When August Mom approached me to photograph August Home birth I agreed with enthusiasm! And I am so glad I did. 

Here is his Mom, Kristen's story in her own words:

Meeting August

Sunday the 24th, around bedtime when August would normally get active, I noticed much more pressure, back pain, and sporadic contractions throughout the night. They progressed until about 5am I was able to fall asleep and felt nothing until the next night. Contractions picked up at 8:30, at 6 minutes apart, so we started to clean up a bit and laid down to rest, but wasn't able to. Around 5am I had progressed to stronger and somewhat longer contractions and had bloody show so Goldie, our midwife and Amy, her assistant, got on the road and I got up to eat and set up the tub, which slowed labor so that I was disappointed by the time they showed up.

Throughout the day, they varied from as close as 3 minutes apart up to 15 minutes apart, different intensity and length. With things neither progressing nor slowing down, and with a complete stall of labor in the tub and complete frustration on my part.

By 12:30am on Wednesday morning we decided to check for progress and surprisingly I was 7 cm! I was honestly thrilled just to know I was really in labor, let alone almost done! I was so excited after that that I probably didn't even seem like I was in labor anymore. At least I knew the pain was getting me somewhere at this point.

A few contractions later my water broke, and I was so exhausted that I lay down by Charlie, which brought on a few terribly strong contractions and the urge to push, so I told Charlie to start getting everything ready.

 I got back in the tub, which seemed to slow labor almost to an awkward halt as everyone watched me, expecting pain and yelling and a baby. But at 2:56am I felt a "thud" to best explain it, (turns out it was baby waiting until the very last minute to engage), I yelled in panic, "what was that?! Did you feel that? Is that his head?!" With the next contraction, Goldie said if I was up for it I could probably crown on this contraction and be done on the next, and I did! 

August was born at 3:03 with the cord wrapped twice around his neck, Goldie quickly unwrapped it and gave him to me and got him stimulated. His first cry was a little delayed but his apgar scores were good for such a tiny baby (4 lbs 12 oz) and he pinked up nicely. 

 We've only known him a few days and are so in love already!