Long Awaited Home Birth
by Stacy Mathis 

I started researching homebirth when I was pregnant with my 2nd child in 2003 after reading an article about the topic. My husband, Sam, did not disapprove of the idea, but was uncomfortable with it since this was his first child and we knew of no one that had given birth outside of a hospital. So my first three children were born at the hospital birth center; the 3rd was with a hospital attending nurse midwife. After we found out that we were expecting our 4th child in 2008, we also learned that the hospital midwife had moved on and the hospital was not planning on hiring another. This greatly saddened Sam and I, so I again began searching about the possibility of a homebirth. After digging deep in some online message board archives to find a midwife I came across the name of Jane Peterson and quickly sent her off an email. To my surprise, she called and set up a meeting despite the long distance between my home and her office. Sam and I immediately felt comfortable with Jane, her impressive resume, and high standards for client care. We set our homebirth plan into action. 

After another “normal” pregnancy, my water broke at 1 am the morning of July 3rd, 2009, one day before my due date.  I called Jane to let her know. She and Christie started on their way as soon as contractions became regular. They arrived a couple of hours later and after checking on the baby and chatting for a while, contractions began to get stronger and harder to deal with.  I preferred the quiet of my bedroom, so I moved there. Christie checked in on me a couple of times. A while later, contractions were intense and I could tell that I was in transition; Christie could also tell. Jane and Christie started getting all the supplies ready while Sam applied pressure to my lower back. I started to feel like I had to push, so I did. After a few pushes, our baby was born in our quiet and dim bedroom at 5:55 am.  After an hour, I took a shower and Christie and Jane made me breakfast and did laundry.  Our baby met her siblings and grandparents that morning and I cuddled with her in bed for the rest of the afternoon.