I was putting on my flip flops to go back outside for more walking when I realized that perhaps I should not leave the house after all.  I looked at the round tub next to me, longing for the warmth of the water to be poured down my back again.  Then another contraction came and I let my body go weak as my sister held me in her arms.  My husband was getting water to take with us on our walk but as he came into the room I told him I just wanted to get back in the tub.  I knew our baby was coming soon.  The water in the tub had cooled from the long hours since we had filled it and my midwives and hubby got to work drawing some of the tepid water out with pots so to allow room for the hot water rushing in from the hose, which snaked from the sitting room off our bedroom and attached to the kitchen’s faucet.  As I waited for the tub to be replenished, another contraction came and this time I fell into the arms of one of my midwives, a low moan reverberating through my body.
I climbed into the tub.  My husband still thought we had time for a walk; wondered why I wanted to stay close.  He climbed in with me and the contractions came more quickly.  She was coming and he still was unaware. But I knew.  Mothers always know.
We had been doing this for hours, in and out of the tub; walking, swaying, eating, sighing.  Waiting.  The early morning hours found me awake with contractions I couldn’t ignore and by 6 AM everyone on my birth team except for one of my sisters was at my house, ready to help me welcome my new little babe.  I had woken up a little after 3AM and then took a bath but my contractions went unassuaged.  We had called the midwife before my bath and when we realized an hour later that my labor was charging onward, we called her again, asking her to come.  Baby was definitely on her way.
The kitchen filled with the scent of coffee, low voices drifted through the open doors to my sitting room the first time I got in the birth tub.  Little eyes appeared from around the corner, eager faces questioning and confused.  My oldest daughter (almost 10) giggled as she came close and realized I had no clothes on in the tub except for a sports bra.  Her younger siblings- close behind- eyed me nervously and chattered about the midwives, cupcakes, when grandma was coming to get them, and will the new baby be here soon.  About an hour or so later, my mom arrived to whisk them away to Maryland for the day.  She kissed me on my forehead as I sat on the side of my bed through a contraction and then disappeared quickly, ushering the kids out the door.  I didn’t get to see or say goodbye to my youngest, my chubby little boy who was no longer the baby of the family.  Somehow I knew he’d seem different when he returned  home.
The next several hours saw me walking our neighborhood, stopping during a contraction, leaning on my husband.  They saw me laughing with my sister as she busily baked me cupcakes, and sighing into her shoulder as she held me through some of my contractions.  I started hating the time that had passed; asking why it was taking so long.  I should’ve known better; having expectations of any kind going into a labor is not really the best idea.  This is my sixth baby, I kept thinking, why isn’t she coming yet?  Then the senseless worry- would I have enough love for yet another baby?
One of the times I was leaning against the side of the tub, I was resting in between contractions and when I reached my hand out as another one came, my husband failed to take it.  I looked up and saw that he had fallen asleep and I remember smacking his hand through the contraction to wake him up. I was irritated and I knew I was in transition.  It wasn’t too much later that I was climbing back into the tub for the final time in order to birth my baby.  At one point, I wanted to stand up through the contraction as I just felt like I couldn’t breathe.  We did that through several and then I sat down, facing my husband and leaning into him.  At some point I started pushing and I remember reaching my hand into the water, feeling my baby’s small head, a layer of downy hair and I called out to my husband, “Joe, get her, she’s coming, get her!”  I was holding onto his shoulder with my other hand and couldn’t let go.  He didn’t realize we were already at this point.  Again, he wondered how I knew.
My one midwife was behind me outside of the tub and reached down to guide her out so that my husband could catch her and bring her up out of the water.  A bluish umbilical cord necklace roped loosely around her neck and as he eased it off, he brought her up out of the water and placed her in my arms; a tiny whisper of a baby.
She was so small and so beautiful, and I cried and kissed my husband, 
feeling the rush of emotion as I realized I was once again placed in the position of mother to another little soul on earth.  My journey as such began when she began growing in my womb and now she was finally here, born and placed into my arms- a little package of perfection.  Nothing was more important at that moment.  And nothing could ever top the electrifying realization which has renewed itself with each baby born to me: babies are tiny helpless little beings, fully deserving of life, of protection, of love.  No matter what my situation is or how many babies I have, that will never change.
We sat in the tub, waiting for the cord to stop pulsing and for the placenta to deliver.  I held onto my sweet little baby, in total awe of her and of the journey we just went through together.  It took seven hours from the time I woke up with contractions to the time she was born.  There were moments of doubt, frustration and pain.  But none of that compares to the sheer joy of having birthed my sixth child at home in a birthing tub with some of the most caring and wonderful people surrounding me, encouraging me to trust my motherly instincts and my body’s abilities, and supporting me in every single sense of the word throughout the entire process.