UPDATE: New photos here.

Whew!  What a whirlwind.  Jul woke me at 6:15a to tell me that her water broke.  Contractions started intensely about 9:00a - about the time our midwife and her assistant arrived - and our newest little princess, Emily Kathryn was born at 10:50a weighing in at 8lbs 6ozs, 21.5” long and wearing pink boxers.

Ok, she wasn’t wearing pink boxers, but instead was wearing a whole lot of cottage cheese that ended up all over me as I caught her.  That’s right, I caught her.  Wow.  And we hadn’t discussed how intimate the kids would be with the whole process and, as they were only 2 feet away watching and I was distracted by wrestling my tingling hand away from Jul’s death grip in time to catch, intimate it was and I don’t think watching tiger births on the Discovery channel will ever be viewed in the same unemotional, unattached way!

Our midwives were awesome.  They did just what we asked them to do - back us up.  Let us enjoy and manage the process naturally, but don’t let us do anything stupid or create ignorant risks.  Jennifer and Becca were perfect!

We had studied home delivery pretty intensely as we do anything.   It started when we left Carmel and Jul’s OB/GYN read her the riot act about moving and how stressful it would be and that she was high-risk due to several early labors (which they conveniently forget they scared us into ‘scheduling’ so they could manage around their hours and pregnancies and insure small babies.  Turns out, that that was the most stressful moment of the pregnancy - all 3 weeks old at the time.

This birth, without all of the OB/GYN’s fear factors and scheduled water breaks and births, without 6-10 strangers with robes coming and going, without Jul hoisted up into stirrups in an uncomfortable labor position, was nothing short of amazing.  I actually watched the last doctor tug on the Olivia’s placenta to ‘birth it’ within minutes of delivery - which is not only unnatural - but it led to Jul hemorrhaging a softball sized-clot that day and adding yet another delivery fear to their arsenal.  She didn’t hemorrhage because she is high-risk.  She hemorrhaged because they were impatient and had billing hours to collect, round-up and total.

Not once in 4 births did they stick around or bother to educate us on immediately nursing stimulating for placenta birth and to stop the bleeding.  In fact, Jul never held a baby for more than a camera pose, let alone nursing, to allow the body to do it’s thing.  She only received each of our children after the doctors had removed the placenta and the traffic died down in the room.

No, Emily’s birth was perfect.  It was intimate, it was loving and tender and I was able to participate in an unprecedented way - as it should be.  I found a position that simultaneously allowed Jul to push against my leg and mangle my left hand to shreds - that girl is strong!   I was able to nestle into her ear and whisper encouragement, nibble playfully when appropriate and give her warmth and closeness.  And judging by the lack of a broken nose, my instincts must have worked.  I have no doubt she would have head-butted me if my calculations or judgements were off!

Something else amazing - Jul gave birth on her knees.  It’s where she wanted to be.  Couldn’t have pulled that off in a hospital on a cold, hard floor - never mind the ‘rules’ that would have broken.  Then she climbed into bed, nursed, I made her a small pizza, the midwives left and she fell asleep comfortably in her own bed.

So, here’s a thought for all the hospitals and OB/GYNs out there - take your practice back to house calls.  Let’s save the wonderful technology available for those true high-risk cases out there and stop creating drama out of normal births.  It’s the most amazing thing we’ve ever done and it turned out that our instincts and common sense were right - our previous ‘high-risk’ births were poorly managed, hypertensive and unnaturally full of shots, tests and fears that we just didn’t need.  Makes for good billing, but we didn’t need them.

We never had 1 Doctor visit past the pregnancy confirmation, and aside from our great sister-in-law in Florida who invited us in for an ultrasound - we had no interaction or interference with this perfectly normal process.

Oh, we did do one other thing differently this pregnancy - I was diligent in making sure Jul drank at least 4 bottles of water almost every day.  Hydration.  Sure the old doctors mention it on their 20-item checklist, but they should have emphasised it and policed as they did the shots, the spinal taps and the drugs.  That’s all we did and we suddenly weren’t high risk.  We made it to 40 weeks and 5 days.  Because of water, no stress, no rush and a bit of confidence in nature.  Go figure!

So our little Texan - Emily Kathryn came into this world in a most natural, beautiful way.  Thanks to our belief in common sense and our midwives’ amazing bedside manners and knowledge of life’s single oldest practice - natural home births.  And like everything else in Texas, she came into this world big - more than half a pound more than Olivia.  Time for a smokin’ barbecue!