On August 21, 2015 at 2am (of course!), A. delivered our
third baby – a boy named Sebastian Juma Thomas Hussain (hereinafter "S2"). (Juma means Friday in Arabic/Swahili).
We mention third not just because we are officially ballers
now (which we are!), but to take a snapshot for our future selves and children
(!) of our learnings.
Essentially, on a
scale of 1 – 10 (1 being zero medical intervention – 10 being a full blown hazmat
situation), the medicalization of each delivery has dropped dramatically:
- S. would be a 7 (Pitocin, inducement, 4 days
in the NICU)
- F. would be a 4 (having lied to our doctor
about when our waters broke etc.)
- S2 would be a 2 (the only reason I would
not say 1 is that we did have an ambulance on standby in our driveway throughout
the home birth - the EMTs cheered when I gave them the news!)
We had not really envisaged a homebirth at all until late
July, when it became clear that (i) our risk profile was low, (ii) our doctor
was on board with the idea and was, in fact, going to be literally in the
Amazon jungle on summer vacation during our delivery window, and (iii) we met
our midwife A.L., whose experience includes delivering hundreds of babies in
various nightmarish scenarios throughout Angola and Sudan…in the bush. AL made home delivery seem a logical option,
striking the sweet spot between proselytizing home birth and prudent risk
management.
Our plan was thus to labour for as long as possible before
calling AL. Our early stage labour plans
included watching movies (season 1 of Brink – CHECK), going out for lunch
(steak – frites – CHECK), meditation (or, as Aki likes to call it, a nap - CHECK),
and hitting up the frozen yogurt joint (Guava mmm – CHECK). A. even took a couple of conference calls, as
she was still working, muting the call when the pain got too intense – hard
core!
By 930pm on Thursday, 20 August, the contractions were
serious enough that we called AL. She
arrived an hour later, and was a super calming influence.
It is called labour for a reason. Suffice it to say in this forum that the warm
water pool worked amazingly well and in fact S2 was born in the pool –
another first for the Thomas Hussain clan! S. and F. meanwhile spent an
exciting night ‘camping’ in a tent set up in our study – a planned distraction
complete with popcorns (as we say in Kenya), candy and ipads!
The really remarkable part of the experience was just how
quickly A. and S2 bounced back and how quickly our new family member was
absorbed into the clan. Within minutes,
and I do mean minutes, we were all sitting around taking turns holding Seb and
eating ice cream and calling family members to report on events. And the knock-on benefits of this calm we can
only guess, has been happy sleep patterns, better bonding, feeding etc.
Anyway, we are 5 now (the name of this blog was truly
prescient!) – happy and healthy all!
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| Hmm, those contractions are getting a little more persistent right about now. Out for lunch on delivery day, getting through the early labour in style!! |
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| Not freaking out, just checking that the ambulance is still in the driveway in the dead of night! |
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| I'm 3 minutes old, and already my parents are embarrassing me with this weird outfit! |
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| First contact... |
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| Placenta - it's what's for lunch... |
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| Looking glam already... |
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| We spent a lot of time making sure F. (not yet back in school) was properly deployed and secure. Here he is, breaking ankles at Saturday soccer (and he's only wearing crocs (my bad for the wardrobe failure) so imagine when he suits up properly...) |
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| 3 car seats is prima facie evidence that you are dealing with a baller! |
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| 3 sibs together for the first time!! |
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| S2 is 2 minutes old at this point. This expression sums up the entire advantage of doing a home birth... |
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| Bit blurry - but if you look carefully, you can see how generously Lucy (our dog) is sharing her kennel with F.! |
