I am exhausted and my house is messy, but I am so inwardly content in a way I haven't ever been. My family is complete. Our final member came to join us on 12/14/14 at 3:25 am. It was a longer and harder labor than I anticipated, not virtually instantaneous, like DS2's amazing birth, but she was worth every pain and ache.

I had my membranes swept by my midwife on Friday afternoon, slept well that night, and expected to go into labor the next morning. I was having regular contractions and bloody show Saturday morning, so I thought I was looking at a few hours of labor and then a baby. I called the midwife at 10 am, but there was so little progress that she left at 1 pm to attend to another client and come back later. Contractions came and went, got hard and then eased off, into the night. I had my membranes swept a second time, and things started to pick up. I was exhausted by midnight, from walking all day to keep the contractions strong, and afraid to get into the tub for fear of stalling labor, but I finally got into the tub at 1 am with really painful, white-knuckling pains.

My water broke in the tub, and there was some meconium staining, which was a first for me. I ended up draining the tub and pushing on hands and knees to let gravity help me, so my planned waterbirth was not to be. Still, I knew something was weird when I started pushing. It was like pushing something out that was tethered by a bungee cord! I pushed her head halfway out, and then it started going back in. My midwife said that was concerning, as was the fact that a 3rd time mom was asking for help getting her out.

It didn't take long to see what was wrong. The cord, slightly shorter than normal, was wrapped around her neck twice. I knew something was up, even though I couldn't see what was going on behind me, when I realized her cord had been cut before it had stopped pulsing. My midwife is an outspoken advocate of delayed cord clamping, and knows I agree with her. I turned to see my daughter with a very blue face, not breathing or moving, with my midwife putting a tube down her throat to get some air to her. Her assistant announced that her heartbeat was still strong, and started massaging her to get her moving. It was less than a minute before she started crying, but it seemed like forever, and the cancelled call to dial 911 happened less than 5 seconds before that first mewling cry.

It scared the hell out of my husband, as did the fact that her blood sugar was low and she needed some skin-to-skin time and nursing to get it back to normal and up to the correct body temperature. My mother witnessed the whole thing and admitted that it traumatized her. I have to admit, it wasn't ideal, but I was not nearly as worried when she came out, since I had felt her kicking the heck out of me as she slid out not 10 seconds before she was laying blue on my bathroom floor.

My poor, sweet husband has expressed numerous times that he would never let me do this again. I'm too blissed out to care. I have my baby girl, I don't want any more kids, any more pregnancies, any more births. I've never felt done before. I am done now. I'm ready to move on from family planning to raising the awesome brood I have.

I've now been asked if I'd have chosen a homebirth now knowing how things went. I absolutely would. I hired a midwife with 30 years of experience who has never lost a mom or a baby, and never had a birth-induced defect inflicted on her watch. I did not have a c-section, which they would have undoubtably given me if they knew she had the cord wrapped around her neck twice. I didn't have an episiotomy, which would have been the course of action, had a c-section been refused, to get her out more quickly. My baby spent the entire watchful night on my bare chest, nursing, being sung to and cuddled, instead of in the NICU under a heat lamp with an IV for observation to get her blood sugar up and warmed. I am content, not traumatized. My bodily autonomy was honored, and my baby was in good hands. In fact, I am almost completely healed and done bleeding, and I'm only at 3 1/2 days postpartum.

Life is what happens while you're planning. Everything didn't happen exactly the way I envisioned, but it's still perfect.[ATTACH=CONFIG]22627[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]22698[/ATTACH]