I am loving motherhood. Alexandria Zoe Schmitt was born August 13 and has been an angel baby the entire time. Honestly I think it is because I always keep her close to me...

Well our story is pretty exciting. I'm not sure if you knew this, but I was getting parallel care from an OBGYN. I hadn't seen my usual doctor in a while due to vacations, etc. And because we decided on homebirth relatively late in our pregnancy we hadn't told the doctor yet! So... it is Friday August 12th and we have a checkup appointment scheduled. Our midwife had just told me Wednesday that I had better hurry up and get my pool because I could go at any time, though I was due late August early Septemberish.

We are off to the checkup with the OBGYN and I'm stressed about telling her about a homebirth because in my gut I knew she wouldn't like this decision. Karl and I are also getting concerned about my swelling. My ankles were huge and I'm thinking I have at least 2 more weeks to go. We arrive at the office and I give a urine sample and the nurse checks my blood pressure and it is up. I've NEVER had a high blood pressure reading. Then they find protein in my urine. Well the swelling, the protein and the blood pressure all equal one thing to my doctor... preeclamsia. Karl has no clue what this is, I'm bawling. My doctor happily explains to Karl that I could seizure or even stroke during labor, which of course made him extremely worried and emotional. She gives me a vaginal exam and voila! I'm 4 cm! My doctor is excited. "Four centimeters! I can work with this. You'll have your baby by 4:00 today. I don't know why you're upset, honey. It is not like you are 29 weeks and this is happening. You're ready! The baby is ready." Karl explains, "We were going to tell you today that we had decided on a homebirth. This is not what we expected." She answers, "Honey, your baby is still going to come, just not in that kissy-huggy kinda way." That still pisses me off that she said that... should all babies ALWAYS come into the world in a "kissy-huggy" kinda way? No matter what the circumstance? She directs us to "Go straight to the hospital. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. We are going to break your water and induce labor."

We leave and I am crushed. I told Karl that I don't want to go to the hospital. I told him if they were to break my water that early I would be in the OR for a C-section before the doctor's 4:00 deadline. I wasn't even having any contractions other than my Braxtion-Hicks and they were not regular at all. We call our midwife and we were not sure what to do still. Karl suggests we go home so I can relax and pack a bag and we would decide from there. Our midwife agrees to meet us at the house to make her own assessment. The only high blood pressure reading she got was the first one. And she only found trace protein in my urine. The morning one could have been a dirty catch. The swelling... well I'm freakin' 38 weeks pregnant and it is about 1,000,000 degrees outside!

About an hour passes and Karl and I realize that we needed to call the doctor to tell her where I was. She proceeds to blast Karl over the phone with "How dare you 'this'? and How dare you 'that'?" Because Karl is a smart and sensitive guy, I'm none the wise to the conflict. Karl decides it is better to just hang up on her than to cuss her out. Later I find out that he tried to call the doctor back with some legitimate questions... liver enzyme testing... is there anything we can do to bring the blood pressure down before we induce...? He leaves 4 messages before 5:00 (when the office closes) and no one returns his call. Patient abandonment?

In the meantime I start some herbal treatments to stimulate the uterus and our midwife gives me a cervical massage. Karl and I walk around the block a few times and all of this is adding up to nothing really exciting happening. My contractions are more intense, but nothing even close to consistant. They seem forever apart. But all the while I'm dialating as time passes. I'm up to 6 cm... 7 when I contract. It gets to be around 2:00 in the morning and my blood pressure is back up. I can't believe how much time has passed. It was flying by. Our midwife decides it would be best to transport, just to be safe. My doctor happens to be on call at the hospital where I would have delivered before, so we decide to take our chances at another hospital with the doctor on call.

