A sweet card with a touching note, a few delightful phone conversations, a whole afternoon visiting with my super-busy daughter – Father’s Day has now slipped by, but the love expressed by my kids continues to make me smile. I love being a dad. In the 45 years it’s been since I first became a father, it is not an exaggeration to say that the days my kids, Sierra and Sequoia, were born were two of the best, most magical, most amazing of the 16,000+ days I’ve lived in those 45 years.
It seems I think about the birth of my kids fairly often, but those magical days have been even more present in my mind since reading Isabel Cowles Murphy’s honest Homebirth Terrified Me in her Substack The Noble Try. The post shares a chapter of Isabel’s unfolding birth story, or, more precisely, her homebirth story. Since reading it, I’ve been thinking that homebirth fathers have stories too. I have a couple of them! I’ve been asking myself, “Why not write about them?” So here goes!
When a baby is born, also being born is the mother and father of that child. The two times the father in me was born were magical not only because I became a dad, but also because I was right there, catching my two children when they were born into this world. All too often, it is said that a doctor “delivered” a baby. In my mind, it is the mother that delivers the baby. Whoever is on the receiving end – doctor, midwife, EMT, nurse, police officer, cab driver, dad – “catches” the baby. For Sierra and Sequoia, Helene did the delivering and I did the catching – at home.
Helene and I have always approached most things we do with the Boy Scout motto I learned as a kid, Be Prepared, very much in mind. So, shortly after the tears of joy settled down upon seeing the home pregnancy kit read positive that early fall of 1978, our learning about childbirth kicked into high gear.
The year 1978 was years before the world-wide-web became a resource for doing research, so books were our go-to. It did not take us long to learn that childbirth in the United States had become an event heavily reliant on technology and inseparable from the male-dominated and profit-oriented medical establishment. That approach to childbirth felt deeply disempowering to the birthing mother, as well as to the birthing couple. For these and a multitude of other reasons, we began planning our homebirth.
We soon found an experienced midwife, who, along with our doctor, provided excellent prenatal care to Helene. The doc was supportive of homebirth and was willing to provide us with backup in the event we needed it during the birth.
Helene’s due date was April 27th. As winter began to hint of giving way to the approaching spring, and daylight began lasting into the evening hours, we attended childbirth classes facilitated by a couple of midwives. To this day, as hints of spring are in the air and days begin to lengthen, I can still feel the excitement, the anticipation, the pure joy I felt as we drove to those evening classes.
Childbirth classes ended, and April was growing old. We had our supplies; we had our list of phone numbers by the phone (midwife, midwife assistant, sister-in-law Marti to help out, doctor, hospital, ambulance); we were very well-practiced in the breathing exercises to use during contractions… We were ready. April 27th came, and it went. More Braxton-Hicks contractions, but actual labor it was not. We woke the next day to more Braxton-Hicks, but still no labor. It was late afternoon of the 28th when Helene felt the nature of the contractions intensify. This was it, she was sure. The midwives soon arrived. Evening became night, night became the wee hours of April 29th, and the contractions began to subside. The midwives said it was false labor, quite typical for first-time Moms. They went home, and we tried to get some sleep. Neither of us got much, as we were still pretty keyed up!
As the afternoon of April 29th became evening, with just a few hours sleep since yesterday morning, Helene began to contract for real. Tired or not, this was it. All the reading, all the preparation, the classes, the supplies, the breathing exercises – all of it was about to come together during those next few hours.
Midwife Karen arrived, as did Marti. We took turns coaching and breathing with Helene. At that time, we were living in a small one-room rental that happened to have a piano in one corner. Our bed was a water bed – one of the loose, wavy kinds – so birthing in a water bed was not an option. We had brought home a double mattress a few weeks earlier and plopped it on the floor near the piano, where Helene would give birth.
It began to feel like Helene and I had somehow blended into one, and all the energy, all the love, all the passion between us had only one purpose – bringing our baby into this world.
