It was Thursday evening, midnight, and I was just starting to watch �Dial M for Murder� on the American Movie Classics channel, when the contractions started.

Maybe I should go back a little bit further. The due date was set for April 10 �but, it was getting farther and farther away, so Deborah Simone (one of our midwives) recommended that we get an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok. I can�t tell you why, but I couldn�t sleep the night before the ultrasound was scheduled. I kept puttering around the house until sometime around 4 in the morning. Our appointment was set for 10am and was over an hour�s drive away. The Ultrasound guy was Lance Dursi, and he was wonderful. He made a videotape of everything and explained everything he was doing. The baby looked normal and healthy in everyway, except that maybe the amniotic fluid was a little low. Lance said that judging by this ultrasound alone, he�d guess that this baby would be born on Saturday or Sunday. We drove home in a kind of euphoria. Waiting for a baby to come is a little bit like waiting for Santa Claus to come, only in some ways, so much more wonderful. When April 10 had come and gone with no baby, we had both sort of mentally gone �ok, so we wait�� but now that Christmas Eve feeling was back and we were so excited. I do remember taking a small nap at some point during the day, but there are always a million little things to do, and we were now convinced that the baby would come sometime during the weekend.

So, back to me sitting there, settling into �Dial M for Murder�.� For several weeks, I had been having a mild contraction or 2 every day or so, but nothing major. At roughly midnight, I had one. It lasted about a minute. It felt kind of like a bad menstrual cramp. Then, a minute later, I had another one- also a minute. Then, a minute later, another one. After 4 or so back-to-back, I turned around to Ken, and told him. �It�s probably nothing� I told him� �but I just had 4- no, wait, 5 contractions in a row!� It was fun. They kept on coming, and there was something about them- they seemed to be getting ever so slightly more intense each time. I started to regret that I hadn�t taken a good nap, and then remembered that we didn�t have any food in the house. I turned the TV off. Ken asked me if I was ready to go to bed. � Sort of� I told him. �I think I may be going into labor- I�m probably not, but just in case, I think we should go to the grocery store right now and have stuff ready�. Ken just looked at me, and then said �um ok� and got ready to go. I wasn�t sure what I wanted in the house, except I knew I wanted strawberries and chilled oranges, so we just meandered through the aisles, picking up random stuff until the cart was full. The contractions kept on coming, one every minute, each lasting a minute. While Ken was waiting in the checkout line, I went outside to walk around- walking was much more comfortable than standing still when the contractions came. At this point, they were still not too painful, not too much more than a really bad cramp� but they were distracting. The cool thing was that once they peaked and melted away, it felt really, really great.

We got home, and Ken put the groceries away, and we got ready for bed. I even got into bed and tried to get to sleep. It was around 1am. I had decided not to call the midwives until the cramps got really bad, because I didn�t want to be one of those first time moms that call at the first sign of labor, and then make the midwife come all the way out for nothing. At this point, I thought we were in labor but still expected the contractions to calm down as soon as I lay down. I lay down. They kept coming, still intensifying with each new contraction. I went to the bathroom and spent some time in there, and called out to Ken that maybe we SHOULD call the midwife, just to see what she�d say. I thought I was being calm, cool and collected. Deborah read my �calm and cool� as �breathing too fast and starting to panic�. Deborah said that it was impossible that we were in labor because labor does not just suddenly start with contractions every other minute� but that she was on her way over, just to make sure. As soon as I heard Deborah used the word �impossible� I knew this was it. I knew we were really in labor.

By the time Deborah got here, I was roughly 2 centimeters dilated. I was starting to panic, because my back was starting to hurt, and the contractions kept coming every other minute, each one a little bit stronger than the rest, it was now 2am, and I was tired, and ready for some kind of pain reliever- which I knew I wasn�t going to get. The deal with home birth is no epidural. The deal with the hospital is no water birth. I wanted a waterbirth more than anything, but I was starting to get scared. I thought that if I was this uncomfortable after only 2 hours, how was I ever going to handle what could go on for another 36 hours or more, and what was only going to get more painful? Deborah was wonderful. She came in and sat with me and showed me how to slow down my breathing and control the moment.

She said, �You can�t control these contractions Heather, but you can control your breathing�.

I was thinking that this was the stupidest thing I�d ever heard, when I tried it just to see, and felt overwhelming relief. I slowed down my breathing as slow as I possibly could, and tried to wait as long as I could before taking another breath. By the time I�d done that two to four times, the hardest part of the contraction would be over, and I could take a brake. I don�t know what I would have done without Deborah there to remind me of this crucial knowledge. Sometimes I would be able to take a quick nap between contractions- but then the pain would wake me up, and I�d be surprised, and then start to panic. Deborah would immediately appear out of nowhere and make me focus on my breathing again.

