MURDOCK MOMENTS

Zeke's Birth Flashback
For those who didn't hear the whole story and have been asking:
Zeke was born September 25, 2007 at 10:17 p.m. in my bathtub. Yes, on purpose! I planned it that way.....well, let's start at the beginning. As a nurse-midwife I believe that birth is a normal life event, usually uncomplicated and something that does not normally need intervention. For low-risk women like myself with good prenatal care and adequate monitoring, home birth is a good option.
I had my first, Roxy, in the hospital with a physician (not knocking all M.D.'s, after all, I'm married to one). I had a poor experience...every unnecessary intervention in the book, beginning with induction and ending with a vaccuum extraction.With Eleanor I was a nurse-midwife and knew better. I had her at the birthing center/community hospital where I was working. My nurse-midwife mentor and friend Jenna, delivered Ellie. She was born in water, in the birthing tub. We went home two hours after the birth. Much better!
With my third pregnancy I decided to go to the only nurse-midwife in Albuquerque who does home births. I knew I was low-risk and as long as things stayed that way during the labor and delivery I would have the baby at home. On Tuesday, Sep. 25th I was only five days overdue (sheesh)! My water broke at 8:35 p.m. and the contractions started within 1-2 minutes. They were 2-3 minutes apart, but short. Within 15 minutes they were intense and so I called my midwife, Hilary. She arrived about 20 minutes later.
At this point I was very uncomfortable and decided to labor in the tub. The back-up midwife, Dusty Marie, arrived shortly thereafter. By 9:20 the contractions were back to back. They were lasting 45-60 seconds and then I would have a break of 15 seconds and then another. It was mind-boggling, but by about 10:00 I had the urge to push. I pushed and pushed hard.This baby seemed bigger than my others (6lbs. 1 oz and 5 lbs. 9 oz.) but I tried not to scare myself by dwelling on it. I was determined to meet my baby after waiting so long and so I pushed and pushed....and pushed big baby Zeke out at 10:17 p.m.
His shoulders were a little slow in coming (not a true shoulder dystocia, for those in the know), but when we saw his size, we weren't surprised.He was 8 lbs. 5 oz and 20.5 inches long. 2.5 lbs. bigger than either of the girls! Anyway, it was a wonderful, short, intense (aren't they all?) labor and delivery and I was so glad we did it at home.
I went straight from my tub (the easiest clean-up...open the drain and rinse the tub) to my bed and cuddled my new baby. Roxy was there for the whole thing, cut the cord and inspected the placenta. She let me know the placenta "was very healthy". She is a little midwife in the making!We woke Eleanor up just afterwards. She was thrilled about the new baby and danced around on my bed singing, "I a big sister, I a big sister".
One of the greatest things was that my mom had flown in just hours before the birth and got to be there. She was a great help that night (and the rest of the week).The midwives left about midnight and we all went to bed. Imagine, for those of you who have had hospital babies, a comfy bed, food I wanted to eat, and nobody waking me up every hour or two wanting to bug me or the baby.
Life was good. We had our Zeke, who was a champion nurser from the beginning. We all fell in love with him immediately and have had such a great time the last 6 weeks. Here are pictures of the birth: