Harper Lyn Easton was born at home on March 26, 2025 at 3:18pm. She weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long.
Harper’s birth was amazing. I feel so lucky I got to experience it. Since this blog post is mostly a personal record for me and my family to remember the details of Harper joining our family, I wrote down every detail I wanted to remember. It might be lengthy for some, so feel free to skim.
Pregnancy
When I first found out I was pregnant with my 6th baby, I knew I wanted to do a home birth again like we had done with Elliot. Starting this pregnancy at age 37, I wondered if home birth was still an option. I had no concerns about my health or body, but I know the standard model of maternity care treats “advanced maternal age” as a high risk symptom itself, instead of as a slight increase in the possibility of other risk factors. I talked to several midwives in our area who all assured me that maternal age was not an automatic risk factor for home birth eligibility. I chose Adrienne Leeds with Abundant B’earth as my midwife. I liked her personality and philosophies toward birth. And I also really liked that she is local to Longmont and only lives 15 minutes away. My midwife with Elliot’s birth lived an hour away, and that added an extra element of stress for me with having a history of fast labors.
We wanted the baby’s gender to be a surprise, like we had done with Addison’s and Elliot’s births. Most people thought the baby would be a girl. Dallin said he hoped for another brother because “sisters are sassy.” I always have plenty of practice contractions in the last month or so of pregnancy with no frequency or pattern to them, and this pregnancy was no different.
My estimated "due" date was March 23rd. The week before that was spring break for our kids. All the other kids were born 4-9 days before their due dates, with the exception of Dallin (induced at 41 weeks). Because of the timeframe in which my other babies had come, I had envisioned in my mind that this baby would be born during our spring break. It seemed like great timing for many reasons, so we planned to have Mckay’s two months of paternity leave start that week. My parents arrived in Colorado to help take care of the kids on March 15th, right as spring break started.
A part of me hoped that the baby would be born during spring break so the kids could be home to see the birth if they wanted. Some of them expressed interest in watching the birth, so we had lots of conversations about what birth could look like, we read lots of books and watched a few PG birth videos. I decided to leave it up to each child if they wanted to stay in the birth room or leave according to their comfort level. Above all, MY personal comfort level would be the ultimate deciding factor on their presence in the room during labor and birth.
Spring break arrived, and with no kid schedules or extra curriculars to work around, it seemed like the perfect week to have a baby. My parents were doing a great job keeping our kids entertained. Every day that week, I would wake up expecting to have the baby sometime that day. Mild contractions would start each morning and I would begin timing them. They would often pick up in frequency for an hour or so, only to fizzle out. The same thing would happen each evening; a pattern of contractions would start to build, only to slow down after an hour or two. When my mom would take kids out to do something fun during the day, I often chose to stay home, convinced that the contractions would turn into active labor at any moment. I didn’t want to be far from home in case labor progressed quickly. I stayed home from book club that week and my kids chose to forgo their weekly church activities because the contractions each evening seemed like they might progress.
We told the kids that I was more likely to go into labor in a calm environment than a stressful one, so they made it their mission to create calm for me. They began a routine each evening, usually around the time that contractions would get more frequent, of massaging my feet/shoulders, brushing my hair, and playing calm meditation music while I sat on the yoga ball. As they gave me the spa treatment, the kids would glance over at the contraction timing app open on my phone, and would get excited seeing contractions every 7 minutes, or get disappointed at seeing contractions 20 minutes apart. Their efforts definitely did have a calming effect on me, just not a labor-inducing one.
I had never experienced prodromal labor before (labor that starts
and stops before active labor begins) and it was
really discouraging and exhausting. Not so physically exhausting, because the
contractions were mild and more annoying than uncomfortable, but it was
emotionally exhausting mentally preparing myself for labor each day, only to
have that not happen.
We went on lots of walks to get contractions going. I did
yoga, the miles circuit, and all the stretches/positions that are supposed to
help baby be in the optimum position for birth. I ate a lot of dates. My due date came and went. Spring
break ended and the kids went back to school. Another midwife appointment
passed. Adrienne was a calming voice of reason for me, reassuring me that baby
was going to be born when baby was ready. I was starting to feel more peace that
the birth did not happen during spring break as I had envisioned, but that it
would happen at the right time for me and the baby.
Labor
On Wednesday, March 26th, I had 2 or 3 contractions very early in the morning while I was still sleeping. These were contractions that woke me from sleep and that I could feel more intensely in my back. They felt different than contractions from the days before. When I woke up, I wasn’t sure if I had just been imagining their intensity in my half-asleep state, but the few contractions that followed later that morning in the daylight were equally as intense. I found myself needing to focus on breathing and relaxing my body during the contractions so I didn’t tense up. That was a sign to me that real labor was finally starting. The frequency of the contractions was still very sporadic, every 20-40 minutes. Between 9 and 10 am, they really started to pick up every 5 minutes. Mckay and Elliot started inflating the birth pool.
