Baby Olive's arrival: 4/9/12

By Liv

On Easter evening, we packed up and headed over to my Dad's house for dinner. Little did we know that this was our last dinner as a family of three!

After heading home from my Dad's house and settling Stella and then ourselves in to bed, I woke up at about 1:00 am to a sudden feeling of pressure and immediately knew that something was happening. I woke Nick and told him to set up the birth pool straight away and he hopped out of bed and went quickly to work readying our living room for the birth of our little girl.

Before another pressure wave started, I hurried myself downstairs and immediately lay down on the couch. It wasn't long before I was working hard through my intense pressure waves. All the while, I had my headphones on and was listening to my Hypnobabies tracks through my headphones. (Hypnobabies is a self-hypnosis natural childbirth technique that involves deep relaxation cues to help the birthing woman relax her entire body, thus allowing the muscles in the body to do their job and "open".) After a few minutes on the couch, I let Nick know that I was pretty sure it was time to call the Midwives.

At about 2:00 am, my Midwife (Heather) and her Assistant Midwife (Emmy) arrived and with calm movements and hushed voices, began unpacking the birth kit and taking my vital signs. A few minutes later, Emmy asked if I would like to know how far I had progressed and I was completely shocked to hear that I was already at 8cm dilated. After an exclamation including one of my favorite curse words, I proclaimed, "I'm going to get in the birth pool NOW!" and was soon relieved by the warm waters that surrounded my laboring body.

Within moments, Stella woke up and came downstairs to join the birthing party. She stood next to me on her step stool and happily smiled at me between my pressure waves as I happily told her, "Baby sister is coming!"

By 2:40, I was ready to push. After only a few minutes, I reached down and gently lifted our daughter out of the water. Olive Chapa Hernandez Tostenrude was born at 2:48 am on Monday, April 9th, 2012.

I can't begin to describe the joy I felt when I held her in my arms for the first time. She felt perfect. Stella reached over the pool's edge and gently touched her baby sister and as she did, her face lit up with joy.

After a few minutes in the water, we moved to the couch and in the quiet darkness of the night, began inspecting our new little girl. Stella was careful to ask if she could "touch, kiss and tickle" baby sister while Nick and I just stared in awe.

While we introduced ourselves to the baby, the Midwives made good use of the Placenta Bowl that Nick and I had carefully painted for the occasion. And after the cord finished pulsing, Nick and Stella cut the umbilical cord together and we resumed cuddling and nursing.

Once Olive showed us that she is, in fact, the best nurser on the planet, Emmy carefully inspected her and took all of her vitals. She weighed 7lbs, 2oz and was 20 inches long. She scored 9/10 on her APGAR scores. That's my girl - only a few minutes old and already acing her tests!

Nick and Stella then had the job of putting Olive's first diaper and clothes on. Stella really thought this was an exciting job and was amazed at how tiny baby sister's feet are :)

Stella is absolutely in love with her sister. She is always asking permission to "kiss/tickle/hug" her :)

 My post-partum recovery team. Tiffany Jarvis drove all the way up from Portland, my Sister from Sequim along with helper Stella and my doula Nick :)

I know homebirth isn't for everyone, but I'm so thankful that this is an option that was available for us and covered by our health insurance. There's something so peaceful an reassuring to be surrounded by your own things during one of the most intimate times of your life. To shower in your own shower, use your own soap and lay in your own bed and doze off next to your new baby knowing that when you wake up, you have all of the "things" that you will need at your disposal, and you know exactly where they all are.

One of my favorite parts about having a home birth is that I haven't had to leave the house for any reason. As you can see in the photo above, Heather came for my first post-partum visit and did the baby's exam in my bedroom on my bed while I relaxed and chatted with her.

I can't explain how much I have enjoyed all 3 of my Midwives and especially Heather and the student-Midwife, Emmy, for now I feel an extra special bond with them for having helped me bring this new life in to the world. I will forever be grateful to them for their gentle approach to birth and respectful and loving personalities during this transformational time.

Since Olive arrived, she has spent most of her time in bed sleeping. It is physically exhausting to be a newborn and also extremely adorable, so you can understand that she naturally just needs to sleep most of the day and night :) Here are some photos of her, just about 12 hours old: