The saga continues...

Thanks for the friendly nudge to finish telling this adventure, Lydia. ;-)

You know, the decision for us to "freebirth" wasn't done lightly. I'm nervous of telling this story, for fear of what people may think, and for fear of people criticising and putting a damper on what was quite possibly one of the most amazing things to ever happen to us. My feelings are still a little raw and sensitive to people who think we should have done it differently, so... please just be aware of that. Birth is such an intimate and personal thing, and while I enjoy sharing my stories with you, I'd appreciate you respecting our decisions.
We did actually have a midwife lined up to attend the birth. I don't think I mentioned this in my earlier post, but yes - we did. Then, at about 34 weeks pregnant, something happened and she couldn't come anymore. i was devastated. I remember getting off the phone to her and going outside and just sobbing. James came out and between my shuddering hiccups, I poured my heart out to to him. I had found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. I knew I couldn't labour at the hospital because I'd get tense, and then labour would hurt more, and I didn't want to be pushed into pain medications, or if labour didn't progress according to their timelines...well, then there were a whole slew of problems that could happen. So many "complications" in labour happen because of being managed too much. If you let a woman labour naturally and at her pace, then often all those "nasties" of hospital labours can be avoided. But the hospitals really struggle at that. Their job is to "fix" things, and they wanna do that.
So I knew the hospital was out of the question. There is a birthing centre about 3 hours away, but honestly, in the car and travelling for 3 hours  to give birth naturally and then travel all the way home again? Seemed pretty pointless to me. And expensive.
And I've already mentioned that there were no homebirth midwives within 5 hours of us. Again, pretty pointless to pay out thousands of dollars (no exaggeration here. It's soo expensive!) to have her travel and most likely miss the birth anyway. I did explore the option extensively, but we just couldn't make it work.

So James, my sweet hero, turned to me and said "Well. Why don't we just do it at home on our own??"
I looked at him in disbelief, because he'd always said "no" to that, as he didn't feel confident enough. I guess the desperation put bravery into him, because he was all gung-ho! We started researching and educating ourselves, and as I said in the previous post, we educated ourselves alot. Along with talking to homebirth midwives on the phone and learning from them. We brought a homebirthing pool and tinctures like Shepherd's Purse incase of hemmoraging after the birth. We made the tie for baby's umbilical cord, and boiled the sharp nurse's scissors. We brought the grapejuice for a quick energy boost right after the birth, and I basically drowned myself in Red Raspberry Leaf tea to tone up my uterus, in order to help it contract down right after the birth. We went through the checklist of what to have on hand and within reach again and again.

We were ready.

We were prepared.

We were educated.

*The following story may be a little graphic for some. So as a warning to you, if you don't want to hear lots of lovely information about me, then you may want to skip this post*

So. After our wonderful morning at the hospital being monitered, and our awesome time at the park, the kiddies and I headed home for some lunch. As I was buttering the bread, I felt something huge slip out of me. I was like "What in the world!?" and excited at the same time, because I knew that my cervix was finally beginning to register that it had work to do! I was a little surprised though, because in all my previous labours I'd started out by waking up in the morning with a small show, tinged with blood, and diarrhoea. Diarrhoea is the body's way of clearing itself out before labour. Kind of like "lets elimate all the other jobs first before we tackle the big one". So when I woke up that morning with nothing, I didn't get my hopes up for labour! I continued to lose globs of well goop throughout the day. When the kiddies went down for a rest, I tried some nipple stimulation. Stimulation is sometimes used as a way to kickstart labour, or increase the intensity of contractions. You have to be careful though, because too much of it can hyper-stimulate the uterus and cause distress to the baby. Always educate yourself before trying things! Once baby is born and breastfeeding, he/she will be "stimulating" your nipples which will contract your uterus and help control the bleeding. It will ache a little, but it's doing a great thing, so don't be scared of it! I would sometimes take panadol to help the aching (which can get intense sometimes) and a heat on your abdomen always helps too.
Anyway! My contractions started up while stimulating, so I just took it easy for the rest of the day, since I was on my own looking after the other four littlies. James was due home from work at 6pm, but at 5 I called him to let him know things were starting to heat up a little, and could he please not dilly-dally around at work (hah! Like he does that anyway. lol. I was beginning to need a little help concentrating on my contractions, and not on the other munchkins...) He got home soon after that, with pizza for us all. With much encouragement, I ate a tiny piece of pizza, and then took off to the bedroom to just rest a little. Contractions were still about 10 minutes apart, and manageable. I was swaying my hips through them, and enjoying the sensations of my body working to dilate. Yup. Enjoying. I love early labour!!
After we found pjs for all the kiddies, we had our last cuddle together as a family of 6...

