Alexander (Xander)  was born on August 4^th (his due date)!  We were planning to birth at the birth center in San Fran, but to stay and labor there, you need to be in active labor (progressively dilating and contractions getting stronger and closer together). I was in labor for a total of 69 hours (since the very first contraction), but never really seemed to move into active labor… Jessica, a student midwife from Sage Femme had come over on the morning of August 4^th at around 11:30am to give me some emotional support more than anything else. She was only at our house for a couple of hours, and I was still having erratic contractions between 4-9 minutes apart, when I suddenly started having the uncontrollable urge to push. At that point, we didn’t think we had time to get to the birth center.  Thankfully, Jessica had brought an emergency birth kit with her, and with EMS on standby, we had a perfect but unexpected homebirth! At 3:02pm on August 4, 2010, baby Xander was born!

I taught HypnoBirthing to Kelly and her partner in Luxembourg, before they returned to the States, where Xander was born.  My belief is that, as she was so relaxed, it wasn’t apparent  how far her labour was progressing.

Home birth August 2010