Birth Story: Lisa from EarthMama

Today I welcome Lisa to share with us the birth of her 3rd child. She holds the beautiful blog EarthMama, and is one of those lovely ladies you wish you could get to know in person.


I was pregnant, and 10 days over due, with my third child during the summer heat wave of August 2008. Until then, I thought that it was only your first baby that came a bit "over due", but it just goes to show that those babies come when they are ready and not one minute sooner. I was ready though, and getting fairly irritated, wondering if my baby would ever be born. My midwife picked up on my irritation one day and suggested I come over to her house to spend the day together. I packed up my two daughters, then 5 and 1, and away we went.

When I got to my midwife's house, we first checked my baby's heartbeat and position. Next, she warmed some Castor oil and gave my humongous belly a warm Castor oil massage and compress, all the while, massaging the uterine contraction points on my feet. It was so so hot, extremely humid, and now I was all oily. I didn't even know what to think when she suggested we go for a walk. At this point I had already tried herbal tinctures, homoeopathic remedies, primrose oil, and lots of walking, so at this point anything was worth trying to get this baby coming.

We gathered my two girls and my midwife's two boys, and together, with my oil exposed belly, embarked on a long and sweaty journey. We walked and walked and walked. I remember walking something like 10 miles that day, but my midwife insists it was probably really only a little over a mile. The more we walked the hotter I got and just really uncomfortable, so we turned back. On our way back we spotted a snake, which one of the boys insisted on picking up, and that was it, I just wanted to go home. We walked back, packed up, and headed home.

About ten minutes down the road I realized that my contractions were only like two minutes apart. I called my midwife to let her know. Since my labours tend to be quick she said she would head over to my house right away. I stopped at the bank on my drive home and called my husband so he could stop for some dinner on the way home, but to hurry because we needed to fill the birth tub.

I got home first. As soon as my husband walked through the door I had two really powerful contractions. I called my midwife and girl friend, who was coming to hang out with the girls during the birth, and luckily they were both right around the corner. We had two hoses filling the birth tub and were only able to get it filled half way. After my husband and I got into the birth tub the water level raised a bit, enough to have a baby in at least.

My daughters were with me during the labour and birth, from start to finish. We had watched videos and my oldest had already witnessed my daughter's birth, however experiencing their reactions was utterly amazing. My youngest, at the time, was a week away from turning two. She stood by the birth tub cheering me on, telling me what a good job I was doing. I kind of remember that at the time it seemed like a circus. People were laughing and cracking jokes, I was my humorous laboring self, the kids were eating pizza at one end of the room while I was laboring in the birth tub at the other end. The baby was born into water; a quick and gentle birth. The look of awe and amazement on my daughter's face was something I will never forget. For my children to witness the births of their siblings is a true gift. To have them fully involved during my pregnancies, labor, and births is a really powerful connective experience for us as a family. When my midwife took the baby out of the birth tub we all gasped, "It's a boy!" For weeks after the birth, everyone my youngest daughter would see, even random people at the grocery store, she would proclaim, "I saw my baby brudder come out in the water."

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Lisa DeNardo is a mama with a camera, trying to capture the little things in life. It is in these moments, which hold an unsurpassable amount of beauty and peace, where she finds the strength to grow and thrive as the individual she is. Lisa and her wonderful husband, and their four children, reside in southeastern Pennsylvania. More of Lisa’s daily contemplations can be found on her blog Earth Mama, as well as some thoughts on mindfulness at threading light.

(yes, I shamelessly took that description from this season issue of Rythm of the Home where Lisa contributed...so much easier to copy/paste than write when you BF! ahah)