We met Jenny and Terri rather late in the game…in fact it wasn’t until our 34th week! We had another midwife lined up, but for one reason or another she backed-out at the last minute. But looking back we now see that was the best thing that could have happened to us! After explaining our situation, Terri and Jenny were more than happy to take us under their care.

Our due date was June 16th, and since everyone was telling us that the first kid is never on time, it was a big surprise when my wife Sacha went into labor on the 10th! She started having contractions during dinner but they were very sporadic. So we just continued about our regular evening. That night Sacha woke me up at 3am and told me that she had been having regular contractions since midnight…and that I should start filling the tub! Needless to say I flew out of bed both nervous and very excited! Luckily for me we already had the tub inflated, so I just connected the hose to the hot water spigot on the washing machine and fired it up. Our friend Diana had spent the night figuring we would be having the baby soon and we had planned on her helping out during the process (for any soon to be dads out there reading I would definitely recommend having a trusted friend or family member help out with the birth; there were times when two things needed to be happening at once and having someone else around so you can focus on your wife is a huge stress relief!). While I was getting the tub filled Diana was calling Terri and letting her know what was going on.

Terri showed up around 4am and said that today was going to be the day! Over the next few hours everything progressed very smoothly. Everyone tried to get as much rest as they could, and Sacha used a tracking program we found on the internet to monitor her contractions. Terri left for an appointment at around 8am but said that she’d be back very shortly. Well Murphy’s Law being what it is, of course that meant that things were going to speed up; and by 9:45 we were calling Terri saying that she might want to think about hurrying back! Terri must have jumped in a helicopter because she was at our house ten minutes later! She checked Sacha and said that she was at 9cm and that now would be the time to get into the tub but not to start pushing. As soon as Sacha was in the water I could see a huge wave of relief come over her. Later I asked her how the tub felt and she said that it took all of the pressure off of her. Sacha stayed in the tub for about an hour while everything continued to progress, and during this time Jenny joined the party.

Finally at 11am we were ready to start pushing! Sacha pushed for an hour and everything seemed like it was going great, in fact the baby’s head was crowning so we all thought it would only be a matter of minutes before we had a baby. However, over the next hour we waited while everything stretched out. Finally at 1:08pm, with some awesome instruction from Jenny, Sacha gave one last push and we had ourselves a beautiful 9lb 3oz baby girl!! I would like to say that, had we been at a hospital, the doctors would have cut an episiotomy on my wife a long time ago. But the wonderful women of SCMC knew that if they just gave nature a chance to do its thing, it would work itself out. Because of their experience and patience my wife had no tearing, cutting or any other signs of trauma!

Thanks to both Terri and Jenny for making this such a wonderful experience! We can’t imagine having anyone else there. They are most definitely first on our list the next time we go to have a baby!! We recommend them, and the water birth to anyone who is looking for a midwife.

Dakoda James