Pamela checked in about every hour to see how things were going and to give support about what was going on at that time.  Around 6:15 my wife said she was feeling like she should start pushing.

With that announcement, Pamela began to assemble her birth kit in the living room and kitchen of the cabin and called two other midwives to witness and help out with the birthing process.  I helped T labor in the shower on about 5 separate occasions throughout the night.  The hot water helped relax her muscles and a change of position kept her limber and active.  She seemed to be handling the contractions flawlessly and gave no indication of pain.  The hours seemed to drag on and even though I knew how long birth can last, it didn’t seem like we were ever going to get to the end.

Around 10:15pm, the contractions had picked up in length and intensity and T was beginning to feel like she couldn’t hold back from pushing at that point.  Two other midwives had gathered to join Pamela in our cabin.  Stacey, Pamela’s daughter in-law, was a new midwife and was enjoying getting her feet wet with us.  Jenn, a doula and midwife in training was also present and was learning the ropes from one of the best, most seasoned teachers.  The three worked in partnership with each other, never stepping on another’s toes.  They constantly lent encouragement and suggestions to my wife while constantly monitoring the position, activity and heartbeat of our baby.

Around 11pm, the midwives suggested that I sit behind T and let her lean back on my chest while I gave her a bit of a break by pulling her knees up while she pushed.  This gave her an opportunity to relax her muscles a bit and conserve some energy for later.  Just before midnight we took a break from laboring in the bed and I helped her labor a bit in the shower.  That was when things noticeably started moving along much quicker.  Just around that time, our hot and sticky summer night turned into a cool refreshing one as a thunderstorm rolled into the area.

The lightning, rumbles of thunder and rain pattering the canopy of forest around us was undeniably the perfect background for our natural birth.  At 12:15am, the push was really on.  My wife was pushing every two to three minutes and the midwives led her through several different birthing positions during this time.  She tried a birthing stool, squatting while hanging her arms from a doorknob, bent over the end of the bed and finally crouched on all fours on the floor, grabbing the foot of a bed.  This was the position that seemed to work the most amazingly!

Around 12:45am, T got hungry.  She had a light snack of yogurt, a handful of protein-rich cashews and soy nuts and a glass of apple juice.  This nourishment gave her the little added boost she needed to complete pushing our daughter down the birth canal.  She experienced about three insanely intense contractions and made a lot of headway pushing the baby out.  In fact, it only took three minutes from the moment her head crowned until her head was completely out.  That was a record time according to the midwives!

Seeing my daughter’s head appear from my wife’s vagina was the most amazing and awe-inspiring thing ever.  I didn’t think it would be worth seeing and would probably do more to horrify me than anything else but once again, I was so wrong.  Seeing that little smooshed face, for the very first time after 9 long months of waiting and anticipation was just the moment I hoped it would be and yes, it was love at first sight.  One more push and she was completely out and on my wife’s chest at 1:16am!  We were parents!

It was about 45 minutes before the placenta appeared and everyone could be cleaned up, measured and weighed.  Because our little girl crowned so quickly, my wife experienced a fourth-degree tear which the midwives insisted be repaired at the local hospital.  They didn’t want her to be scarred or damaged.  At 4am, very tired and exhausted, we packed up Mom, baby and Pamela and headed off to the labor and delivery ward at the local hospital.  Three hours later, my wife was stitched back together and we headed back to the cabin for some much needed rest just about 24 hours after the whole process began.

The care we received from Pamela, Stacey and Jenn was incredible.  There’s no doubt we made the right choice about birthing at The Farm and would encourage anyone interested in natural childbirth to look to The Farm as a possibility.  You’ll be glad you did!

My wife really wanted a natural child birth for her first birthing experience.  When we figured out we were expecting she did a lot of reserach on local hospital birthing options and that’s when we realized that she wasn’t going to get the natural experience she wanted in a hospital.  Intervention rates in our area are high and both hospitals we considered wouldn’t allow us to avoid fetal monitoring, alternative birthing positions, etc.  That’s when we started looked for a midwife in southwestern Indiana.

We didn’t have much luck there either.  We found a midwife in the area but she has a history of lawsuits and told us that 90% of her first time Moms end up being transported to the hospital.  She didn’t have any emergency backup options and since Midwifery is unfortunatley illegal in the state of Indiana, we weren’t real comfortable with local options.  That’s when my wife discovered The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee.

The Farm started off in the early 70’s as a spiritual community leading the way in communal living.  One of the most successful components of The Farm community was their Midwifery Center, led by world-reknowned midwife Ina May Gaskin.  Gaskin has written several books on the subject of Midwifery and natural childbirth and her writing helped to direct my wife to go in that direction as opposed to a medicated, un-natural child birth in a local hospital with high intervention rates.

The beauty of The Farm is that just about everyone who lives there also maintains a cabin that is available for rent on their property.  A few of these cabins are primarily used as birthing cabins, where women can give birth in a quiet and relaxing home-like experience.  To be quite honest, in the beginning I still wasn’t convinced that a birth experience at The Farm was the way to.  I was urging my wife to just go “the easy way” by having a birth at the local hospital, using insurance so we didn’t have to lay out a bunch of money to have a birth.  I’m sorry that’s the attitude I carried.  We scheduled our first visit to The Farm to see if this was what we really wanted to do.

Driving onto The Farm the first time was like stepping into a time capsule.  This experiment in communal living certainly felt and looked like a hippie paradise.  Stepping into the Midwifery Center was like walking into a clinic located in some small, third world country at the far reaches of our globe.  As soon as our midwife greeted us at the front door though, it was all over for me.

The first thing I noticed about our midwife, Pamela Hunt, was her calm and warm demeanor.  As soon as we were in her presence, I felt every worry about a natural birth experience melt away and knew this was the place where we were going to introduce our little one into the world.  In addition to our monthly, insurance covered visits to a local OB/GYN in Indiana, we made a visit to see Pamela at The Farm during at least every trimester and kept in touch with her via email and telephone after every prenatal checkup back home.

Since we live more than 200 miles from Summertown, Tennessee, we knew we weren’t going to be able to hop in the car when my wife’s water broke and head to The Farm.  A rushed, frantic three and a half hour car ride while my wife is in labor just wasn’t going to be option.  That’s where the rental cabins at The Farm came into play.  Just about everyone who lives there also has a cabin available for rental.  Several of the cabins are designated as birthing cabins, giving women and their families a place to relax and enjoy a natural homebirth experience.  We opted to rent Pamela’s cabin which was right next door to her house.  It doesn’t get much more comforting than that!

We headed to The Farm two weeks before my wife’s due date and got her all setup in the cabin.  I stayed weekends and drove back to Evansville during the week to go to work, since I wasn’t going to be allowed to take very much time off.  I had just returned home very late after the second weekend at The Farm when I awoke to the home phone ringing at 7:30 in the morning.  I knew right away what the call was about.  My wife had awoken to her water breaking and was getting ready to sit and have breakfast with her Mom who was staying at the cabin in my absence.  I immediately got our zoo of animals resituated at the house and made my excited trek back down to Tennessee to help welcome my first child into the world.  In the meantime she took a morning stroll to The Farm Store down the road from the cabin and visited with Pamela about the day ahead.

When I arrived at 2pm my wife was obviously excited to see me.  We hung out for a bit and then she laid down to take a nap and rest up for the birth.  It was hot and extremely humid that afternoon but the stickiness seemed to have a certain energy about it.   Early in the evening, she woke up and was beginning to get some strong contractions about every 2 to 3 minutes.  Knowing that the birth process was starting was both daunting and exciting.

To read the rest of our birth story, check in tomorrow!