Earth Babies Blog

It was the night of the 15 February 2010, and in the midst of another perineal massage I was pondering the possibility of doing this forever and changing my profession to Gynaecology.
We were 10 days overdue and nothing seemed to be happening, so that evening we decided to watch a movie, and finish up with some “passion” (which sometimes started things) before hitting the sack. Now our first child (Seth) was 17 days overdue so we were not worried just waiting, and waiting some more.
I was woken up at around 11:30 to Seth crying and asking for Mumsie. My wife got up and settled him. She came back to the room and said she was getting a hot water bottle as she was having a few contractions and her back was sore. This was nothing really out of the ordinary as we had been through a few nights of strong Braxton Hicks before.

Then at 00:30 my wife, Tanja, decided to take a bath to see if it would help take away the contractions which were now coming about every 5 min. I decided to lie in bed and time the contractions just from hearing her breathing. At 12:45 I was out the bed and talking to her as they had jumped to every 3 min and seemed to be taking her breath away. As we were having a home birth, I decided to make us some cheese on toast and see how she felt after 30min in the bath. Well at 01:00 she was definitely in labour and I remembered Sharon (our Midwife) telling us that the second baby would come very fast. This speed scared me a little as I really wasn’t up for delivering my own baby. One thing I remember clearly was that while Tanja was eating her toast, whenever a contraction came it would fold her over and she would need to go on all fours breathing heavily.
I called our Doula and Midwife and told them I think this is it and the contractions are coming fast and strong. Then I called my parents to come and fetch Seth as we had decided it would be best in case he woke up in the heat of the new baby’s birth and wanted our attention. Tanja’s contractions then jumped to every 2 min and I felt like this was spinning way to fast. I mean our first child took a good day to enter this world. So while we waited for everyone to arrive I started to setup the birthing pool and Tanja began creating her altar.
Now I was excited and nervous as this was definitely happening, and my hands didn’t want to screw together the nuts for the pool, no matter how sternly I spoke to them about working correctly. My folks arrived first and I went to wake Seth up, who was fast asleep now. He was extremely understanding, especially for a 2 year old, and even said YAY when I told him the baby was coming. I took him to Tanja and he kissed her goodbye and when I put him in his car seat he was very calm and said goodbye to me with no issues.
A few minutes after my parents had left Andrea arrived and pretty much took over and helped Tanja by rubbing her back. I remember when Tanja went to the bathroom, Andrea said to me that she doesn’t think we will be able to fill the pool in time and we needed plan B (the mattress). I got the mattress down and Tanja came through feeling sick. Luckily Andrea was on the ball and quickly gave Tanja a bucket which she decided to fill a little. One thing Tanja said to me was that this was coming to fast and felt very intense, nothing like she remembered with Seth.
Shortly after that Sharon arrived (I think to all our relief) and moved Tanja to the mattress and onto all fours. I sat down in front of Tanja and tried to help her through her contractions although I felt like her body had taken over and there wasn’t much I could do except just be there. Before I knew it Tanja was feeling the baby crown and we were looking at the head slowly pushing out. Sharon did tell Tanja that this baby needed her to push and not to push in her throat but in her bum. From that point on Tanja seemed to take each contraction with a powerful force, breathing deeply and doing long hard pushes with deep moaning. Then at 2:38 our baby was born straight into my wife’s arms and a rush of emotions hit me, most of it shock at how quickly this had happened. My wife said, “And she is a girl!” and I remember we both looked at each other with pure love pouring out over our beautiful daughter.
From then on it felt like time was slow and thick. I drifted into clamping and cutting the cord and then entering the birthing pool to enjoy a few moments of peace. It was truly amazing just sitting in the warm water, listening to our welcoming music we had prepared and staring into the eyes of our new child.
I would seriously urge parents to look into a home birth as it was calm, magical and totally felt how natural birth should be. Every time I look into my lounge I see the area my perfect daughter was born into this world and loving emotions fill my heart.

Read Tanja’s story about Neve’s birth
and
Here is Tanja’s birth story about Seth’s Birth … Birthstory Friday: Seth – 18 days overdue and 4,15kg!