Miles Reilly

After a rather difficult hospital birth with their first son Calvin, Chris and Felicia elected to have Miles Reilly at home. This turned out to be a very good thing, and we are so thankful for the excellent care provided by Spokane Midwives.

Miles was due on February 5, 2010. Up until then, he showed little interest in making an appearance. He seemed quite content to stay in mommy as long as he could! Grandma Nancy was on site to help care for Calvin and the family’s needs.

For the next several days, Chris and Felicia tried EVERY trick in the book to induce labor, including driving on bumpy roads, eating spicy foods, accupressure, essential oils, many long walks, castor oil, and plenty of other stuff. By Wednesday the 10th, Miles started to make some movements and Calvin left to stay with Grandma Mo.

By Thursday, some steady labor had begun around 5pm. Felicia was strong but relaxed as the contractions grew stronger and closer. Around 9pm Beth from Spokane Midwives came by to check on Miles, she reported that he was not very far along. So Chris and Felicia watched a bit of Harry Potter, then went to sleep around 11pm.

Felicia awoke dramatically at 2am with very strong contractions. The plan was to use a pool in our kitchen to have a water birth, but we couldn’t get it filled in time (it was quite large…). After some very strong contractions Felicia was ready to start pushing. Beth arrived in less than 30 minutes, brought all of her gear, and started helping Felicia prepare.

After that everything happened fast. Felicia was set up on the downstairs bed to finish the labor (the bed was wrapped in extra sheets and plastic). After about 5 pushes, Miles head was delivered. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, but Beth just unwrapped it and the delivery continued. Felicia turned over onto her hand and knees and rest of Miles was delivered. He cried a little more than his brother Calvin, but came out very healthy. For being a week overdue he was didn’t have any issues- no long fingernails or weirdo skin. All went well with cleaning him up getting him dressed, then Beth had to dash off to the next baby (she delivered 6 babies in 24 hours!).

Our birth at home was a little unorthodox to our family and friends, but we are very glad we made that choice. It was very safe and medically sound, but immensely more comfortable than the hospital birth experience. Being at home immediately after the birth made adjusting to life with the new baby immensely more comfortable. We are thankful that there are excellent medical facilities in Spokane that offer top notch care for babies and mothers- and glad that we didn’t need to have any serious medical interventions.

Felicia is recovering well and Miles has been sleeping and nursing regularly… In a Silent Way.  That is really about all he’s doing. Stay tuned to this site or subscribe by e-mail to receive all the latest Milestones.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.