I kissed them goodnight, and then headed into the lounge to "get to work". James popped on a Little House dvd, so I got to labour along with that great show. I love Little House because it shows how hard life can be, but how you can get through it too. Their family life is so pure and simple, and just...raw. It's so real. I'm a big fan, so I enjoyed watching them while I was in early labour. I'd say I was around the 4 centimeter mark here. I remember feeling soo tired at one point, I think around 7pm, and thinking "I'd like this to stop now, so I can go to sleep", but I soon pulled myself together and downed about 30mls of Floridix to give me energy. I didn't think "I'm tired" again throughout the whole labour, so it must've worked! After two episodes of Little House, I was beginning to get anxious. The contractions were 6 minutes apart, but just staying there and not increasing in intensity much. So I took to pacing the hallway. Up and down and up and down. I toyed with the idea of doing my hair up pretty for the inevitable pictures, but the thought of being caught out with my arms in the air for a contraction just didn't appeal to me. So a pony-tail had to do. ;-) We rang Mum and let her know I was in labour, knowing she'd pass along the news to all the New Zealand people.

After I'd done my pacing in the hallway for about 20 minutes, I felt things start to vamp up. I was struggling to stand through the contractions, and needed to adopt my favourite position for them, squatting down in front of the pool with my arms slung over the sides. I had decided to rock my hips through contractions to see if this would help me dilate faster, and I believe it did. I think I was about 7 centimeters at this point, as it wasn't long before transition hit. When I felt a contraction starting, I would start swaying my hips in a circular motion and would do a low moan saying "oooopen". Probably sounds a little funny to some of you, but I really believe that the mind plays such a huge part in labour. If I was standing with my legs closed, and high-pitched squealing "noooo!!", then I doubt I would have dilated in the same manner. Every contraction I pictured my cervix opening and letting the baby move down.
However, despite all this, I was still struggling to believe that labour was "for real". I thought it would just peter out. You see, while the contractions were extrememly intense and requiring all of me being in the moment, they weren't really painful. I had accepted all the sensations that they were throwing at me, and wasn't fighting it. I was welcoming it, and I think that paid a huge part in my body's natural pain-relieving hormones.  I was coping just fine. 
At some stage in the labour (we didn't clock-watch, or time anything. Until I began to question how far apart the contractions were because it felt like they were one on top of another once I got in the pool!) I knew it was time to get in the pool. I was beginning to need the comfort and relief that I knew the warm water could offer me. I raced off to the toilet first, and I remember wiping and seeing lots of blood. That is when I finally accepted that "ooo! I'm going to have a baby!"
James helped me gracefully (of course!) hop into the pool and ahhhh, I just love that feeling of weightlessness and warm water soothing any tense muscles. The contractions were coming in about 2 minutes apart now, and I believe I was going through transition.
We had set up the dvd (and actually remembered to turn it on!), so we have a beautiful record from the time I got into the pool until it was all done and dusted. I laboured squatting, while facing the outside of the pool, and moved back into a reclining position between contractions. I was vomiting a little bit by this stage, usually when the contraction hit it's peak. I remember thinking at one point, "if I was labouring at the hospital and had no issue with pain meds, then I'd probably get something at this point. Good thing I'm not one of them!" haha. Yet, still, it was very managable, and I think this is due to the deep relaxed state I was in. It's incredible to look back on the dvd and see me with a serene look on my face, drifting into a deep sleep between the contractions. When I finally admitted to myself that labour was nearing the end, I asked James to call our friend that we'd lined up to just be on the speaker phone around the birth time. That way, we could shoot questions to her if we needed to. While James was out of the room ringing her, a strong contraction hit me. Instead of my usual sounds, I was astonished to hear myself making a lower sound, and one that is associated with trying to push a baby out. Yet I didn't feel any pushing urges. It was the strangest thing! My body was already doing what it needed to do, even before my brain had registered. I called out to James to come back, because I knew baby was on her way. He came back, with my lovely friend on the phone, and I even had a lovely chat to her before the next contraction hit. "I'm having a baby!! I can't believe it! It's happening!!". hehehe. It was a lovely time, almost stuck between two worlds. She offered me some encouraging words, and then we got back to work.
The next contraction brought the pushing urges, and I was able to breathe through them, as I felt the baby moving lower and lower down the birth canal. All of a sudden I felt something pop out. I was so surprised at this, because there was no "ring of fire", or indication that baby was that close. I panicked slightly, and asked said to James "Something popped out! Can you check what it is?!" haha (I was worried that it was feet, and therefore a breech birth. Which we were confident in handling (or not handling, as it is. Never touch a baby being born breech, as it can cause the startle reflex for the baby and complicate their position coming out) but still a little nerve-wracking)  He looked, and lo and behold, it was a head. At Rachel's birth, I put my hand down and felt her head when it came out. I still remember that silky softness, and will often touch her head there and all those memories come flooding back. I wanted to do the same for this baby, so when James said her head was out, I put my hand down to feel the softness and be the first human to touch my baby. But. It wasn't soft. It was this tight balloon-ish feeling. She was still in her sack! My babies waters have always broken just before I get the pushing urges, but for this birth it never broke! The strangest feeling ever. lol. She came out fully in the next contraction, and James helped push her through my legs. I lifted her up into my arms and...wow. I had done it!! She pinked up beautifully, and thankfully didn't need any help breathing. I was in complete awe of her and the journey we'd just been through together, that it took us a few minutes to even think about whether she was a girl or boy. We were fully expecting a boy, and when we saw that it was indeed a girl, well our jaws almost hit the floor. Unbelievable!! James helped me out of the pool and onto the couch.