At a certain point, the contractions changed. In addition to the muscle crampy, achy feeling, I felt like I could now feel the baby trying to get out- there was pressure where her head had been and I felt like she was trying to swim through my pelvis and my body, and make her way to her exit doorway. This may sound surprising but until this time, I had forgotten to really check in with her- I had spent all my focus and energy trying to not be afraid of the pain and focus in on the process. Now I tried to turn inward and listen to her. I felt like I could feel her working just as hard as I was, trying to make her way out. I realized that all this suddenness, the speed of the contractions, everything, was coming from her. After weeks, and months of hearing me talk about how wonderful this world out here is, she was ready to see for herself, and the pain I was feeling was her swimming out to meet me. I wanted to do whatever I could to help her.

Now the contractions were intense. Between contractions, I sat on the toilet and rested my head on a towel I�d propped up against the back of the toilet. As the contractions came, I stood up and leaned over, and rested the weight of my upper body on the sink countertop. Between contractions, I constantly felt the need to urinate, and felt things trickling out of me, so the toilet was the most comfortable (and efficient) place. Whomever it was that invented the toilet was a genius. I couldn�t handle the contractions in a sitting position, and trying to lie down was now too much intense pain for me to handle. Resting the weight of my body on the countertop was good though, and left me free to slowly sway my hips around, which gave me some comfort. Breathing was not enough anymore, and Deborah came in and told me that it was ok to let some of the pain out through my mouth- I let myself go with that, and felt these moans flow out of my mouth. That was also amazing. The lower I tried to make my voice, and the deeper the place of origin for the sounds, the more I could handle the contraction. If I let my voice tighten up, or get higher into my normal ranges, or if I let myself think �SHIT! This hurts!� then the contractions (and the fear) were unbearable. Ken came in at this point, and was breathing with me. When I felt myself going over the edge, thinking about how much this hurt, or starting to think about how much worse it was going to get and scaring myself, Ken�s eyes would be in front of me- full of love and wide open and giving me a place that I could go. He was breathing with me. He was giving me a safe and loving place in his eyes that I could go when I needed to. As the contractions got more and more intense, all I could do was hold onto that countertop, and try to open myself up and let out the pain and the space that the baby needed. I closed my eyes, but even with them closed, it was Ken�s eyes that I was looking into. At some points, he would sit in front of me on the stool in front of the toilet, and hold my knees with his knees� Deborah did this for me as well, and that contact kept me grounded. I couldn�t stand to be touched on my back or really anywhere else, but that human contact on my knees meant the world to me.

Now the tub was ready. Deborah asked me if I wanted to labor in the tub. I wanted to try, but I also didn�t want to use up whatever benefit the tub might have before the baby came. If labor was going to get more and more painful, and the tub was going to reduce that pain, then I didn�t want to get into the tub until I really couldn�t handle it anymore. So I waited. I told Ken in between contractions �just a few more, then I�ll get in the tub�

Just 3 more, just 2 more, just this next one, no wait, this next one� like this for a little while until I felt that I had enough space in my head, and between contractions to leave the bathroom and make it into the pool. Between one set of contractions, I pulled all my clothes off, and then just sat there, waiting for another space. I�d often wondered during the pregnancy, whether I�d be bothered at being naked in front of these midwives, when the time came. Or how I�d feel about opening myself up in front of them. There was a part of my brain that thought about that for about 2 seconds as I pulled all my clothes off, and made me laugh inside. I could have cared less. I could have been in the middle of a truck stop in Ohio and it wouldn�t have registered till much later. All my focus was being held in trying to listen and feel internally, to this little creature within me, trying to get out.

When I finally got into the pool, it felt so wonderful. It was warm and soft, after the cold hardness of the bathroom counter. I had a moment to appreciate this, before a new contraction hit. I must have gotten to the pool before Deborah could catch me, or maybe this was when the other midwives arrived, but it seems like I had a few contractions in the pool, all by myself. Once in the pool, I felt the desire to start pushing. Things get really cloudy at this point. Deborah had periodically given me some liquid to drink that tasted like peppermint. I don�t know what it was, but Deborah said it would blur the lines between sleeping and wakefulness. It did. I think it made it easier to focus on the moment at hand, and not think about the next contraction, or how many there might be to come.

I remember being in the pool, pushing, and Deborah coming in and telling me that I couldn�t push- that I was only 4 centimeters dilated. I tried explaining to her that the baby wanted me to push, but she tried to explain that even if the baby wanted out, my cervix wasn�t open enough yet, and pushing would only cause my cervix to swell, and make everything a lot harder for both the baby and me. Trying to NOT push was the hardest part of the labor. I couldn�t help it. Every fiber in my being was telling me that I should push, and I didn�t know how not to. I heard Deborah telling me to put all my pushing energy into breathing as hard as I could. Then Ken�s eyes were right beside me again, holding me, giving me a place to go, and telling me to breath as hard as I could. I could hear Deborah�s voice in the background �If you�re breathing as hard as you can Heather, you won�t be able to push� That turned out to be true. At some point, I got out of the tub and tried to find another position where the urge to push wouldn�t overwhelm me, but this got harder and harder to do with each contraction. Then Deborah checked me again, to see if I�d dilated any more. She told me later that she couldn�t believe it. I�d done something �impossible� again. In one hour, I�d gone from 4 centimeters, to complete dilation. Somehow, when I felt the urge to push overwhelm me, I was also opening my cervix, getting it out of the baby�s way, as well as helping the baby push to come out.

