I am a homebirth midwife that recently moved to a new state and joined a wonderful practice that I am really enjoying. Come ride along with me as I drive from house to house reliving the miracle of life.















Sunday, September 13, 2009

Labor Day!

How appropriate would it be to have a baby born on that day? Well guess what, we did. I got a call around 12 noon saying that one of our clients was in labor. She was having contractions but she was still two weeks before her due date. The other midwife instructed the husband on how to time the contractions and advised him to call her back in about 20 mins. He began to do so and quickly realized that they were coming pretty close together.

She called me back to say that her contractions were coming about every four minutes and she was going to head over to her house to check her. I told her that I would jump in the shower and then be on my way. She said, "You might want to just come without the shower." I thought to myself if you had a smell-o-phone you might not agree, but who am I to argue with her.

I quickly got dressed, kissed my husband good-bye and ran off to fire up my midwife mobile and hit the road. The tricky part of this situation is that I am at least one hour away from any birthing action in this state. Depending on where the clients live I can be up to an hour and a half away. This geographical situation is not ideal for birth because I found out that babies that are ready to be born are not going to wait for anyone...not even me!

So I jump on the highway and away I went at break-neck speed. Luckily it was a holiday and by 12:30 pm most people were where they wanted to be already and the roads were pretty vacant. This was a good thing for a speeding midwife that did not want to have to contend with heavy traffic or people out for a Sunday drive. There are times that I am whizing down the highway trying to get to a birth and I am envious of the person next to me on the road who is out for a casual stroll.

About 30 minutes after I got on the road I get a text message from the other midwife saying that the mom was 8 cm and going really quickly. It was then that I realized that there was no way I was going to make it in time. This did not slow me down however; and I perservered on down the highway. Maybe 1o minutes later I heard the familar chirp of my phone alerting me to another text message. I was afraid to even check the message because I was pretty sure I already knew what it was going to say. Of course curiosity finally got the better of me, I think I held out for about 15 seconds, and I checked the message. It said, "BB out" and I still was 45 minutes away from the house.

One really nice feature of my GPS is that it tells me what time I am going to arrive at my destination and I like that added bit of knowledge. Eventhough I had missed the birth I decided to continue on. When I arrived at the house it was nestled in a beautiful neighborhood and the front door was open as if to invite me in.

As I walked in I saw the most precious tiny little girl. She was absolutely beautiful and petite at 6lbs 2oz. I think my favorite part of her was her little button nose, it reminded me of a doll. The parents were equally cute and excited. The birth had gone so fast that they barely had time to adjust to the idea. And of course the baby being 2 weeks early didn't help that feeling of being rushed.

All in all it was wonderful and despite the fact that I missed the actual birth the postpartum period and the hours that I spent with them made up for it.

1 comment:

  1. Dear Midwife,
    She was just a bit bigger than you were at 6 pounds 1 ounce. How sweet! It's just like you to make something good out of an unexpected outcome!
    Love,
    Mom

    ReplyDelete