Because I am coming in off of the street and they don't know me, they are treating me as high risk. Plus the OB practice I was seeing has rights here too, so the on call doctor has to agree to deliver me or they will call my doctor in. Well he agrees to see me. I'm in the room and my worst nightmare is happening. I'm hooked up to IVs, a fetal monitor (external) and a blood pressure cuff. They won't let me eat "just in case" and each time I have to pee I had to drag the damned IV to the bathroom with me. Even with all my pleas, "I won't make it if I can't eat! I don't want a medicated birth! I need to walk around!" the nurse won't let me up. The good news is that my blood pressure is down again and the doctor immediately orders a urine test and a liver enzyme test to see if there is any protein or damage happening that would be a true indicator of preeclamsia. There was 1+ protein, but no liver damage happening! Then like a true blessing our nurse tells us it is shift change and she hand picked our nurse just for us. When nurse 1 said nurse 2 was the best, she was not wrong.

With a bang at 7:00 a.m. the new nurse says to me, "I've been doing this for 12 years now. You just paid a couple thousand dollars for tests to find out what I could have told you a few hours ago by looking at you. You're not preeclamtic, you're in labor. My blood pressure was higher than yours at 32 weeks. Now today is my first day back from just having my 4th baby naturally. You can do this. Did you take any childbirth classes?" "Yes. Bradley." "Great. The focus is all shifted off having a baby. Let's get you off of these monitors, get you something to eat and have a baby." Not only did I get something to eat, but it was her home made chocolate chip bananana bread! Mmmmm!

I was still at about 7cm when I contracted. I got in the hot shower and then soaked in the whirlpool in my room. Karl poored water over my nipples and belly. I was having fun now. I was relaxed again. But still, no consistant contractions. She gives me a cervical massage and that picked things up for a while, but not long. Still I dialate another centimeter. The nurse suggests we break my water. I agree. At this point I'm 8cm. It's about noon and I've been awake for 27 hours. I'm ready for something to happen. I was getting tired and so was Karl.

Somehow I squeeze in about a 20 minute power nap before the doctor comes in. We explain all of the adventures of the day before and he listens. I loved him because he came in and sat down in the chair to talk to us. He was in khakis and a polo golf shirt... no lab coat or gloves. He used his first name too. He wasn't poking or prodding me. He came to make us comfortable. He asked me if I wanted my water broken and I said that at this point I thought that would be a welcome intervention. He left for about 30 minutes to get washed up and came back.

Now I was getting nervous. Other than the other drama of the day passed, which I could block out mostly, I had what I considered an easy labor. I knew that breaking my water would make the contractions more and more intense and painful! Bone on bone! All at the same time I was ready. The doctor commented on how tough my water bag was. So did my midwife and the nurse. Things moved quickly from this point. It is really all a blur now. My contractions were totally regular and intense. I could feel Alexandria moving down. It was awesome!

I pushed for an hour and a half. I say it didn't feel that long, but Karl said it felt longer! The nurse gave me all of these great positions to push in. Karl said that I would push and you could see her head, then she was gone again! He was holding me up in all these different ways. I was so happy to see the doctor come in because I knew what that meant. She was ready to come out. I don't remember this, but the nurse had to hold her head before the doctor got there!

It was so empowering. It was a relief to push. In fact, it only hurt when I wasn't pushing. 3:44 p.m. she arrived... gorgeous! Head full of hair just like I had. 7 lbs 9.5 oz and 18.25 in long! What a miracle!

I can honestly say that I enjoyed every aspect of Lily’s birth. There’s not one thing I would change about it. The long pre-labor was emotionally draining, but encouraged me that I might look forward to a shorter labor than last time. The beginning of labor was what I had expected and emotionally prepared myself for, so I was not terrified of the intensity or the spacing of the contractions from the outset. I was able to labor on my own, at my house, in whatever position I felt most comfortable. I needed only to ask for physical or emotional support, and it was offered without hesitation. I have become so familiar with our midwife’s voice over the last few months. The familiarity and the soothing, gentle way she speaks made a big difference in how I was processing things. I know my midwife is honest and genuine, and I knew I could trust her completely to care for me and for the baby during the final stages of this journey. It is difficult for most people to understand the love and trust you can share with a good friend and a “sister”, and put those aspects of relationship into the context of a caregiver at your birth. It is an experience that has deeply affected my whole family, and me and I know that I don’t ever want to be without the care of a midwife for another birth. Sonya was a perfect servant, fading into the background sometimes, offering verbal or physical support to me other times. Her assistance to our midwife helped me relax in that I knew she didn’