Home Birth of Baby J: Part II

If you missed Part I, you can read it here.

Baby J was born in the water at 8:17am.  I held her on my chest in the tub for several minutes while the birth team checked her out and began giving her supplemental oxygen.  We waited for the placenta to be birthed, but it didn't seem to be ready, and the water was getting cold, so we decided to get out so the baby wouldn't get too cold.  Amuri helped me out of the tub while I was still holding J, and we got into bed to get warmed up.

Oxygen tank - Baby needed some supplemental oxygen due to low Apgar score.

Amuri helped us out of the tub.

Snuggling in bed to get warmed up.

I love this face!

Still having a little bit of oxygen

After delivering the placenta and having some snuggle time in bed, which included breast-feeding, we decided to have the kids come in the meet their new baby sister.  Grandma and Grandpa had been taking care of them since they woke up that morning.

Grandma and Grandpa bring the kids in the meet the newest member of the family.

Meeting baby sister!

C meets baby J.

M timidly gazes at his new sister.

Proud big brother!

Happy Grandparents

 The kids left to get ready for church, and it was time to sever the umbilical cord.  My midwife and I had discussed the benefits of delayed cord clamping, and it was something I'd wanted with my other babies, but for one reason or another , didn't get it (they were all hospital births).  Well, with this one, we had all sort of forgot about the cord, and about an hour had gone by before we got around to severing it!  During my pregnancy I had learned about cord-burning, and we decided it would be a neat thing to do (read more about that here).  I had bought long taper candles to use for the burning.  We started burning it, but it just wasn't working out well.  Baby J was kicking and screaming because she wasn't attached to my breast anymore, and she just didn't like the position we had her in.  There was a huge pocket of fluid right at the spot we wanted to sever the cord, which made it hard to burn through.  I felt if we conitinued it might take an hour to get it over with, so we decided just to cut it.

Trying to burn the cord.  I thought it would be a neat symbolic way to separate baby from the placenta.

She did not appreciate the symbolism.

Dad cuts the cord.

After that I nursed her a bit to calm her down, and then it was time for her to be weighed and measured, and checked out for good health.

Time to get weighed.

8 lbs, 12 oz . . . no wonder she got stuck!

Getting measured . . . 20 inhces long!

Strong little heart.

 After the checkup, it was time to get footprints for her birth keepsake certificate.

Cute little feet!

After a busy morning, the birth team and photographer left, and baby and I had a nice, long nap in our cozy bed.