Birth Day

By Jayne     
 It was a cold and snowy day in February of 1979.  Actually, it was a blizzard.  I was fixing my kids' breakfast when I realized that my contractions had started.  I had two little girls at that time, ages two and six.  My husband was at work.  As the morning progressed, I decided to cook some soup and make some bread since it was such a blustery, cold day.  I remember having to lean against the back of my chair and hold on to do my Lamaze breathing exercises through each contraction.  The contractions were getting harder and closer together as the snow piled up outside my window.  I kept calling my husband at the office and trying to get him to come home.  He was a chiropractor and had a solo practice, so he was reluctant to leave his patients.  He kept saying, "I will soon be home at lunch.  Don't worry.  This will be a long labor."  His basis for this assumption was the length of our youngest daughter's labor, which had taken two full days, so he wasn't crazy to expect that this would also be a long labor.  I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't been alone with the kids, and he hadn't been the person who was going to deliver this baby at home.

        Let me backtrack and explain.  When our first daughter was born, she was delivered in the hospital.  Even though we had clearly explained to the obstetrician that we wanted an entirely natural childbirth, he gave me drugs and pulled her out of the birth canal with forceps.  This was a very disheartening experience to say the least.  So for baby two, I had two midwives and an old-fashioned doctor who agreed to come to our house and deliver our daughter.  It was a long, slow, intense labor. Dr. Murray was very impatient when he kept coming to the house, and my labor was not progressing at all.  After all, it was his day OFF and he wanted to go run his hunting dogs.  So after she was born, he yanked on the umbilical chord to get it out more quickly.  For anyone with any knowledge of childbirth, this is very dangerous.  Blood flew everywhere.  I could have bled to death!  

     After these two experiences, my husband said to me, "I can do as good a job as those two doctors."  Granted, he was a chiropractor and had taken many medical courses.  He had also worked in a funeral home, so he was very familiar with the dark realities of the human body.  The fact that he was very confident in his own abilities didn't hurt either.  Furthermore, we only lived less than five minutes from the hospital.  He could have carried me there in an emergency.  With wise foresight, he put the local ambulance phone number on speed dial.  So I really wasn't nervous about having a home birth; however, I didn't want to deliver my own baby with two kids watching!  Did I mention that my husband was also supposed to be picking up my best friend, who would be babysitting the girls during the delivery?

     Noon came, the soup was done, and my husband strolled casually in the door with Linda, my best friend, trailing him.  By then, I was already in transition, which for those of you who have never experienced childbirth, is the time that you want to quit and kill the man who put you in that condition.  Needless to say, I was ready to go upstairs and bring this baby into the world.  Still not convinced that my labor could have progressed so rapidly, my husband calmly ate his soup and even had seconds, with bread!!!  Linda and I were beside ourselves with impatience.  If I hadn't been in so much pain, I would have punched my husband!

     When lunch was over, my husband and I finally headed upstairs.  I will not go into the gory details of childbirth except to say that it was quick, and it was hard.  Within an hour, our first son was born upstairs on our bed.  He was a beautiful baby boy : a blonde angel with big blue eyes and a dimple in his chin.  My husband cut the umbilical chord with scissors and tied it off with a shoelace.  He removed the mucus from the baby's nose with a plastic suction bulb.  We put the newborn on the baby scale, and he weighed a little over seven pounds--healthy, but not overly large.  The total cost of the labor and delivery:  about $30 with supplies from the local drug store.  We hadn't picked out a name for a boy because my husband announced that he would know what the baby's name should be when he saw him.  As he delivered the baby, he proclaimed his name:  Gabriel.

     Once the baby was cleaned up, my husband got in his car and drove back to the office.  There was big electric sign in front of his chiropractic office upon which he put quotes every week.  So even in the midst of that blustery February blizzard, he climbed up the ladder, got out the big, magnetic letters, and put this on it:  "It's a baby boy for the Magees!"  Needless to say, he was quite excited to deliver his first son.

     After he left to go back to his office, the girls, the baby, and I were in the capable hands of my dear friend.  Other good friends braved the weather to bring more soup, home-cooked meals, bread, cookies, and my favorite:  a homemade coconut cream pie.  Nothing tastes as good as pie after a hard labor and delivery!  There  were a few minor complications--some heavy bleeding--but nothing that we couldn't handle, and yes, my husband did return home after dinner!

     Would I do it again?  Yes, because I did it a year later.  I had my fourth child, another boy, at home.  He was over nine pounds and a month late, but that is another story.  How do you know who your true friends are?  They are those who are willing to risk the wrath of their husbands and travel over slick, icy roads in order to help out a friend.       

     What have I learned from this experience?  First of all, I learned how much I rely on my friends to support me, no matter how crazy I may seem to them.  I learned that my husband could easily have been an oby/gyn doctor.  He was calm, cool, collected, and professional during my labor and delivery.  I also learned that I am not afraid to take a risk.  Childbirth is not an illness or a disease.  Birth can and should be a very natural part of life and can be done at home, just like death.  Having said that, it isn't for everyone.  My husband and I had read every book on the market about how to deliver a baby at home.  He had medical training.  We were near a medical facility in case things went wrong.  Best of all, I learned that I was built for having children and lots of them.  Most important of all, I learned the meaning of true love, which is why I am still married to this wonderful man after 42 years.

     I don't have any grandchildren YET.   I often wonder what I would do if one of my daughters chose to have a homebirth. Would they ask their father to deliver the baby?  Would I want to be there?  Being in any kind of medical situation involving blood and pain makes me queasy!   Were we taking a terrible risk?  Evidently some people thought so because I got kicked out of the local childbirth association for doing so. Faith played the biggest role in my decision to have a baby at home.  I knew in my heart that--for me--it was the right thing to do, and everything would turn out  well.  It was probably the most transcendent experience of my life.