The Horrors of Home Birthing

Everyone blathers on about the miracle of childbirth. They never mention all of the not-so-miraculous things that happen if you deliver a baby at home. By accident. My first kid was an accidental home birth. Here’s what I learned on that memorable day:

*Renting movies induces labor
When I started to suspect I was going into labor, I waddled up to the store and rented six new, full-priced movies. That seemed like a reasonable number, since I was going to be in labor for 76 hours (according to my mother-in-law). Uh…nope. As soon as I started the first movie, I felt an odd, stabbing pain in my hip. Unbeknownst to me, pressing the “Play” button is the equivalent of taking high-powered labor-inducing drugs.

*Contractions can masquerade as other things—misleading things
I didn’t call my (now ex-) husband when the stabbing pain hit. I didn’t want him standing around for 76 hours, waiting for me to expel a kid (I freeze under pressure, and assumed my cervix would do the same). So I decided to wait until I was having regular, real contractions—you know, those belly-spasming things that people measure with stopwatches and “breathe” through. I never had regular, real contractions. I had irregular bouts of stabbing pain in my hips, followed by diarrhea. Bad diarrhea. Clearly, an invisible gnome with anger control issues was sneaking into the room to stab me—or I’d developed food poisoning. Uh…nope again. Unbeknownst to me, my labor was progressing rapidly—without a single “real” contraction.

*Every pregnant woman should own a drop cloth
I called my ex before the end of the first movie. Even if I had another 74 hours of gnome attacks and diarrhea to go through before real labor began, I wanted someone to suffer with me. After surmising from my voice that Something Wasn’t Right, ex-hubby raced to the house. Baby #1 was born on our beige bedroom carpet—and so was everything else that accompanies a baby into this world.

*Never borrow a cheap shop vac
The screaming ball of fury weighed nine pounds at birth, and had done several powerful karate kicks on the way out. So I sat on a fluffy pillow in the nursery, while my ex used a shop vac to remove the Miracle of Childbirth from our bedroom carpet. My tip for future home birthers: Rent a high-quality shop vac—do not grab an old, cheap one that’s been stuffed in someone’s basement for years. As I sat in the baby room pondering whether my groin would ever recover, I started to worry that I’d suffered eye damage during the delivery, as well. Looking down the hall at my ex—who had his back to me—I felt like I was looking through a haze. A cloudy red haze. I called out his name so I could break the news: I’d ruptured my retinas during the delivery and was going blind. When he turned, his reaction could best be described as Squirrel Attacked By Fire Ants. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast—and in so many different directions at once. Turns out my eyes were fine—the shop vac was defective. Yes, it was sucking the Miracle of Childbirth off the rug. But it was spraying that Miracle out behind my ex, leaving an even coating of sticky, red Yuck all over the dresser, windows and wall.

Since I have a faulty memory bordering on amnesia, baby #1 was soon followed by other offspring. I never ended up having a kid in a hospital, but we never had to scrape the Miracle of Childbirth off the curtain rods again, either, thanks to our brand-new shop vac—and enough drop cloths to cover most of Arizona.

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