The Birth of Baby Sage- A Colorado Springs Home Birth

I met Julia and Patrick on March 16th to discuss me being their doula. We talked about how the birth of Julia’s first birth was less than ideal when at 31 weeks her water broke and 4 days later she had a placental abruption and gave birth to her 3lb 12oz baby girl after a very hard labor. For the birth of her second baby she planned a home birth with Tiffany Jorgenson and her goal was to just have it happen. We went through her pre-natals and 31 weeks came and went and each day she got more excited to welcome her baby to the world on her terms. At 39 weeks, on May 25th, I got the call at 4am that Julia was in labor and she was trying to rest but it was becoming increasingly difficult. At 5:30am she told me that she was ready for me to come to her. I dropped my daughter off at daycare and headed to her and got to Julia right at 7am. She was laboring in the bathroom when I got to her. The midwife and I started talking about what was going on and with the way contractions were at this time, we decided that these were probably just positional contractions and we should try some things to get baby into a better position. Julia got out of the bath and we moved to the bed at about 9am. She listened to music, relaxed and leaned over her husband for support. There were a lot of feelings of fear because of her first birthing experience and she wasn’t ready for her body to go into full blown labor. This was causing a lot of mental blocks that prevented her body from progressing. She also didn’t want to try any positions that would make labor too intense due to fear of the intensity. At around 1pm after no progress and Julia just wanting to get some rest, I asked her if she would be okay with me leaving her to rest so I could check on my daughter and I would be back the minute she needed me. She agreed this was a good idea, so I helped her get to sleep and at 2pm I left, picked up my daughter and went home and ate some food. At around 5pm I got the call that she was ready for me to come back and things had finally picked up after she tried some positions that we talked about before. I got back to her at 5:45pm to see her in full blown labor. Shortly after I arrived she started showing signs of transition so we got in touch with the midwife to get her to head that way. We set up the birth pool and got Julia in it at around 7:30pm to slow things down and help get her more comfortable. Tiffany arrived shortly after. Julia continued to labor in the birth pool for about 2 hours but showing no signs of being ready to push, Tiffany was worried the water may have been stalling her labor and keeping Julia from progressing any more. We all started talking about getting her out of the pool since the water was getting a little too cool and getting out could help progress. At 9:30pm, we helped Julia out of the pool and onto her bed and the movement was exactly what she needed. About 5 minutes after getting onto the bed she said she needed to push. At 9:44pm she roared baby Sage into the world weighing 6lbs8oz. Julia did an absolutely amazing job pushing through all of her fears and getting the beautiful birth that she aimed for.