The Birth of Liam Charles

Last Thursday, 1/21/10, at 12:51 pm Megan birthed Liam Charles into our breathing world.  For me it was an amazing experience and I am so proud of Megan for being so brave.  Meg went into labor at 2:30 am with minute to minute twenty contractions spaced by five minutes.  We pulled out our checklist.  I plugged in the heating pad that we stuffed inside a pillow case with ten receiving blankets and a few beanies.  I boiled the scissors for twenty minutes for sterilization.  We changed the bed to make it more waterproof.  I pulled out the homebirth kit supplies and put them out for easy access.  Then I started to fill the tub, actually it is a horse trough, in our bedroom.  I hooked a hose to our bathtub faucet and started filling.  Since there is not a tub heater I had to mix the right amount of hot/cold water.  About halfway the hot water ran out which was fine because the tub was not needed for another eight hours; unfortunately, soon after Meg wanted to take a hot shower-my bad.  I quickly turned the setting up on the hot water heater, something I was supposed to have already done.

After we completed our preparations we laid back down to rest for the coming activity.  Rest was difficult because the contractions were so painful for Meg that she had to stand for each one of them.  I stood with her like a couple slow dancing.  The hot water came back within a half hour and Meg took a long hot shower.  Since we knew this could go on for a few hours we held off on calling the midwife.  At 5 am we call Rachel our midwife and she suggested that Meg sit on the exercise ball during the contractions.  This worked pretty well for Meg but the contractions were getting stronger and I could tell that they were painful.  By 10 am the contractions got a little closer together, about 3 minutes.  She wanted to get into the tub but wanted

to wait for the midwives so her progress could be checked.  I called Rachel and she said that if she was having some back to back contractions that she wouldn’t check her dilation anyway and suggested that she get in the tub if that is what she wanted.  She also said that they should be on their way if Meg wants in the tub.

At 10:30 am Meg got in the tub and at 10:50 am our midwives arrived.  We were so lucky because we had three awesome midwives here now, the two Rachel’s and Lesley.  I had Tibetan Monk music playing in the background, an idea I got from Three Cups of Tea.  At 12:30 pm the contractions were so painful for Meg that she had to moan her way through them.  I took off my shirt and hopped into the horse trough.  I tried to comfort Meg the best I could without crowding her because it was clear that she was in an epic battle being fought mostly by her and Liam.  I was overwhelmed with emotion from seeing Meg perform so amazingly and feeling almost helpless.  At 12:51 she gave a mighty push and Liam’s head shot out like a missile accompanied by his right arm.  There he was looking up at me with his mouth open about five inches below the water giving me a wave.  It was cool.  His shoulders rotated and a second push later he was all the way out.  I passed him up to Meg.  The midwives spent the next three hours taking care of the three of us.  They were awesome.♥