Unassisted birth of Finn

Here is my first unassisted birth.

This Easter I was looking forward to a nice Easter egg hunt and a delicious prime rib dinner, unfortunately I was not able to participate in either of these because baby had different plans; he wanted to come meet us.

I woke up at 6:45 AM feeling a lot of pressure on and thought it was just because I had to go to the bathroom, but I was wrong because I still felt the pressure after going to the bathroom. It was my first contraction. I whispered to Griffin that I was having contractions about an hour later. He got pretty excited, but stayed calm. He got up and made waffles for Avery, while I ate cheerios and a banana. I wasn’t really convinced that I was in real labor.

I felt the contractions more and more as the morning went along. Avery was starting to bother me a little (wanting to be held, etc.) So I told Griffin to go ahead and go to church so I could be alone for a bit. He was already in his church clothes ready to go and I decided that I was really in labor and had him help me fill the birthing tub up in the kitchen. We hooked up a brand new hose to the sink on our back porch so we could get hot water fast and easy.

One factor I didn’t think about was the fact that we had a skylight in the kitchen and I like to birth in darkness. So we quickly taped some cardboard over the skylight and nailed a tarp to the outside of the house to cover up the light coming in through the glass doors. Finally my birthing sanctuary was ready. So I had Griffin give me a blessing and sent him off to church to give me some quiet time alone. They left the house at about 10 or 10:30 and didn’t return until 12:15. I turned on my hypnobirthing CD and lit the same lavender candle that I used in Avery’s birth and got into the tub.

I was very relaxed and breathed through each contraction. I have to say with Avery’s birth I didn’t feel any pain, but with this birth I had back labor. Ouch. Thank goodness for hypnobirthing helping me through.

My legs started to get cold, so I grabbed one of the towels that was on standby and put it over them, that was nice. When Avery got home he called me a “beautiful mermaid.” He is so precious. Unfortunately, he wanted to splash me, so I asked Griffin to call my mom and have her come take Avery for a little bit. When she arrived, she was shocked to see me in a birth tub in the kitchen. We had kept our plans secretive because when I brought up the idea that women do this, my family freaked out, so I decided to keep it a secret until afterwards. (my grandma says that once I am feeling 100% she’s going to kill me!) Anyway, she asked if she could stay and I said yes as long as she didn’t try to make me go to the birth center or hospital. She was fine with that. She kept Avery busy and all the sudden my body started pushing. I didn’t tell my mom or Griffin that I was pushing I was just letting it happen and focusing on my hypnobirthing. I then threw up my breakfast, luckily Griffin was close by to give me a bowl to catch it. Griffin left to clean out the bowl.

Once the head came out, I whispered to my mom that the head was out and she grabbed Griffin to come watch. Avery wanted to see too. A few pushes later (about 1:45) and we had a beautiful (purple) baby. I was so concerned with the color that I forgot to check and see what the sex was. He was breathing and spitting up mucus (along with me suctioning it) so I checked it out, we had another boy!

It was a beautiful easy 7 hour birth, the next part of the story is the afterbirth story, not as wonderful, but better than I had expected.



*****We called my midwife that I had been seeing for prenatal visits and she told us to get an ambulance ride to the birthing center to check us out because of baby’s color. When the EMTs arrived they tested his oxygen saturation and it was in the 70s (It should be 95-100) so we called my midwife Roseanne back and she said, “I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Bummer. I waited for the placenta to be born and then I got in the ambulance. I wanted to eat some placenta, but there wasn’t any time. We got in the ambulance and the baby nursed the whole way there, holy cow that was a blessing!

We got to the hospital and Griffin stayed with baby the whole time while Roseanne checked me out. My uterus was really high up, so she had a nurse rub my tummy to get it down. While I was being rubbed, so checked me inside for any placenta because she hadn’t seen if that placenta was whole or not, and she found a piece of it and a lot of clots. I was also losing, and had already lost, a lot of blood. I was put on pitocin to get the contractions going and it helped. I can’t imagine being on this stuff while already in labor! I also had a 2nd degree tear, which Roseanne took care of.