The baby’s heart tones were checked regularly, as was Helene’s vital signs. All were normal. Baby was fine, Helene was tired but fine. First stage contractions soon became the more intense contractions of transition. One last check, and Helene’s cervix was fully dilated. She began to push. As the baby’s head began to show, this is when I realized that all the reading, all the classes, all the conversations during prenatal visits… none of it prepared me for what I was seeing. The baby’s head looked grey, it looked mottled, it looked so much different than I thought it would look. I was scared! I was freaked! In my head, I was panicking! Karen caught on to my fears right away and assured me that what I was seeing was perfectly normal. I quickly recovered from my momentary scare. Helene knew none of what I was feeling – she was working hard and focused on pushing a baby out.
And then it began to feel like Helene and I had somehow blended into one, and all the energy, all the love, all the passion between us had only one purpose – bringing our baby into this world. A few more contractions, and then the amazing, beautiful, super-strong Helene pushed Sierra out of her womb world and into my waiting hands. During labor, the mattress slowly migrated to just underneath the keyboard of the piano. So at just after four in the morning of April 30th, Sierra was gently born, at home, underneath an old upright piano.
We both grew up hearing many horror stories about childbirth – how painful, how cold, how unpleasant it was. So we were thrilled that what we learned leading up to Sierra’s homebirth, and experienced during her birth – that childbirth can be an empowering experience for the mother, a gentle experience for the baby, and a joyous and deeply intimate experience for the couple – was certainly possible.
Homebirth is not for everyone, we thought, but for those who want a homebirth, education is absolutely essential for a safe and successful birthing experience at home. So we decided to become childbirth educators through Informed Homebirth/Informed birth and Parenting, a childbirth education organization founded by midwife Rahima Baldwin. Over several years, for a handful of couples at a time, we taught childbirth classes in our home. Not every couple who attended our classes planned or had a homebirth, but word about the comprehensive nature of our classes got around, making them quite popular. We soon learned that couples also greatly appreciated the rather unique opportunity to take childbirth classes co-taught by a wife/husband team, presenting insights from a both a mother’s and a father’s perspective and experience.
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In the midst of raising our now-toddler Sierra, teaching childbirth classes (did I mention we were also building our career as performing musicians?), we found ourselves planning homebirth number two. Interestingly, Helene’s due date was again April 27th – go figure! Like Sierra’s birth, April 27th came and went with no labor and no baby. Unlike Sierra’s birth, which happened in the dark hours of the early morning, Helene gave birth to Sequoia on a warm, sunny, early May afternoon (read more about his garden experience just a couple hours after he was born in my article Forking Around on the Farm). It was a much shorter labor, and it was filled with the same magic and awe that we experienced when Sierra was born. It was a truly joyous occasion. Sequoia was greeted by his big sister and a few more close family and friends, along with Karen, our wonderful midwife.
When Sierra and Sequoia were born, homebirths were relatively rare in the US. Only about 1% of all US births took place at home in 1980. That percentage decreased to well below 1% through the 90s and into the early 2000s. The last few years have seen that percentage increase some, although they are still rare; 1.41% of all US births in 2021 took place at home, according to a report by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The best thing a father can do for the mother of his children when she is preparing to give birth is to trust her.
The relatively small number of US couples contemplating a homebirth today are sure to experience a wide range of opinions from family, friends, and medical professionals, along with hearing a fair share of childbirth stories ranging from joyous to “no way I’d have my baby at home”! So, if you are considering a homebirth, get ready. People will want to tell you their opinion.
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Being a homebirth father, I have some thoughts for a couple, and especially dads, considering a homebirth. First, get educated. Read books, watch videos. Interview a couple of midwives. Talk to your doctor or other health care practitioners. Ask lots of questions. Gather the information you need so an informed decision can be made.
Then, hopefully, the two of you will wind up on the same page. But, whether or not you do land in the same place, I believe that the final say should ultimately be the mother’s. She knows herself better than anyone, and she knows whether or not a homebirth is right for her. In a nutshell, the best thing a father can do for the mother of his children when she is preparing to give birth is to trust her. I knew that it was Helene’s body, not mine, that would be giving birth. So the final say in choosing where our kids would be born was Helene’s. Of course, I am ever-so-grateful she chose to have our kids at home. The days Sierra and Sequoia were born were two of the most magical days of my life!
I wrote The Homebirth Song back when Helene and I were actively involved in the homebirth scene in southern Colorado. It’s not exactly autobiographical, but it’s fun to sing and play:
So beautiful Dave!❤️
Love reading about the magical home birth experiences you two had!! Sounds magical and beautiful indeed.