Home Birth Baby: Gideon Micaiah Logan

 ^{Gideon Micaiah}

Judges 7:² And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.

^{1 Kings 22:14} And Micaiah said, As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.

 We choose these names because we want everything our son to do to be in God's strength and everything he says to be in line with what God has said!

 Here he is at 6lbs 8 oz about 2 seconds outside the womb!

 Our Home birth was so beautiful! On Sunday Morning I woke up and got ready for church like usual. The door bell rang and one of the church bus riders was ready for church.  I went out to the kitchen and began making cereal for my children then my water broke. I was not too excited because I knew that with the last 3 babies my water broke with no contractions for 17-50 hours later! I told Chris and he told me to call the midwife and ask if he should still go to church. My midwife told Chris to go ahead and go to church and make plans for the kids if he wanted to participate in the birth =). Chris went to church with all the kids. My midwife arrived and did an exam to check my cervix and to confirm the ruptured membranes.  I was at 5 cm. Chris brought all the kids back home as he didn't want to burden anyone with our children not knowing how long it would actually be before the baby came.

 My midwife was pretty confident in her experience with naturally inducing contractions and told me that if I wanted we would have the baby in the afternoon or early evening. I honestly didn't believe it would work that fast.  So our pastor and his wife came and picked the children up. Then my friend from a nearby town  had a breast pump I could use to help supplement the herbal tinctures the midwife gave me to start contractions. My friend also gave me a pedicure!

 I took herbal tinctures for every 15 minutes or so from about 1pm to 5pm. I used the breast pump for 20 minutes straight around 3:30pm. We went for a brisk walk around 3:45-4:30. Chris and I came back home and I sat up in the recliner through lots of contractions about 1-2 minutes apart. The pain was not that bad, Chris says I was still smiling =). Then the midwife suggested I go to the bathroom to empty out my bladder.

 Sitting on the toilet helped move the baby down pretty fast and  about 2 minutes before Gideon was born I told Chris to call Judith to our bedroom and she had me bend over on all fours on our floor that we had laid table cloths down on and then Gideon was born. She slid him in between my legs and then I picked him up. He was crying and so full of life. It was beautiful. I held him and nursed him until the placenta stopped pulsating. Chris cut the cord and then the placenta was delivered. Then I moved to our bed with baby. There was not really any mess at all! We didn't even need to use the 2nd set of sheets under the bed!

 Our midwife was just so gentle and excited for us. It was not a cold routine where she was just waiting to get off the clock. She always asked first before she did anything to me or baby. She would thank the Lord out loud for everything that checked out right. There was no stampede of nurses assistants and pediatricians asking us for consent to give eye ointment, vitamin K, hep B vaccine,  giving me an iv for pitocin, and blood pressure machines to be hooked up to. No one coming in and mashing on my uterus. No one wanting to whisk the baby away for a bath, time under the heat lamp, hearing test or anything else. I couldn't believe how smoothly everything went and how accurate the midwife was with using her herbal remedies to kick my body into labor. She is definitely an angel in disguise I am sure!

 Chris got to weigh the baby with this old school scale!

Our midwife checked Gideon to make sure he was perfect before leaving us on our own. The house was so super quiet with our 4 little ones gone, that didn't last too long when they came for a visit.

 The kids all wanted a closer look at Gideon.

Chris brought the baby down low for all the see.

 The kids all went back with our pastors family for the night and we had a couple of neighbors come by to see Gideon.

 Chris called family and posted a picture on Facebook while I just admired our new little guy on my lap.

 He slept in the bed with us and woke up 3 or 4 times in the night. The next morning I kept him swaddled and Chris made me breakfast. Our midwife came by in the afternoon to check on me and baby and she will come back a few more times in the next couple weeks =) I will miss seeing our midwife and would never want to have another hospital birth after this great experience. Thank You Lord for our wonderful home birth!