroom was so small, she couldn’t get to me so she told me to get back to the bed. Hello? Was she insane? I couldn’t even humor the notion of moving but she kept telling me NOT to push, we had to get to the bed — NOW. I kept refusing and decided I was never going to move.

Then Jay did something that made me glad I didn’t marry some 90 lb pussified man (I know, so elegant); he picked me and my crazy, bucking, trying-to-have-a-baby self and carried me back to the bed. Right before I hit the bed, another contraction started and (I don’t remember this but Jay says) I threw both him and the midwife onto the bed. Somehow I had managed to pin Jay to the bed, with me on all fours on top of him. I was pushing into him and I could feel Evelyn’s fingers checking me. She announced that I was fully dialated and could start pushing. Halle-freakin-lujah! Jay told me he was going to get up so he could turn the camcorder on but I told him, “No. Nooooo.” He begged me to let him turn it on but I refused to let him leave me. I felt like if he did, I would fall apart.

So now, instead of screaming, I was focusing all my energy on pushing. Push, push, push. I felt the baby slowly make his way down. Because I had an epidural with Takeshi, I was never able to feel what was happening so when they told me to “push like you have to poo,” I did. Unfortunately, a baby does not come out of your ass but out of your vagina so pushing like I had to pass my bowels did no good; the only thing that helped was the OBGYN showing me by putting pressure on the area, then I understood where to push. Jay thought I would have the same problem so he told Evelyn that I would need help understanding where to push but I said, “No, I know.” I felt the baby’s head start to come out but then I started to feel “The Ring of Fire” and I pulled his little head right back in because hot damn, they didn’t call it that for nothing! After some more pushes and more rings o’ fire, I realized that if I wanted to get this baby out, I would have to endure the pain (and possible tearing) so I grit my teeth and pushed as hard as I could.

Because of the way I had pinned him to the bed, Jay wasn’t able to see anything so Casey grabbed our standing mirror from our closet and positioned it so that he wouldn’t miss the birth. (At least one of us got to see it!) He said it was the weirdest thing to see the baby’s head poke out a little (still surrounded by the amniotic sac) and then go back inside. Evelyn and Casey thought that the baby might be born in a caul but Jay said he watched as the baby’s head pushed out and then he saw the amniotic sac split right down the middle. Then the head was fully out and suddenly the room was filled with the sounds of our baby crying — not even born and he was already crying! Evelyn said she thought it was a girl and Jay said he felt the same way. Then I pushed out the baby’s body and at 3:02 am Evelyn proclaimed, “It’s a boy!” I have to admit that the entire time I was trying to get off my hands and knees and turn around so I could hold my little boy, I kept on thinking, “Really?… A boy??… Really?!” Everyone thought he was going to be a she. The only one that declared “boy” was my mom a few weeks before he was born.

I finally managed to sit down and Evelyn passed the baby off to me. Then Jay was scrambling to turn on the camcorder (since he was finally free from my death grip), and Evelyn and Casey were doing things that I didn’t care about because I was holding my little boy. A few minutes later, Evelyn asked me to stand to deliver the placenta and with a few pushes it was out. So there I sat on the bed, holding the baby, with the placenta in a bowl next to me. We waited until the umbilical cord had stopped pulsing and it was flat and then Jay cut it. I had a first degree tear but within a week it had healed; I was shocked since it took MONTHS for my episiotomy (which I had begged the OBGYN not to do) to heal. Evelyn and Casey were also busy taking the baby’s stats for his APGAR test and he scored a 10 both times.

So that is Kenji’s homebirth story. My thoughts on the whole process will follow….