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After literally weeks of stop and start labor my husband and I decided to take a break. We pawned the kids off on my mom and took a night out together. We went to see a movie, and the second the Dolby digital sound filled the theater my first contraction started. I wasn’t convinced this night would be like any other, though, so I didn’t even bother to share the information. Through the whole movie I timed contractions, 3-5 minutes apart. Still, this wasn’t unusual. When we went home I told my husband what had been happening and headed for a bath. Hot baths had become a staple to me through all the weeks of laboring like this. After my bath I decided to try to sleep, quickly praying that this time would be different and I would wake up with contractions still happening.

I cannot describe my elation at 4:30 in the morning when I woke up realizing I was having a contraction. Not only was I having one, but also it registered to me that I had been having them for a while and had only been half asleep. I got up and called the people in my birth team to fill them in. My closest friend was the first to be there. She set up the most beautiful and peaceful environment in my living room with candles and an altar type setting on my fireplace. We sat in there together, talking between contractions. She gave me Reiki at one point, which in itself was an incredibly peaceful part of my laboring. Soon other people that were planning on being at my birth began to arrive, which was fine because my contractions were picking up in intensity.

While the women seemed to instinctively know how to help me – feeding me, offering me water, rubbing my hips and giving counter pressure – my husband set to work filling up the labor pool. (Which he lovingly did one pot of water at a time, as we did not have a hose attachment!) I was having very intense contractions that went through both hips, and really I could feel them more in my hips then my abdomen. When the water was high enough to offer any comfort I slipped in the pool and felt immediate relief. The change in intensity also came with a drastic change in labor pattern. I had been having contractions like clockwork every three or so minutes, but once in the water they started coming two together, with the second one being much less intense than the first, and spacing out a good few minutes. It was shortly after this that my midwife arrived.

Because of the new labor pattern, she wasn’t convinced my labor was progressed enough (she thought I was still in early labor) and asked me to get back out of the water for a while. So I did. From the time it took me to get out of the water and walk across my living room (less than twenty feet), I was hit with a contraction so hard I had to grab the wall to stay on my feet. This is how my contractions were from then on, coming every couple of minutes. I kept trying to get in a position on my bed to be checked, but it took over half an hour for her to check me because I wouldn’t be still long enough. Finally, she was able to check my cervix and said I was only 4 centimeters, but with a bulging and very tight bag of waters.

At this point I became very discouraged. I went to the bathroom and cried because I knew my body was further than 4 centimeters. I knew how I labored, and I knew what I was feeling. There was no doubt to me that I was at least 8 centimeters, no matter what my cervix was showing. I went back into my bedroom and labored beside my bed holding on to Jamie, my friend who had arrived first in my labor. During a particularly intense contraction, my water broke with a pop, immense relief, a lot of force and a little blood. At the same time I felt Kylie’s head hit my cervix like she had just been dropped into my belly. No wonder I wasn’t physically dilating! Her head had never been applied to my cervix for all the water that she was swimming around in!

The second she dropped on my cervix I dilated completely and immediately began to have the urge to push. I knew she was coming then and I ignored everyone and everything around me. I headed back for the bathroom, pushing people from in front of me and flipping lights off as I went. Jamie, I swear I don’t know what I would have done without her, caught on to what was happening and started following me with cameras since pictures were important to me. The midwife caught on too at some point and came in to sit in front of me as I squatted over the toilet. She wanted to check me to make sure I was complete but that hurt too bad and I pushed her hand away. I put my hand down there, maybe for protection I don’t know, and felt the baby’s head bulging on my perineum. I looked down at the midwife and said, “You can’t check me, she’s coming NOW.” Then she said that was fine just give her time to check for a cord. Well this didn’t exactly work for me either as I could feel how fast the baby was descending, so I simply angled my pelvis in the direction of the midwife’s lap and pushed. Kylie Joan Hilton came into the world with one push, actually falling into the midwife’s lap. I think it might have shocked her (Kylie) a little because she passed meconium right as she landed. She weighed eight pounds and one ounce, and managed to arrive without tearing me at all, even after coming out all in one very quick push. The time it took from my water breaking until she was born was less than five minutes.

She was handed up to me immediately and I couldn’t believe how kindred I felt to that little soul I was holding. She looked up at me, and I swear I could feel her saying, “Hi, I know you.” Someone helped me walk back into the bedroom and get settled into bed to nurse the baby and wait for the placenta. And for a good while, Daddy and me just laid there staring at her beautiful little face and falling in love.

This birth was beautiful to me because it reiterated what I am capable of doing. It was intense, in many ways more physically intense than my first homebirth. Even with the intensity, though, I never thought it was something I couldn’t do. I never thought of it as painful, either. I only wish that I would have known ahead of time how distrusting of my body the midwife was going to be. Her doubt in me, in birth, was the only cause of any doubt I had throughout the entire seven-hour labor. Without that doubt, I would not have second-guessed what I knew to be happening and what was instinctual for my birth. Looking back, Kylie probably would have been born in the pool.

But I don’t regret one second of the birth. I was strong and capable, working once again with my baby to give her a beautiful entrance into the world.

Oh and the funniest thing was that after all those weeks of start and stop labor, to the point that I thought for the longest time she would be a preemie, Kylie came exactly on her due date! Just goes to show that babies really do know what they’re doing!