my first birth was a cesarean

I wanted to deliver my first baby at home, but that didn’t work out for a variety of reasons — none related to me medically being able to. My next time around, I was so happy to deliver my second at home; 8-pound whopper (my midwife didn’t share that news ahead of time) and an 8-hour labor. I loved taking a shower in my bathroom then climbing back into my own bed to share pizza with my toddler and my husband as my newborn dozed!

With my first, I ended up with a cesarean, so when I got pregnant with my second I asked my OB/GYN if there were any medical reasons that prevented a vaginal delivery or any reason I couldn’t do a VBAC with my second. She told me there were none. My husband’s stress was a huge impact on me the first time, but he was on board for my second to be a home birth.

GETTING READY FOR A HOME BIRTH

I ate really well and lead kayak trips for Eco-Tours until I was almost 7 months pregnant — a great combo: paddling then snorkeling! I planned to do a home birth and I was due early-to-mid-August. Linda Caiger would be my midwife, assisted by Shelly Berry.

The morning of

My husband had a fishing tournament that started on the 15th of August… still no baby. Linda wasn’t telling me at this point what she thought his weight would be. A tournament guest and my husband joked that he couldn’t miss tournament fishing days. On August 19th, the tournament ended and still no baby.

The morning of August 20th, my husband had another charter. At 8:15am he called me to say the trip had been cancelled last minute and then at 8:30am my water broke and contractions started soon after! My mother-in-law was visiting to help me with my toddler at the time and they went to Magen’s mid-morning. my husband met them there. I don’t recall when Linda and Shelly arrived, but my husband came home once I started pushing.

i’m in Labor!

I mostly only pushed standing up, but also had a pinched nerve in one leg, so my husband helped hold me up. I was pushing for quite a while; Linda did tell me at one point that I only had 30 more mins to get this baby out or she’s sending me to hospital. My son arrived at 4:00pm. Strong Apgar scores and quickly latched on. He was 8 lbs. 8oz. and 22 inches long. I took a shower in my own bathroom then crawled in bed to call my stateside family and share the exciting news. My daughter and her grandma came home from the beach and we lounged around and ate pizza. I had no medical issues and neither did my newborn baby boy. It was the perfect, peaceful home birth. Remarkable how a women’s state of mind can delay - during tournament - then initiate birth once I got word that his trip was cancelled. Fear, security, support, confidence - huge factors.

challenges of a home birth

Honestly, in retrospect the hardest part of my labor was the mountain of paperwork required by the Virgin Islands government to get the birth certificate. I recommend women to review the process beforehand and have a support person to do the runaround once baby has finally arrived.