We were planning a home birth from the start. My pregnancies with the other 3 girls were healthy and uncomplicated. Their births were super fast and without complications. We weren't planning the home birth to go quite the way that it did...
My due date was January 12th, but the other 3 girls came 1.5-2 weeks early, so I was expecting closer to January 1st. Sure enough, the night of December 31st I started having contractions. They weren't painful, but they were coming every 5 minutes for several hours. I went to bed to get some rest before the big event, but when I woke up the contractions were gone and didn't come back.
The days went on and there were a few other days where I got my hopes up thinking that she would come. Several nights I had contractions that were strong enough to wake me from sleep, they would come at regular intervals but would always go away when I woke up for the day.
Then on the morning of January 8th I woke up at 3am to a contraction. I started timing them because that's what I was doing any time I had them. They were coming every 13ish minutes. Since this wasn't the first time I had been woken by contractions, and since they were still far apart, I didn't want to get my hopes up about actually being in labor. So a contraction would hit, I would push the button on my phone to time it, and then I would go back to sleep once it was over. Sometimes they were 9 minutes apart, sometimes 15 minutes, once it was 17 minutes, but the average was 13 minutes.
At 5:30am I finally decided that this was the real deal, so I woke up Sean and told him that he should call for a sub for the day. I told him how far apart the contractions were and how long I had been having them and we both agreed that we had a few more hours before baby would get here. The older girls were still asleep, so the plan was Sean would go to school and get copies made for the sub, then he would run to the store and get me orange juice, then he would come home and get the girls to school.
Sean left a little before 6am. Shortly after he left I had another contraction that was way, way less intense than the previous contractions. I was a little worried that maybe it was yet another false alarm. But 10 minutes later a huge contraction hit. All night long they were lasting between 60-90 seconds, so I was watching the clock waiting for the 90 seconds to be up so I could relax again. But it didn't go away.
I made my way into the bathroom and called the midwife to let her know that the baby was coming soon. At 6:14 I called Sean and told him to skip the orange juice, just finish the copies and come home.
But the contraction still wasn't going away. I was starting to get a bit nervous that the baby was going to come soon. I called Sean again at 6:18 and told him to drop what he was doing and come home NOW.
By now I knew that baby girl was going to be coming at any minute. And there was NO OTHER ADULT in the house!! I wasn't very worried about the baby coming, I caught Emmy when she came out. But I was panicked about the fact that there were 3 other children less than 10 feet away that would be coming out of their rooms at any second and there was NO OTHER ADULT to help them.
I knew that it was important for me to stay calm, so at 6:20 I called 911. Looking back, I should have just called Sean or the midwife, just to have someone to talk to, but I didn't. The conversation went like this:
Dispatcher: 911, what's your emergency?
Me: I'm at home and I'm about to have a baby.
Dispatcher: Is there anyone there with you?
Me: No, just my other 3 kids.
Dispatcher: How old are your other kids?
Me: 8, 7, and 3.
Dispatcher: Okay, I'm going to send help. What is your address?
Me: **gave her our address** Okay, baby is coming now, I can feel her head.
I'm sure the dispatcher said something here, but at this point I gave a very small push and Nora was in my arms. I snuggled her close to keep her warm and watched for breathing. She made a small squeak, but didn't cry, but I could see that she was breathing.
I told the dispatcher that baby was here and that she was breathing and everything was okay. I think at this point she asked what the name was and I told her "Nora, maybe." She probably kept talking, but I don't really remember what was said at this point. Addie and Charlotte came into the bathroom at this point and my attention was focused on them rather than on the phone.
I asked Addie to get me a towel to wrap the baby in. She first grabbed a used towel from the hook and then I asked her for a clean towel from the closet instead. She got me a towel and we wrapped up the baby. She also let the dog outside. Addie and Charlotte worked together to get Emmy out of her crib and they brought her into the bathroom to see the baby.
A couple minutes later Sean came home and was shocked to find that baby was here. At this point I remembered the dispatcher on the phone and told her, "Here, my husband just got home, you can talk to him."
Then the EMTs showed up. They were also surprised that baby was already there. I guess dispatch told them that baby was crowning but never updated them that baby actually arrived. EMT #1 was very concerned with getting baby a hat so that she could stay warm. EMT #2 was concerned about finding a clamp for the cord - the baby box in the ambulance had one clamp, but they needed two clamps to cut the cord. I kept telling them that I had a birth box with clamps, but they didn't listen. Addie and Charlotte found a hat and EMT #1 was happy. At this point I asked her what time baby was born. She said that it was currently 6:30, so sometime before then.
EMT #2 finally found another clamp and then began hunting for a scalpel or something else to cut the cord with.
.... To be continued ....