Feeling really energized and excited, I wanted to go
on a walk around the neighborhood to keep contractions coming. They were
already spacing out again by 11am as I got ready to go out. I did not have a single
contraction during our 1 mile walk, but I tried to not feel discouraged by
that.
We got home from the walk around 12pm. As soon as I came in
the house to sit down and have a drink of water, the contractions picked right
back up, with the same increased intensity as before. I ate lunch and the
contractions kept coming, every 7 or 8 minutes. By 1pm, I knew for sure that
this was the real deal. The question in my mind was how soon did I need to call my midwife. I certainly wanted to make sure she was there with plenty of time
to set up and feel prepared for the birth. I also didn’t want to call her too
soon and have her sitting around for hours and hours waiting, mostly because that
would make me feel impatient with myself instead of letting things progress in
their own time. After discussing with Mckay and my mom, I had almost decided to
not call Adrienne yet when I had another more intense contraction. I knew she
should be here sooner rather than later, so I called Adrienne and she prepared to
head over, with an ETA of 1:30pm.
As soon as I hung up with Adrienne, my contractions were
coming every 2-4 minutes, with such intensity that I needed to stop everything,
hold counterpressure on my back and breath slowly through each one. I was still
feeling great and normal in between each contraction, so I knew we still had
quite a bit of time until birth. Mckay and I were finishing up the last-minute
birth prep things like filling the birth tub (Thank you tankless water heater!), and putting a
plastic liner and clean sheets on the bed.
My mom and Elliot came in to the room to hang out, and Elliot helped hold the hose to fill the tub.
He was having a lot of fun leaning over the side of the inflated tub until he fell over the edge, head first into the
water. At that same time he fell in, I was reaching the end a contraction. I experienced 3 simultaneous feelings; the instinct to rush and pull Elliot out of the
water, the urge to laugh, and my body still contracting. Elliot was not happy
as I scooped him quickly out of the water, but he soon calmed down after we got
him dry clothes (and took a picture).
Adrienne and another assisting midwife, Amanda, arrived and
quietly began setting up their supplies in the room as I labored. Adrienne
checked the baby’s heart rate and baby sounded great. Pretty soon, I needed
Mckay to put pressure on my lower back with his hands to relieve the back pressure I
was feeling with each contraction. Mckay would be moving around the room,
fetching things and answering questions from our birth team, and then he would run back to my side every few minutes when I called out for him as a contraction began. He’s the best “Daddy Doula,” as Adrienne called him.
At 2pm, I decided to get into the tub. I had reached the point where contractions were pretty painful and I needed to add the next step in my pain management plan: water. The warm water is always so calming for me, and it helps to relax my muscles and ease the pain. I labored in the warm water with soothing background music playing. I was still feeling pretty relaxed between contractions, but definitely not able to talk during contractions.
Around
2:40pm, I needed to go to the bathroom. Using the toilet often in labor is very
helpful in making space for the baby’s head to move down, but I was dreading
the thought of getting out of the water and having to experience a few
contractions without the warm water. I worked up the courage to get out of the
water and walked the 10 feet to the bathroom. In the 5 minutes I spent out of the
water, I had 3 contractions back-to-back, with only 30 seconds break in between
each one. It was extremely uncomfortable, so I hurried back to the water as
quickly as I could. Back in the tub, contractions spaced out again to 3-4
minutes, but the intensity definitely picked up.
Up until this point, It had been pretty quiet in my bedroom with only me and Mckay in
there. My mom had taken Elliot outside to play for a bit and the midwives were
down in the kitchen preparing some herbs for after the birth. By 3 pm, I hit
transition. I was no longer able to quietly breath through each contraction. I
vocalized and groaned through an intense contraction. The midwives must have
heard me because they came quickly and quietly into the room by the end of the
contraction to check on me. I knew at this point I was getting close to the end.
The question on my mind was: Would the kids make it home from school in time to
see the birth? The 4 school kids arrive home on 3 different busses between 3:00
and 3:15pm. I hoped they would make it home in time, but I knew there was
nothing I could do to slow the progress at this point., All I could do was tell
the midwives that my mom and kids were welcome to come into the bedroom as they
came home, while I tried to stay focused and calm through contractions.
Transition hit fast and hard, with only 20-30 seconds of respite in between contractions. Once these most intense contractions hit, it would be about 15 minutes until the baby was born. During one contraction, I could feel the pressure from the bag of waters bulging. At 3:16pm, in between contractions, Adrienne listened to baby’s heart rate, which sounded great.
