The Birth of Baby C- A Colorado Springs Home Birth

Harlee and I have known each other for a couple years now and at the end of September she messaged me freaking out that her birth photographer that she originally hired told her she should start looking for other options because she wasn’t sure that she would be able to attend her birth anymore. Harlee was due mid October and I told her I had a few dates in October that I couldn’t attend her birth, but I would be willing to do the birth off-call for her. She agreed. I was worried about her going into labor during my aunt’s wedding which was October 13th, but that day came and went. Harlee went over her estimated due date by a couple weeks and we were approaching October 27th, the day that I was going to be in Denver for a concert with my brother. Looking back at our messages I laugh to myself because we were both so worried that morning that it would happen that night and I would miss it. Well, sure enough about 2 hours into the concert (it was a 4 hour concert) I get a message from Harlee saying her contractions are feeling more real than they had been lately. It was about 9:30pm at this point. We continued messaging back and forth and talking about me leaving Denver to go back to Colorado Springs. My brother and I left the concert a little early and got back to the hotel at around 11:15. I told Harlee I was going to get some rest but to call me if anything changed and she needed me down there. She called at 11:47 to let me know I should come down. I was fully expecting to walk in to her pushing the baby out so I was (carefully) getting my camera ready while driving and ran into her house. I got to her house at 1:19am to see her walking around laboring. I acted as a doula for a while as well as a birth photographer. I walked up and down the stairs with her and sifted her trying to get baby into a better position. We sat outside for a while as well as she labored on her birth ball to cool down. Once we got back inside things were a lot more intense. She labored on the side of her ottoman for a while before deciding to get into the birth pool at around 2:40am. At about 3:20am she got out of the birth pool and labored in her husband’s arms for about until she decided to sit on her knees against the birth pool ad labor her baby down. The midwife asked if she would like to get back into the pool but at this point baby was too low and almost crowning. Baby was welcomed into the world at 3:58am at 8lbs even. Harlee did an absolutely beautiful job with her first home birth and it was such an amazing birth to witness. I stayed for a couple hours after to document the little details before heading back up to Denver and getting back to the hotel at around 6:30 am to see the most beautiful sunrise right as I was parking.