And so it begins...

Andrea Faith Malcolm was born on May 25th, 2006 at 8:30 am. She was 4 pounds, 10 ounces and 18 inches long.

This is our birth story and the official launch of our family Blog.

We began our adventure 37 weeks ago when my wife and I realized that we were fortunate enough to be blessed with our first child. We wanted our birth to be as natural as possible with minimal interventions and completely un-medicated.

This is how it went.

First, I would like to give special thanks to Stacy Hutchins, our Bradley Method childbirth class instuctor. Her guidance and leadership had a tremendous impact on our understanding of the obstacles we would likely face on this journey. We could not have done this without her.

Second, we are grateful for our birth team. Special thanks to Pat Brewer, our midwife, and her assistant, Jamie. They are affiliated with "A place for Birth", in Denton, Tx. Both of them were amazing during the actual birth, and were instrumental in providing us with the birth plan that we desired.

So, on to the birth story.

We originally wanted to have a homebirth, but after some unforseen circustances we decided that it would be safer to have the birth at the birthing center in Denton instead.

It all began when Renee's water broke around 5 pm yesterday (5/24/06). We weren't expecting this, especially since our due date was June 18th. Renee was having contractions and with each one, some more water would come out, as opposed to all the water coming out at once. Because of this, we weren't even sure at the time that her water had broken. Her contractions were irregular, less than a minute, and not very intense.

We went to see our midwife, who confirmed that our water had broken and that we might need to start thinking about some natural ways of inducing labor if active labor had not started within12- 24 hours. Since her water broke early, we decided to change our plans of a homebirth and use the birthing center instead, since they have more equipment available and a hospital is nearby in case a transport was needed.

We made an appointment to be at the birthing center a 9 am for a sonagram to check how much fluid was left and to determine what size the baby is. Well, those plans didn't quite work out either.

We went back home and the excitement began.

It became clear that Renee was in active labor yesterday, beginning at 9 pm. She was having regular contractions, 10 minutes apart, lasting from 45 to 60 seconds. They were pretty managable at first, as she was able to talk on the phone through them all at the beginning.

We wanted to try and labor at home as long as we could, then head to the birthing center.

Begining at around 10:30, Renee's contractions were becoming extremely intense. They all lasted at least one minute, and were anywhere from 7 to 10 minutes apart. I coached her through them, trying to relax her as much as possible during, and in between them.

Her contractions kept coming like this up to around 3 am. Our midwife wanted us to call her if they became over a minute long, and 3 to 5 minutes apart. Renee's contractions were still 7 to 10 minutes apart, but they were all between a minute and a minute and a half long and very intense. I had a feeling that we were making good progress.

It was about 3:30 am when I believe that Renee entered into the transitional stage (as per the Bradley Method). She was having a lot of self doubt, and wasn't sure if she could go on. Thankfully, I recognized this "emotional signpost" and knew that we were getting close to the pushing stage. I called the midwife and told her that we were on our way to the birthing center.

We left about 4:15 and arrived at the birthing center at 5 am. Renee was worried that she had not made any progress but when her cervix was checked, she was dilated 8 cm. We were both relieved at this point, as we knew that all that work had gotten us closer to our birth.

She labored for another hour and we were ready to push. Renee started pushing at around 6:30 am and the baby was born a 8:30 am.

She did the whole thing without any medication whatsoever, just like we wanted. The whole experience was exhilerating, nerve-racking, exciting, stressful, and joyful all at the same time.

It was, quite simply, the most amazing thing that I have ever witnessed.

We had the baby and 8:30 am and were back home by 4:00 pm. It was unbelievable.

We had, of course, some concerns about our baby, since she was delivered at 37 weeks, instead of the generally accepted full-term of 40 weeks. Other than her small size (Just over 4 and a half pounds), she was perfectly healthy. She was breathing well, her heartbeat was strong, her color was good, she was able to nurse off of both breasts, had a bowel movement and emptied her bladder.

She's perfect.