Owen Philip Dobelstein

Planned Home Birth Story

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

8lbs, 20”

Another birth for the books! Our boys love to remind us to be very flexible in our birth plans. Owen was no exception. At 39 weeks I began feeling really good, I could tell he had dropped and was off my lungs. I had more energy and wanted to get some things done and exercise before he came. Monday was Labor Day and I thought “by golly, I am ready for labor!” I took a 3 hour walk, walking concentric circles around my house stopping for water breaks only. The weather was spectacular and Kristofer was busy planting flowers while Aaden napped. While I was out and about I had consistent contractions every 7 minutes or so. After I returned home the contractions stopped. We decided to go out to dinner one last time as a family and enjoy it.

We all had a great night’s sleep and I woke up Tuesday with a few last minute things to get done before the baby came, namely laundry and washing my truck! I convinced the boys to walk to Safeway (3 miles round trip) with me, have lunch there and get some last minute essentials. Again, contractions were consistent and 5-7 minutes apart. Like the day before, they stopped once I stopped walking. We returned home and washed my truck, no small task! By the evening I was still feeling good and we laughed that Kristofer was going to probably go back to work the next day without having had a baby. By 9pm I decided to call my folks on Skype to just give them the update. I sat talking to my mom for awhile and began having more painful contractions. At one point she asked what I was doing as I’d gotten up and begun to pace a bit. After a few of these I told her I was headed to bed and did just that. Once in bed though the contractions stopped.

I slept soundly for 2 hours and then got up to use the bathroom twice before 2am. At about 2:30 AM the contractions started all over again and didn’t stop. I stayed in the bathroom for a little over an hour timing myself. At about 3:40 AM I woke Kristofer to let him know that they were 5 minutes apart and lasting nearly a minute. Having had a shorter labor (prior to pushing for 10 hours) with Aaden, my midwives had told me to call at this point as things could go rather quickly! We immediately called our doula (and midwife in training) Megan (labor coach who was also with us when Aaden was born) and paged our midwife. Megan got on the road from Marysville immediately, knowing things could go quickly too. Our midwife called back at around 4 AM and asked how I was progressing, not wanting to come if I’d feel like a ‘watched pot.’ I had a contraction on the phone with her and said that was 8 out of 10 on the “yikes” scale and she should come. They said they would be about an hour out but to page back if anything changed. I decided to move myself from the bathroom to our bed, hoping that between the contractions I could rest. As with Aaden, this was the “transition” phase. Moving positions onto hands and knees seems to be the ticket for me. I had two very painful and long contractions on the bed not even 2 minutes apart and felt the urge to push. I knew I needed to get back to the bathroom and call the midwives back. Things had changed! By the time I got there I had one more contraction, the urge to push and WOOSH my water burst, scaring Kristofer as he was diligently filling the birth tub and preparing our room for the birth. We got our midwife on the phone and told her of the progress, she was still 20+ minutes out and I said I could feel him coming. She said she’d be there as soon as possible and hung up. We immediately called Megan and said “drive faster he’s coming!” We put her on speaker phone as she began asking “what do you feel?” I said “RING OF FIRE, MEGAN!!” and I reached down and felt his head and some fingers!? Through two more contractions I felt him descend, sneeze, move his shoulder and begin to slide out. Kristofer was there ALL HANDS ON DECK! He could see as his head began to come out that his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice. She calmly said, don’t force him to come and at this point he just slid out with his left arm stretched out above his head and into Kristofer’s arms. She asked us to immediately put him on my chest to get the cord off. We tag-teamed it and unwrapped him from the cord and put him on my chest. He immediately began to cry and we bulb syringed his nose and mouth out. Megan said she’d be there in a minute and she’d help deliver everything else. At that moment, everything else came out! We scooped him and everything else up and made our way into the bedroom where our bed was made with extra sheets and a plastic tarp. Within moments Megan and our midwives showed up and began checking us out! Owen Philip was born at exactly 5 AM at our home, into his father’s capable arms with the help of delivery coaching over the phone.

People asked if we planned to have him at home and the answer is yes. I am thankful to be amongst the women who have low risk pregnancies and can utilize the exceptional services of midwives in our area. Having had such a great experience with them for Aaden’s late-prenatal care and portions of his delivery I knew I wanted to return to them. Upon further review we decided a home birth was a good fit for us and made preparations for one. We rented a birth tub (a giant kiddie pool) to labor in and had all the essentials that both hospitals and birth centers have on hand. Our midwives come prepared with all the other equipment needed.

Obviously we did not intend for Kristofer and me to deliver our child by ourselves, but God had other plans for us. Through incredible training/knowledge imparted upon us by our midwives and doula and the experience we gained from Aaden’s birth, we were ready to do what it needed to take in this situation. We are so thankful for all of their help and assistance and never once felt my life or our son’s life was in danger. The up side of it all was that we were in our own home, our oldest son was able to sleep through the entire process in his own room and my recovery has been 100 times better than my first birth. Praise God!

Thanks to Claire Gilfillan Photography for snapping a few images 24 hours after the birth.