We snapped some pictures, and delivered the placenta. No worries. All done and dusted within about 10 minutes of her being born. I was soo relieved to not have any dramas with the bleeding. Yippeee!! The next hour was spent calling family and a few friends to let them know baby had arrived. We also woke up Jimmy and Livvy to meet their baby sister. Jimmy was completely awe-struck, but Liv really just wanted to be asleep, haha. She told me in the morning that she knew I was "borning" the baby, because she heard me making the "birth noises". She wasn't scared, just completely accepting of what was happening. How cool is that?!   Then James tucked me up into bed with Bethie, and proceeded to clean everything up. He's such a champ! He emptied the pool, put it out to dry, put the towels in the wash, and tidied everything. Maybe he was working the adrenaline out, haha.

It was wonderful. Really really wonderful.

We went to the hospital in the morning, and they weren't surprised. They knew that I was secretly hoping for a homebirth, and weren't worried about it at all. Beth had her blood tested (as I'm a neg blood type) and it came back negative as well. So we were fine and didn't need any jabs! Yay!

I had some trouble initially feeding the little tyke. Her latch wasn't naturally wonderful, and caused me alot of grief. I also got hit by mastitus time and time again, and was wracked with awful fevers for a few weeks. But once we'd got over those troubles, things began settling down. I got two days of rest after the birth, but then I had to go back to normal activities of school-runs, and looking after the other four at home on my own. It was a hard time, and my body struggled to recover properly. I'm now 12 weeks post-partum, and am only just starting to feel my normal self again. Beth is sleeping a mammoth 12 hours each night, which is wonderful and giving me much needed rest.

God is SOO good! He gave me absolutely everything I wanted in this birth, and I am so grateful for that.

Long story, I know. But it's nice to have it all recorded, for my sake, so I can look back on it when my memory gets foggy and is struggling to remember the details.

:-)