The Birth of Asher Ford Maring

At 1:50 a.m. on the 25th of March, after an hour of sleep I awoke with the need to urinate. (Great way to start a story, don't you think?) But I wasn't about to take a trip to the bathroom unless absolutely necessary, so I waited for the urgency to increase. Within a minute of waking up I had a gentle contraction. Nothing new there, I'd been having contractions for a couple of weeks, so I didn't think anything of it. Then I started to wet the bed. (I didn't have any way of timing how long it took me to realize that my water had actually broken, but my cognitive skills were certainly working in slow motion.) I reached back and hit my husband, Brian, and said "go get me a towel." Without a word he got up, and came back from the bathroom with a towel. Then he started asking questions.

I informed him of what had happened and he starts asking if he should start making phone calls. At this point it was 2 a.m. and I hadn't had a second contraction yet. But due to the midwife's distance we needed to call her and get her on the road. So he made the call. We decided to let our other birth guests know that labor had started but we would call them again when we thought we had an hour or so left so they could get a little more sleep. At 2:02 a.m. Brian called his mother, Glady, who had been at our first homebirth, while I used the bathroom and had contraction #2 at 2:06 a.m. She only had a 35-minute drive so she figured if we called again in an hour or two she'd make it in plenty of time. I waddled back to the bedroom to my recliner, which Brian had lined with disposible chux pads, and picked up my Sudoku puzzle book. I wrote down the times of my first two contractions in the margin so I could keep an eye on progress. Brian called a very dear friend, Delores, who had raced to the hospital to watch the girls when we had Reuben, and also came to our first homebirth. Delores lives about 20 minutes from us. And he called our friends, Tom and Brandi, who lived about 70 minutes away. Next contraction came at 2:13 a.m., from a fifteen-minute space down to seven. I stood up to reach for the list of phone numbers and sat down quickly with the next contraction at 2:16 a.m. Okay, I decided not to move again.

Until then my contractions were easy. I was able to breath normally and talk; no concentration needed. At 2:23, 2:30, and 2:35 a.m. I wondered how long my labor would be as the cramping got closer, more painful (about a 5 on a scale of 1–10), and longer (1 minute on that last one). Now I needed to blow out slowly and focus on me. At 2:40 a.m. I had one more contraction and needed to use the toilet again. Because of previous experience I knew baby had to be moving into the birth canal. I stayed in the bathroom through two contractions—2:46 and 2:49 a.m.

I don't believe I got back in my chair after I returned to the bedroom. Brian put down a reusable chux pad, then a disposible one on top of that on the floor at the foot of our bed. We learned from our last birth how easily those flimsy paper ones can move and make a mess! When I got down on my hands and knees over the pads my hands and arms started shaking. Brian called his mom back at 3:04 a.m. to tell her to get in the car if she wanted to be here. Delores had left shortly after we called the first time (intuitive woman!). At 3:08 a.m. Brian dialed the midwife: "Slow down; you aren't going to make it." I told him to inform her that my body was pushing. She said she'd arrive as soon as she could and reminded Brian to catch the baby and keep it warm. :) At 3:10 a.m. I blew with a contraction as Brian applied pressure to my lower back with his hands. It wasn't quite enough to suit me and I requested the vibrating back massager. My body started pushing again and I defecated on a chux pad. Hey, birth is beautiful, but not always pretty. I remember thinking how much my bedroom smelled like an outhouse in a state rec. area. We were really glad then that we had the disposible pads! As soon as the contraction stopped Brian shut off the massager and I noticed Delores in our bedroom doorway. Brian rolls up the "present", hands it off to Delores who finds a trash bag, and slides a new one beneath me (while running the massager) just in time to catch the consequence of my next contraction. Delores tried to awaken our daughters but they fell right back to sleep. After about three more involuntary pushing-contractions (and chux pads) baby was almost crowning. My body pushed for the crown. Brian reminded me to let the baby crown slowly, and I, in as controlled a voice as I could manage, told him "I'm not doing anything!" And again for the head as I begged Brian to make sure my rectum didn't turn inside-out. Once for the first shoulder, then the rear shoulder was a little resistant, so I actually had to push once. Then the body slipped right out as I contracted. I let out a great series of odd whimpers as Brian laid the baby on the floor and announced, "And we have... a boy!" I couldn't believe it. After nine months of knowing it was a girl I gave birth to a boy?! Since I was no longer writing down my times I don't know exactly how many contractions I had, but we estimate it was about 20 all together.

Glady arrived soon after baby and took over the cleanup while Delores headed home to resume sleeping. Tom and Brandi arrived within 30 minutes of the birth and were disappointed that they didn't make it in time. We celebrated the birthday with cake and ice cream somewhere around 4 a.m. I'm not exactly sure the order of the events of the other people in my house following the birth as I was a little occupied with trying to nurse, after-pains, and birthing the placenta, but they all found places to crash for the rest of the night. Then Brian cut the cord at 4:35 a.m. (we didn't really have time to sterilize anything during labor so it took a little while to get things set up properly). Brian laid down on the bed to get some rest until the midwife arrived and fell asleep immediately at 5:30 a.m. I finally fell asleep around 6 a.m.

At 6:30 a.m., about the time our midwife should have arrived, the phone rang. Brian jumped so high I thought for sure he was going to fall off the bed! It was our midwife calling to tell us she was in an accident, and that she was okay. She had fallen asleep only four miles east of our house and run off the road. Her car had flipped over once it reached the pasture fence and was on it's top. She had to walk up to the house (by God's grace she couldn't have gotten much closer to a house on that road) to call us to come and retrieve her as she couldn't locate her cell phone. Brian rubbed the lack of sleep from his eyes and went to her. The two of them gathered as much stuff as they could pull from her over-turned car and arrived at our house at 8:35 a.m. The midwife set right to work doing her job and worrying about me and baby. Asher weighed 8 lbs 4 oz, and was 21" long. Our midwife worked above and beyond the call of duty that day. She is a Godly woman whom we know only by God's grace. We are grateful she wasn't more seriously injured and that she wound up in a neighbor's yard. We look forward to asking for her assistance at our next birth. Now, if only the baby will wait for her to arrive first!

back