Davey got me in the car and thank God he had the brains to grab a blanket as we ran out the door. He threw it in the back and we raced towards the freeway. As we flew down the street I started to feel a serious adrenaline rush. And as we merged onto the freeway, I started to feel something even more serious.....the urge to push. We made it about 4 exits until I knew that we weren't going to make it. [The birth center was an hour drive away.] The urge to push turned into the necessity to push and I told Davey, "I have to push!! I'm taking my boots and pants off! Seriously! I need to push now!! Pull over! Pull over!" He started to pull off the freeway and called Lori [the midwife] and told her what was going on. She said not to pull over until we had a head out. So he turned right back around and we were back on the freeway.Doesn't that make you want to have a baby all over again?
Four minutes down the road, on a dark, quiet stretch of freeway, on a rainy night, in the middle of the hills of Lake Elsinore, our baby was born. I reached down and with one, big push felt the babies head moving down towards my hands. And with the next push his head was in my hands and I cupped my hands softly around his neck to make sure there was no cord and also to steady his body as I pushed the rest of him out. He slid out like silk and I turned him toward me and lay him on my belly. He was perfection. Davey was hollering, "YAH!!! WHOOHOO!! You did it baby! You did it!" And the loud, strong cry of our newborn filled the car. He was instantly pink, instantly breathing, and instantly loved and adored. I raised his little leg and exclaimed, "It's a BOY!!!" And Davey and I just smiled and laughed and it was an awesome moment.
Davey pulled over and ran to the back of the car to grab the blanket. He wrapped our son in it and got back in and we quickly proceeded to the birth center. The whole car ride there was like we both were on an emotional high. There was SO much happiness and excitement in that car. I held him tightly in my arms and just gazed at him in amazement and Davey and I couldn't stop rejoicing.
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Lol!! This was almost my birth story!!! We live an hour from my birth center as I didn't know we had a birthing center in the town we moved to early in my second pregnancy, so I went to the one I birthed my eldest in. My first labor was 7 hours 40 minutes start to finish, my contractions are obvious so I know to the minute when my labors began, 2:02 am for my first, 12:58 am for my second, My midwife told me to plan for a labor that was half as long as my first just to be safe because of our distance. So I cat napped through the first hour then noticed that they were very quickly going from 10 minutes apart to 8 minutes then 6 minutes jumping 2 minutes with each contraction and they were getting harder to talk through after less then an hour of labor so I told William it was time to go. He was up grabbed the bags I called my mom who lives next door and she came over to stay with my son. We drove to the maternity center and made it very very very very very quickly...I had been dreading that ride which is why the first contraction during the ride was so awful. But when I realized it would only be as bad as I let it I relaxed and the contractions settled into something much more manageable. I remembered reading Ina May's book and particularly the story of her friend who kept saying during her contraction "Open, I want to open." and she mentioned how she had felt her open 2 cm during one contraction...so I figured I'd give it a try. So during the car ride I thought about how I wanted my body to open so my baby could safely enter the world. any way we arrived 10 minutes before the midwife, who in turn arrived 5 minutes before my son was born.
ReplyDeleteI told her as soon as I saw I was feeling the urge, I got 1/2 way down the hall and had to stop and push, got to the bed room, and crawled on the bed and he was crowning, I caught him and pulled him to my chest. Totally hands off with no vag exams exactly how I wanted it!
If my husband had gone the speed limit I would have birthed in the car! Which would not have bothered me, we actually planned for it and I was given a few items in case I did birth in the car which was a distinct possibility. I told William I wasn't going to bother with going any where next time I was just going to deliver at home. Which is what I've wanted for my others but it just never worked out.
Thanks for sharing the story it was awesome! Sorry this was so long!
I had my baby at 90 mph too! And while we were in an ambulance, I was incredibly relieved and ecstatic that she arrived when she did! I would have had a cesarean if we had made it to the hospital before she was born. My midwife and I weren't panicky but I'm pretty sure the paramedic was! He had no clue what to do!
ReplyDeleteJust beautiful! And YES, another baby please!
ReplyDeleteThere was a baby in our branch in Japan who was born in the car and in the middle of a huge traffic jam in a very busy part of the city. Thankfully, this was baby #8, so the father knew how not to freak out and catch the baby.
ReplyDeleteLOVE it. I love that the parents were happy and excited instead of freaked out and scared.
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