TWO Births in 1 Day!
Originally posted on August 7, 2008
TWO births in one day… This is the second one. I got home from “You Are My Sunshine” birth just in time to take my sister out to dinner, I’m feeling a little guilty for her traveling so far to come to see me and I’m out all day for a couple of days. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Chilies and afterward headed to Marshalls to shop. We weren’t at Marshall’s very long when my phone rang. Mom has been to Tucson shopping for the day with her family and had a few contractions. Now she is about 40 minutes from home and calls to say her contractions are getting a bit stronger, and she’s a little anxious because she really isn’t due for three weeks. She says contractions are about 20 minutes apart but, “I don’t feel very well, I feel like I need to poop, pee, and throw-up”. This is exactly what she said the last birth and I barely made it. I walked in the door, she headed to the bathroom, and when she came out, she squatted down and pushed her baby out, I didn’t even have time to dawn my gloves, and my assistant didn’t have time to get there for the birth. This memory is going through my head very quickly as she is speaking.
She is actually my assistant’s client, she said she tried to get a hold of her, but I knew she was still at the birth from earlier in the day, so I said I would try and track her down and call her right back. She ended up going to my assistant’s house right near where she was, it wasn’t very likely she would make it all the way home, and if she did, I sure wouldn’t have made it. I drove VERY QUICKLY to my assistant’s house, about 35-40 minutes away from me. However, it only took me 25 minutes to get there. Thank you, ANGELS! My assistant phones me to say there is an accident on the interstate, and I should take the back roads to get to her house. Thank goodness for cell phones!
As I walked in it was a déjà vu moment, she got up to go to the bathroom and came back in feeling the urge to push, and her water breaks. I quickly set things up with the help of my assistants 2 daughters, and my phone rings, it’s my assistant again to say she is stuck in traffic on the interstate. Fortunately, she called another assistant to come help and she took the back roads as I did and arrived a few minutes later.
Mom is up to the bathroom one more time, the movement really helps the baby come down, and now she is having some serious pushing urges. Just then, the primary midwife arrives (the one that was stuck in traffic), I’m so relieved we have our whole birth team here, now we can have a baby, and that we do! At 9:35 PM mom and dad welcome another daughter to their family. It wasn’t plan “A”, things were a little backward for this mom and babe, but all is well! Mom probably only had 10 contractions by the time her water broke, and 1 hour of labor total. Only the last 20 minutes of that was intense. Baby kind of plopped out in one push without much assistance and it wasn’t until after the fact that we midwives realized something was different about this baby’s arrival. She came out breech. Well, that was the easiest breech baby I’ve ever welcomed! All our ANGELS were working overtime and double duty on this day. What a great day it has been.