The Lunar New Year on Jan. 26 was a very eventful day.
It started for us at 2:00 am, when Willa’s water broke and contractions picked up. We had a birth tub, a small inflatable swimming pool, which I inflated at about 3:00 am to make ready. At 6:00, I rolled it upstairs to our bedroom and filled it with water. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a hose so I had to fill it with about 100 gallons of water using a 10 qt. bucket.
Labor progressed slowly with irregular timing over the course of the day and I talked with the kids about what was happening. As I started making dinner, Willa started feeling urges to push and I called our midwife, Sue Wolcott. As she got stuck in traffic, the contractions picked up considerably and we wondered if I would have to deliver the baby unassisted.
It turned out that the progression subsided, though the contractions didn’t. Sue arrived and helped, but the baby would not come out. Willa would push and push, but the baby would make progress and then seem to retract back in. We tried lots of different positions and even a popular Mexican rebozo technique that is popular for turning a baby into the proper anterior position for birth, but the progress was still slow.
Finally, at 9:06 pm (Pacific Time), Amara Rose became our second water birth in the tub. She was 9 lbs. 10 oz. and measured 21 3/4 inches long, which is typical for all our babies.
The name Amara appears in many cultures, including Greek, Latin, German, Igbo (one of the languages in Nigeria), Ethiopian, and others. A common meaning for the name is “unfading” or “eternal,” derived from the Greek word “αμαραντος” (”amarantos”) which means “unfading.”
After Amara was born, we learned why the birth was so difficult. She was born asynclitic and occiput posterior. Sue told us that if we were doing a hospital birth, the standard procedure for this position normally involves a cesarean section. We only wanted to reserve that option as a last resort in a medical emergency, so we were very thankful we were able to deliver at home without the surgery.
Willa is recovering very well, much faster than with Jasper. Her blood-loss was minimal (as opposed to the 2 pints she lost delivering Jasper) and her strength is starting to return.
Here are some pictures:
