Birth Story

On Monday, July 4th, I decided I was done being pregnant!  After putting the kids to bed Andrew and I sat out on our back deck talking about when baby was coming and how finished my body was feeling.  I expressed that I didn't know how many more days I could go with the aches and pains and ever growing belly that I was experiencing.  It turns out my body was right.  We went to bed just before midnight.  I remember tossing and turning in a delusional dream from 1:00-2am.  When I woke up at 2:20am I realized the reason it felt like such a weird dream was because I was having contractions.  With my other two pregnancies I had 12-24 hours of early labour.  This time around I had early labour symptoms on and off for two weeks leading up to the delivery.  So when I woke to contractions I was in active labour timing my contractions every 2-3 minutes right off the hop.  I didn't know how long I was going to be labouring like this so I went downstairs and, in good Kristin fashion, started cleaning:)  I started with the dishwasher.  Heaven forbid there be a dish in the sink when a baby is born.  And then after the kitchen was clean wrapped gifts for the kids from baby.  Every couple of minutes I would need to stop what I was doing to breathe through the contraction.  After an hour like this I decided to call my midwife.  I've heard some crazy baby #3 labour stories where the babe comes very quickly so I wanted to give my midwife time to get to our house to setup and prep for the delivery.  At 3:30am Andrew came downstairs in a blur and asked if this was it, were we actually having this baby?  I said yes and off he went to get the birthing pool ready for me.  Unfortunately the faucet adaptor wasn't in the pool kit (it was supposed to be and I didn't notice the empty package in the days leading up) so Andrew held a hose to the faucet trying to get as much water in the tub as possible.  This was a very slow process!  While he looked for something to remedy the problem I held the hose in between contractions to try and keep filling the tub.  I guess I didn't do a very good job because the water backed up a bit under the sink, led its way down the pipe and ended up making a long water stain on our main floor ceiling.....oops!  From that point on Andrew filled large pots of water and made about 30 trips back and forth from the bathroom to the bedroom (where the tub was located).  By this time his back was finished....who was in labour?!  At one point he looked at our soaker tub and wondered why we weren't just using it for the water birth.  After the fact we are both very glad that we pushed through and used the birthing tub.  It was incredible!  By 4:15 the midwife had arrived.  She had a lot of gear to bring in and setup so she hooked up my IV for the antibiotic for Group B Strep and continued getting everything ready.  I hopped in the tub around 5:30 were I laboured for the next 21/4 hours.  Just before 8 both the second midwife on call and my photographer arrived at which point I had my water broken.  Within minutes I went into pushing mode and 30 minutes later Ebony Wren made a splash into the world, literally!  My final push was so big that she shot out and splashed into the tub.  Ebony was passed under the water, through my legs were I got to pull her up out into the world.  No one had announced her gender at this point so I put my hand on her to feel whether she was a girl or boy.  I guess I grabbed the umbilical cord because I thought we had just had a boy....that would be one endowed little boy:)  Then Andrew and I took a look and saw that she was actually a girl!  After Andrew cut the cord he got to take Ebony for his first snuggle while I got out of the water to delivery the placenta.  From there I got stitched up (only 5 stiches!) and enjoyed my first snuggle with babe.  I was thrilled that everything went so smoothly and that we were able to have another successful home birth.  It has been such an incredible experience being able to labour, delivery and recover in the comfort of my own home.  The next couple of hours we spent enjoying Ebony while the gear got packed up and everything got cleaned and disposed of.  I don't know how it is possible after having two children but I am brought back to complete awe of how amazing creation and God are.  It all works together so perfectly and the process of birth is the ultimate miracle.  Wow!  How fortunate to be able to feel this love again!

Ebony Wren Bracewell
Born @ 8:23am on July 5th, 2011
Weighing 8lbs 110z, 21" long