Ok, to wrap this up baby and I were in the hospital for about 26 hours and finally go to leave once his oxygen saturation was up to par. We are back at home where we started this journey and doing well. We finally decided on a name about 4 days later. We call him Finn Allister Bean. If I had to do it again I would definitely do it unassisted. Even with the hospital transfer, the actual birth was priceless.

Finn Allister Bean
March 23, 2008
About 1:45 PM
9 lbs 4 oz
22 inches long
Head full of blonde hair

My first birth

Avery Ross Bean was born June 19, 2005 on Father's day.  Here is our story.


{Our dog Gir enjoying getting to know the baby}

"It was Father’s day and I was 41 ½ weeks pregnant so I had to go to Sutter Hospital to get a non-stress test. The test went great, but I was worried that I would have to go into labor and Griffin would be gone, so we asked our midwife, Shana, to break my water. She decided after checking me, and because we were in the hospital, that it would be alright. She went ahead and broke my water and it was the strangest feeling. Luckily I started having contractions right away. This was 3 PM. Griffin and I went to my parents’ house to try to celebrate Father’s Day, but then my contractions started getting a little heavy. We decided to go home, but 2 minutes into the drive, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I called my midwife and she said to time them for another hour. So we did and they were about a minute apart. So then she said that we could meet her at the Birth Center. I was relieved. This was around 7:30 PM. We got into the car and it hurt to be sitting down, but the ride was pretty short. As soon as we got there, Shana hadn’t arrived yet so we were waiting outside. I threw up twice on me, Griffin and a new phone pole that was sitting on the ground waiting to be put up next to the Birth Center. Shana finally arrived and checked me out. I was dilated 5 cm, so she said that I could stay.
Griffin and I walked into the birthing room and I was so hot, so we stepped outside to labor there. Griffin was awesome. I had to hold onto him for every contraction and he was there every second right next to me. Soon the birthing tub was filled up and I was ready to go on in. I stepped in and Griffin stayed on the outside just holding my hand. I fell asleep for about an hour. It was nice. Then I had the urge to push. Horray! It was a good thing too because my blood pressure was pretty high and my midwife was about to check it again and if it didn’t go down, she would probably take me to the hospital. Thank goodness I wanted to push because she was so busy helping me that she didn’t check my blood pressure again. I then got out of the tub because I felt like he wouldn’t come out if I was sitting on him, and I didn’t feel like squatting.

So the pushing was pretty nice. I just held onto Griffin’s shoulder every time I needed to push. Unfortunately I was pushing rather than breathing the baby down. I guess that’s kinda a hard thing to practice though. At least I stopped when she told me to and only pushed when she told me to. We birthed on the toilet, the bathroom sink, the yoga ball and finally came to the bed. I went on my hands and knees for a while, then onto my back. Funny, but that’s how he came out. I had this vision of having him in the tub, but ended up having him in a bed on my back/side. Oh well. Oh and he came out in a compound presentation, meaning that his hand was up by his ear so I had to push a head and an arm out at the same time, unfortunately this tore me up pretty badly. Luckily it wasn’t painful, not for me at least. It was, however, the neatest feeling when he finally slid out. I felt like I just participated in the most amazing miracle ever! I wouldn’t trade that feeling for the world.
Little Avery came out at 11:47 PM and was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. His skin was perfect there were not blemishes or marks and his head was shaped perfectly. He was a whopping 9 lbs. 7 oz. And is now the love of our lives.


Unfortunately, Griffin had to go to the Air Force base the next morning for most of the day and then the next day flew off to Texas for boot camp. Luckily we have a ton of pictures and I take more every day. Pretty soon we will be reunited and can enjoy all the milestones in Avery’s life as well as the ones in our new family."



{Hehehe.  This was my hubby 7 years ago.  This was one of the first times he held him.  Avery was 6 weeks old}

I wrote this almost 7 years ago and every time I read it, I still feel as if I remember it all too well. I hope you enjoyed reading it and that it gave you a glimpse into what I am all about. Please ask any questions, or leave any comments <3 Mia

As a suggestion from my beautiful sister {in-law kinda} I am starting a pregnancy and birth blog.  I will write about my research and opinions to share a little bit about what I'm all about.  I hope this is informative and welcome feedback!  Thanks for coming!