I met Melody after she had talked to another local midwife about wanting a home birth after 2 cesareans. I take a very limited number of VBA2C’s and only after strict guidelines have been followed. Melody was an excellent candidate for a vaginal birth attempt and I knew she would take it in stride.
Melody called me at 9:40pm to let me know her water had broken while she was sleeping. I had her rest and call me when she felt like she was in active labor. I received a call around 2am from Chad saying she was having closer more intense contractions and they were ready for me to come. I arrived at their home at 2:40am and checked on Melody. She was laboring but still in early first stage. We decided to check and found her to be 2-3cm. We decided it would be best for us to rest for the rest of the morning and I would check on her every hour until something changed. She labored slowly through the night until 7am when things seemed to be picking up. We found her to be 5cm at this time and she decided to get in the pool. While Chad and I labored with her, we noticed that her every 2-3 minute contractions would space out to 6-7mins when she was in the pool. We decided to get her out of the pool after an hour of every 7-9 min contractions. As soon as we got her out of the pool her contractions picked back up to every 2-3 minutes. It was amazing! Melody labored like a champ and began to feel like she needed to push. It seemed early to me and my assistant so we checked her progress and found her to be 6cm. We asked Mel not to push until she really felt the urge instead of just pressure. It was 11am and Mel was exhausted. We all decided to lay down and get some rest. Mel rested for 2 hrs and as soon as she was laying in her bed, her contractions spaced out to every 7-9 minutes again! It was so frustrating! Haha! At 1pm, I woke Mel up and asked her if she was ready to have this baby and reluctantly (and with a mild dirty look ;)) she agreed! We helped her out of bed and got her dressed to walk around outside on her property. Within 5 minutes of getting out of bed, her contractions were consistently every 2-3 minutes. I jokingly told her she wasn’t allowed back inside or in bed until she had her baby! She did one complete lap around her property and it became clear her labor was intensifying. By the time she made it back to the back patio, she seemed to be pushing. This was at 2pm, only 1 hr after she got out of bed! We came inside because of the heat, she pushed stronger and stronger with each contraction. She labored in the entry way and we moved her to the toilet and when it was warm enough, to the pool (though I knew there was a small chance her labor would space out if we tried it, it was worth it for her to have the water birth she desired!). We were finally able to get Mel to the pool and though her contractions spaced out, the intensity was still there and she pushed with a vengeance! An hour and 16 minutes from starting to push, Mel pulled little River out of the water and to her chest! He was finally here after all that hard work!! It made complete sense that he wanted to be outside while she labored, his name fits the bill! We were blessed to meet this little man in all his glory
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