After waiting two long weeks passed my due date, I finally went into labor (with the help of Castor oil) on Saturday June 20th.  It was a beautiful warm day, and through the nursery window we could hear the neighbor pushing his lawnmower and the neighborhood kids riding their bikes.  And they could hear what was going on inside our house.  Boy howdy could they hear!  The labor was quick, intense, and very loud.  Sometime in the middle of the afternoon my husband took the dog out for a walk and said he could still hear me the next block over.  Which is not to say that it hurt too much - having a birth tub made the pain totally manageable - but sometimes on a roller coaster you feel the need to scream.  
Harvey was born just around dinnertime, weighing in at 8lbs 6oz.  Holding him in my arms as soon as he was born was the big payoff.  We had made the decision to give birth at home because of the outcomes we did NOT want: unnecessary medications, the escalation of interventions, and separation of mom and baby after birth.  But we ended up getting a lot more than we ever thought of wanting.  Making a baby is the start of making a little community, so it's fitting that our baby was born at home in the context of the rest of our lives: neighbors, pets and all.  And our dog Rascal, our first baby, loved Harvey from the very start.