The baby was completely born all within the span of the next one contraction that started at 3:17. At its onset, I felt a pop as my water broke, then immediately I could feel the baby’s head moving down. The baby’s head kept moving down without any pushing from me. I tried to relax, breathe, and let my body work as I felt the head come completely out, 30 seconds after my water broke. I could feel my body continue to eject the baby all on its own. I had a brief moment of internal panic because I was worried about the baby coming too fast and causing tearing, so I tried for a second to slow things down by tensing my muscles and holding the baby in. I quickly realized it was probably best to let my body do what it was trying to do. So I again relaxed my muscles, breathing through the contraction, as my body moved the rest of the baby out all on its own at 3:18pm. I didn't push at all. (This is known as the fetal ejection reflex, something I have never experienced this strongly with any of my previous labors.)
It all happened so fast, I was almost in shock. You could
hear the surprise in my voice saying, “The baby is out!” Mckay, who
had been holding pressure on my back this whole time, came around to my front to help me
bring the baby up out of the water. The cord was loosely around her neck. This is rarely a concern, as the baby is not breathing with lungs yet
and is getting all its oxygen from the placenta through the cord, but a shorted length of cord made
things a little trickier to pull her all the way up onto my chest. As we
brought the baby out of the water, she started crying right away. We worked for
a few seconds to get the cord unlooped, and while doing that I could see that
she was a girl! I brought her up onto my chest as Mckay and I relaxed into the
edge of the tub, soaking in this amazing baby girl that had just been
born.
Thirty seconds later, all the kids and my mom came into the
room. My mom and Elliot had gone out to the street to greet the kids coming off
the bus, not knowing how close the baby was to being born. As soon as they
walked in the door, they heard Harper's first cry and came running up to the
bedroom. Everyone was so excited; there were even tears of joy. We tried to
keep the room quiet for Harper to gently transition to the world, but it was
hard at times as the kids excitedly talked and asked questions.
The kids stayed in the room as the placenta was birthed, 18
minutes after Harper. Mckay, Harper and I were still in the water. The
placenta was placed in a bowl near Harper, with the umbilical cord still
attached to her. The kids all wanted a good look at the placenta, inspecting it
right alongside our midwife as she ensured it was intact.
I eventually got out of the water and the midwives helped me
to get cleaned up and into bed. Mckay held Harper in the warm water for a
little while longer, then joined us on land.
We snuggled Harper a lot and she ate her first meal, and then it was time to cut the cord, more than an hour after she was born. Mckay cut the cord, then Adrienne weighed and measured Harper.
She weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 20 inches long. Harper and I
were both checked over by our midwives and we were both doing great. I had a
very small tear that didn’t look like it needed stitches at first, but Adrienne
ended up doing a few stitches later on.
Our midwives left a few hours after the birth, with everything cleaned up, the tub drained and deflated, and a load of laundry started. My mom took the kids out to pick up some dinner for everyone, and Mckay and I kept on snuggling our beautiful Harper, soaking in the post-birth euphoria.
The next several weeks were a blur of nursing, changing diapers and sleeping (sometimes). My parents were able to stay and help us for the first 5 days. They helped get all the kids to school/activities, kept Elliot occupied, and cooked dinner for us all every night. My dad brought me my favorite morning beverage—brewing cocoa—with his homemade biscotti on the side. My mom made some rice congee from a traditional Ayurvedic recipe at my midwife’s recommendation. I ate it for breakfast every day for a week. It was so warm, comforting, and deliciously spiced.
Adrienne came back to our home to do postpartum checks on me and Harper. She came on Day 2 and day 5, as well as 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks later. I love the postpartum care after a home birth. It feels a little more personal and gradual than sending you home from the hospital 2 or 3 days after birth with a “Good luck!” and a “See you in 6 weeks!”
Mckay barely left my side for the first few weeks. He helped
me shower and get dressed. He brought every meal to me in bed. He put Harper to
sleep and brought her to me for feedings. After my parents left, he did double
parent duty with ALL the laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and car pool
duties, on top of caring for my every need. He is amazing. (Honorable mention to Corden Pharma and Colorado state law for the generous paternity leave).
Harper’s birth was a beautiful experience. With the
prolonged days of pre-labor, it was easy for me to feel frustrated and impatient with
my body. The day of her birth was a redemptive reminder to trust my own body.
It was empowering and sacred; my easiest and least painful birth with just over 3 hours of active labor. I loved my
midwife. In many ways, she went above and beyond standard maternity care. She
made sure my iron levels were optimum to prevent hemorrhage, and she monitored my
glucose in depth to ensure gestational diabetes was not an issue. She never checked dilation during labor because I never felt like I needed a specific number to know how my labor was progressing. Adrienne played a beautiful balance in letting me trust my own instincts and birth as I felt comfortable, paired with gentle recommendations, teaching, and informed consent with every step.
Being a family of 8 has certainly been an adjustment. It really takes a team effort to get everything done. Luckily, Harper has 5 amazing siblings that are patient, helpful, and really good at holding her and rocking her to sleep. We are all totally in love with her.
