Thought I'd share our story ... Miranda Penelope came into the world on August 21. My wife was only 37 1/2 weeks along, and everyone kept telling us first babies are almost always late. So when she had her first contraction on the afternoon on the 20th, we both thought it must have been just a Braxton-Hicks contraction, and we went about our business. She had another strong contraction at dinner that night, and by 2:30 in the morning, she was up walking the floors.

The contractions got about 5 minutes apart around 6:00 that morning, and we called our midwife. She came over to the house and did a quick exam ... my wife was at 3 cm and 100% effaced. Midwife said she was going home and that we should call again when the contractions got about 3 minutes apart. In the meantime, I called to get the birthing tub we'd rented set up in our rec room. My wife planned to have a natural home birth. No meds, no painkillers.

Well, a few hours pass and I'm downstairs filling up the birthing tub after it's delivered. Midwife is on the way because the contractions are now 3 minutes apart. About halfway through filling up the tub, I run out of hot water, so I shut off the tap and went up to check on my wife while I waited for the water heater to fill back up. As I come up the stairs, I see her heading out to our hot tub in the back yard. She spent a lot of her pregnancy out there -- it was her safe place where she could go and get some relief on her tougher days. The water always made her feel better, which is why she wanted to give birth in a birthing tub.

When I caught up with her, she was getting in the hot tub and told me she'd just had her first urge to push. I got in the tub with her and called the midwife, and she said she'd step on it but told us we'd have to be prepared for the possibility that the baby might arrive before she got there. Yikes! Labor was progressing a LOT faster than any of us expected. Fortunately, our midwife had a student in the area and called her to have her come over to the house to help us out. At this point, my wife is pushing hard. The labor tub downstairs was all but forgotten. We were having this baby in our hot tub, in our back yard, under the hot midday sun!

Midwife finally made it at around noon and took 10 or 15 minutes getting everything set up. Just before 12:30, my wife gave a big push and half the baby's head came out, covered in a whitish membrane. The midwife had asked me several times on the phone if I'd seen my wife's water break, and I kept telling her no. This was why -- the baby was coming out with its water bag intact. That made it only the second "in the caul" birth our midwife said she'd ever seen.

One more push, and baby came out at 12:31. I caught her under the water and handed her to the midwife, who gave her to my wife. I got to announce her sex and cut the cord.

When my wife was resting in the bedroom with baby, she asked me about the name. We'd gone over dozens of names, but I knew she was partial to Miranda if it was a girl. It wasn't my first choice for a girl name, but I liked it well enough. We both liked Penelope for the middle name. So it was set. Miranda Penelope -- or, as I like to call her, Mandy-Penny -- joined our little family.

My wife did suffer a third-degree laceration and had to go for stitches after the birth, but other than that, she got the natural birth she wanted. We just had to improvise a little bit, since little Mandy-Penny came so fast, on her own schedule!

Congratulations! Miranda is a great name!

Long time no see. Congratulations!

Thanks. Soleil, you remember me? I tried logging in under my old account, but it must have expired from lack of use.

Yup. Not many men around here that are interested in names. That and I kept thinking of Nair every time I saw your username.

Yeah, I know I'm unusual in taking such an interest in names. What can I say -- I work with words for a living!

Lucky for me, my wife is a good sport. She probably got tired of all the test balloons I floated regarding baby names. But I think it was worth it in the end. We got a lovely baby with a lovely name.

Congratulations! Beautiful name.

Congratulations.