Colton’s Home Birth

This post is the fourth in a series of positive natural birth stories that I will be publishing in the hope that more women will feel empowered to give birth just as nature intended, without intervention or medication. 

~~~During the afternoon and evening of the 24th I started having consistent contractions about 5-6min apart lasting about a minute long. They were not painful yet, but definitely caught my attention. I decided to go to bed early thinking I would need to get some sleep before the baby came. Around midnight I woke up, not able to sleep because of the contractions. With Zane my labor lasted only an hour and twenty six minutes, so my fear was that even though these contractions didn’t hurt, once active labor started the baby would be born fast.

So I called my midwife and she decided to come out and check me. She was there around 2am and I was 4cm dilated. We all decided to get some sleep and see what happened in the morning. The morning came and the contractions were the same and so was my dilation. Since things weren’t progressing and it was Thanksgiving morning we made the decision to send my midwives home and keep our dinner plans. The contractions continued all day long at the same pace, I feared this would go on for days (that is what happened with Zane). I spent the day walking and napping, and then headed out to Thanksgiving dinner with the family. During dinner the contractions started to get stronger, but not painful yet. We finished up, said our good byes and headed home around 6pm.

While on our way home my midwives called wondering what was going on and if we needed them, I told them no and that we would call them. When we got home, I still didn’t think the baby would be coming but apparently Matt thought different because he went straight to work setting up the bedroom and tub for the birth. I got the kids dressed and ready for bed, and then called my mom to come over around 7pm to get them into bed because I needed a break. At some point while Matt was setting up the room he called the midwives with out me knowing it because he came in and said they would be here any minute. I was a little mad because I didn’t want them to come out for nothing again. Luckily he has better intuition then me, because he was right!

The contractions were still consistent and getting stronger, but nothing that I couldn’t walk or talk through. My midwives arrived around 7:40pm and checked me. I was dilated to 6 and 100% effaced. Not really sure how fast things would go from there, we started filling up the tub which takes about 15min. I had three really strong contractions while it was filling and said I need to get in the water. During this time, Matt went outside to make a few phone calls. While getting into the tub I had the urge to push, I got on hands and knees in the tub and started pushing. Everyone started yelling at Matt to come back in, he was completely confused because when he went outside I was talking and joking with everyone and then he comes back and I am pushing. Luckily he made it, two contractions later our baby was born in the water at 8:02pm on Thanksgiving evening. Matt and my midwife handed the baby to me and immediately I saw and screamed “It’s a Boy”. It all happed SO fast and it was a lot to absorb, but we were all on a birth high. I got out of the tub and cleaned up. We did all the newborn stuff. He was 6lb 15oz, 20in long and healthy as can be. Soon after my midwives left and we all fell asleep in our own bed. It was perfect!

It took us a few days, but we decided on a name… Colton Lovis Lake.

~~~Abbey is a stay-at-home mom of three who are 3 & under. She and her family live on 10 acres in Northern California and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. She blogs about family life, births she attends as a doula and her adventures in becoming a midwife at Life As A Lake.