When Home Birth Doesn’t Work Out: A Birth Story, Part 1

by | May 6, 2018

My boys have all thrown a monkey wrench into their births. My girls were pretty easy peasy. Bonaventure Blaise chose to follow in his brothers footsteps.

My last two births were sweet and easy home births. It was all so peaceful and comfortable, after having had some less than pleasant hospital experiences.

Everything went along swimmingly, until the 20 week anatomy scan. These scans are optional in homebirth, but I have always been a pretty stong advocate of checking everything out just once. At our scan, we learned that our little guy had bilateral clubfoot. This is a relatively common birth defect and entirely treatable. It also didn’t preclude home birth.

It did require having a follow up Level 2 ultrasound with a Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) specialist. He was a wonderfully friendly and informative doctor. After that first scan, he gave no indication that home birth was off the table, but he did request we come back for a follow up later.

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4D ultrasounds are pretty amazing. He still sleeps with a hand over his eye!

 

I wanted to skip the follow up and was, admittedly, annoyed by the entire process. But at 37 weeks and 2 days, we did the follow up scan. There, we learned that I had far too much amniotic fluid, which could cause issues at delivery. The MFM mentioned that I should be careful not to go over 40 weeks and requested that we monitor with weekly scans.

It wasn’t until I received his report the next evening – a Friday – that I saw that he had removed our possibility of having our home birth. Here I was: 37+ weeks pregnant, going into the weekend, and searching for an OB. I was feeling pretty lost and clueless.

Thankfully, I had many friends ready to help and was pointed in the right direction. I called an OB first thing Monday morning, poured out my ridiculous sob story, and was given an appointment at 11 the next day.

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Gardens don’t wait for babies. We spent Sunday of that crazy weekend gardening. I was sort of hoping it would induce labor…

When I left for my appointment Tuesday morning, Andrew joked that I wouldn’t be coming straight home. I’d been having contractions on and off since Sunday, but I definitely didn’t feel like I was in full blown labor.

(To Be Continued. It’s a bit of a long story.)

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About The Author: Sarah Antonio

Keeper of all the adventure gear, provisions, and abandoned shoes, I’m the one who brings our adventure to you.

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