My Personal Experience: Water Birth at Home

The day before my son was born, while at work, I joked with my college Rick that he should expect a call from me that night. Rick would take over my workload when I am away to give birth to my son. Surely enough, at 9:00pm on Wednesday night, I felt that tomorrow (he would be 4 days early from the expected date) my son will be born so I call Rick that he has to forego his sleep in the morning to get to work for me. (I usually leave home at 6:00am and arrive at 7:00am). He was prepared for such call.

I also put on a swimming suit so that we could take a picture of me and my son while he was still inside the womb.

We made sure all appropriate food; drinks were available and all new baby stuff â€" cloth, blanket, diapers, creams, et al were all readily prepared.

I had ordered the medium sized round pool from splash birth in London, with all the sanitization liners and accessories. In addition to that, we also got a huge blue tarp to cover the whole living room floor and sofa. We figured that I might use the sofa as my alternative birth place. The pool was situated in the corner of my living room right next to the dining room. It was much larger than I anticipated. I could literally swim in that pool. The padding and lining in the pool was very comfortable. I subsequently recommended that to a number of people.

In addition to that, I had gotten about 12 tapes of Babylon 5. I was a science fiction buff and Babylon 5 was my fixation while living in Caltech. The Cambridge city library had VHS tapes of the show, so I decided to get them all. I hoped that my favorite show would be a pleasant distraction while experiencing labor pain.

I also ordered the tens from the Boots drugstore, so that I could use that to numb the initial labor pain prior to soak myself in the comfort of the pool.

Another pain relieve was my mother. My parent had come over 2 weeks before I gave birth so that they could assist me in labor and subsequently helping me with my new baby. It was such a luxury to have parents who could do that.