It’s Sunday afternoon—it’s a granddaughter’s first birthday, my son and his wife’s seventh wedding anniversary, and Father’s Day! I updated this three days later on the first day of summer so I could capture our final spring birth ♥
I’ve held off updating my statistics as I’m sooo close to attending my 700th birth, but this spring has really been so sweet and so interesting I wanted to share just a little about it!
The first baby of the bunch came the day before the first day of spring and was my seventh grandbaby! I now have four granddaughters and three grandsons ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
The last baby came the day before the first day of summer, right on his daddy’s birthday ♥
Eleven days after my grandson was born, two of our clients gave birth on the same day, thankfully, about six hours apart. One mama was two weeks past her guess date and the other was about four days early ♥♥
The next week we welcomed two babies, the week after we welcomed three babies, and then we welcomed a baby every week to two weeks until this week ♥
Fourteen births were planned homebirths and one was a planned hospital birth ♥
Six mamas were first-time mamas ♥
One mama was an eighth-time mama ♥
One first-time mom pushed for five hours and another pushed for seven hours! The seven-hour mom’s baby came via military presentation!
The littlest baby was 6 pounds, 4 ounces and the biggest baby was 10 pounds, 2 ounces! Two other babies were in the nine pound range ♥
Four babies were born in the water sacs ♥
Two babies came with their cords wound twice around their necks, two babies came with their cords wound once around their necks, and five babies came with their little arms beside their heads ♥
One baby came directly posterior and, as mentioned already, one came presenting military ♥
We burned three cords ♥♥♥
One placenta had a succenturiate lobe ♥
One placenta was of battledore insertion with a stretch of vessels running wild and free through the water sac ♥
Two placentas appeared to have a little vanished twin mummified on their surfaces, complete with wee atrophied vessels ♥♥
We spent better than 50 hours with one mama, 36 hours with another mama, and 24 hours with still another mama ♥
One baby came on Mother’s Day—the third time I’ve attended a Mother’s Day birth since I moved to Colorado ♥♥♥
Fifteen beautiful babies—fifteen beautiful families—all but one of those babies was born safely at home—remember, one was a planned hospital birth—so we had no transfers ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
But we also served six families through six heart-rending miscarriages ♥♥♥♥♥♥
The photograph of Samantha, Sylvie, and Jeffery—baby number fourteen—was taken by Peyton Elise Craft of Peyton Elise Photography and used with Samantha’s permission ♥ Click here to witness a snippet of Sylvie’s cord burning ♥
Kim Woodard Osterholzer, Colorado Springs Homebirth Midwife and Author. And Grandma ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Books by Kim:
Homebirth: Safe & Sacred on Amazon
Homebirth: Commonly Asked Questions
A Midwife in Amish Country: Celebrating God’s Gift of Life
Nourish + Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing
One Little Life at a Time: Recommendations + Record Keeping for Aspiring Homebirth Midwives