Deborah said that if I wanted to give in to the urge to push at its peak, to go ahead now. So I tried to breath as much as I could, and when I couldn�t handle it anymore, I�d clench and push. I don�t know how to explain this, but the pushing was a kind of release, because I could let my body do the one thing it was trying so hard to do anyway. Ken stayed right by my side and wouldn�t let me give in to the urge to push through an entire contraction. In between contractions, I could see his eyes staring into mine with so much love and worry. I think he was scared, but he was right by my side at every moment and held me there. I don�t remember getting back into the tub, but somehow I was in it again, with the incredible feeling of warmth and buoyancy of the water.

Now the feeling to push was hard and intense, and all I could do was give into it. I could feel the baby coming close. I was floating, holding my body with my belly to the ceiling, and my hands down behind me, on the floor of the pool. With each contraction, as I pushed, my body would float to the surface. In between contractions, I knew I had to slow the baby down, or she would tear me on the way out. I told Deborah that the baby was ready to come out now, but I was going to focus on pushes that opened, not pushes that expelled. Deborah agreed. Then Deborah said she could see a little bit of the head showing with each contraction. She asked me if I wanted a hand mirror so that I could see, or if I wanted to reach down and feel my baby�s head. It seemed such an odd thing for her to ask me at the time. I just shook my head. I couldn�t explain that I was already touching my baby from the inside� to see her or feel her from outside of me, looking in would just be a distraction. Then in one contraction, she crowned.

In one more contraction, I pushed, and she came flying out of my body, and into the pool. Ken said that the water in the pool became cloudy 2 seconds before the baby came, so that must have been when my water broke. The plan had been that the midwives birth the head, and then let Ken catch the baby as she came out, but there was no time, the baby came out head and body and all in one moment, shooting out of me, across the pool.

The next thing I knew, my body was floating back down towards the bottom of the pool, and Deborah was placing a squirming, crying, gray baby girl on my stomach. Dana (our other midwife) was there, and she threw a towel over the baby, into the pool with me. I stared up at Ken. Our baby was here! He looked like he didn�t know what to do. I asked him to get in the pool with me and hold the baby, since she was still attached to me by the umbilical cord. Ken didn�t hesitate; he peeled his clothes off, down to his little black bvds, and stepped gracefully into the pool. As he got into the pool, the water level rose. I put the baby on his chest, but her head flopped, and she got a gulp of water. I think she ended up getting at least 2 gulps of water, once while resting on my chest, and once on Ken�s. The umbilical cord was still between my legs, and all slimy. There wasn�t enough cord to really hand the baby over to Ken. I looked at the midwives �is it ok if I pull on this thing?� I asked. They all looked at me with horror and I got a loud and severe �NO!!! Don�t do that!� coming back at me in three voices. Ken held the baby for a while, and then he gave her back to me. I got out of the tub, and tottered over to the futon waiting for me at the side of the room. We�d put waterproof sheets on the mattress, and the midwives placed down absorbent pad type things all along the path. I lay down and at some point; Ken cut the cord with some clamping help from the midwives. Deborah got down between my legs to help me birth the placenta. I guess I birthed the placenta with some of the same kind of force with which I birthed Eva, with the result that Deborah ended up with blood splashing her up to her elbows. She told me about it later. I had wanted to see the placenta, but I was so tired and there was so much going on that I didn�t think to ask until a day or two later. I did ask them to put the placenta in the freezer, so that we could take it and plant a tree on it later.

Eva wasn�t breathing quite right. Her breathing was much too fast. It looked like there had been some meconium in the bag of waters before she birthed, and the midwives thought she had breathed in some of the murky water from the pool, so they put her on oxygen, and watched her for several hours. That took precedence over everything else. At first, the midwives were concerned about her color, but she pinked up, and her breathing came back down to a normal rate, and then everything was fine.

I looked up at the midwives, with Eva still in my arms, and asked if I could sleep for a while. Eva and I slept together. We had been in labor for 7 hours.

Eva Indigo Capelli was officially born at 7:15am in the morning, on Friday, April 21, 2000.

She weighed just under 8 pounds, and was 21 inches long.

When she first came out of the womb, her eyes were brown. They turned to a charcoal gray within a few hours, and were bluish gray by the end of the day. They hovered around grayish tones for the next 2 weeks. As of three months, they still wavered between brown and hazel, changing daily. By four months, Eva's eyes were a very warm and solid brown.