and what they would do (slow things down or
speed them up). She is always so calm and reassuring, so it was nice to have her there. She
was able to be there for a contraction or two
and see how hard they were, but they were
still 10-15 minutes apart. She had suggested
Heidi take some valerian to help her sleep,
and told her to rest and she would most likely
see us in the morning.
After she went home, our doula Giselle arrived. Pretty soon Heidi started having very
regular contractions, and throwing up after
each one. The contractions got pretty serious,
and Giselle and I started thinking Sunshine
should come back. We timed the contractions
and they were consistent every 4-5 minutes,
so we told Sunshine she should come back. It
had only been an hour since she left! She said
she’d let her assistant Angela and our birth
photographer Paige Driscoll (santacruzbirthphotography.com) know and they’d be at our
house soon.
Right before they got to our house, Heidi was
pretty desperate to be in the tub, which we’d
started filling just a bit before that. Sunshine
checked her and told her to get in, and Heidi
told me to get in too. We stayed in the tub for
a long while, getting through contractions
and breathing. Heidi was doing what she
needed to do, and Giselle was such an amazing support as well. She knew the right thing
to say and do to help us both, and was great
at encouraging Heidi and me through each
contraction. There were times Heidi felt like
giving up, but having the support of Giselle,
Sunshine, and Angela seemed to help her.
70
After a while in the tub (about 2 hours at that
point), she was getting ready to push. Heidi
started feeling like she didn’t have enough
traction in the birth tub, since there was
nothing to really hold onto, and she wanted
to move. With the help of our very strong
doula, we moved
The midwives
from the tub to
the bed and Heidi
placed her in our
pushed some more. arms, and the
I kept saying she
first thing we did
needed to go on
was sing F