My First Home Birth
December 2013
This is in fact a birth story. However, I want to share it not so much to talk about the process of birth -- so don't stop reading now because of any ick factor -- but because this is what I consider to be the defining moment of my life so far. It is the one time in my life when I saw my desperate prayers answered clearly and quickly. It was a time when I made a monumental decision that truly fulfilled the person I had been imagining I wanted to be.
Before I was pregnant all I knew is that I wanted to have a natural birth without any drugs. My reasoning? This is what the female human body was built to go through. Plus, billions of women have done it before me, why couldn't I? So I found a midwife at a local hospital where I could have a water birth in a beautiful birthing suite. I assumed having a baby -- especially my first -- anywhere other than a hospital was crazy and something I knew my husband would never feel comfortable with and I really don't think I did either.
I had a fairly easy pregnancy which I credit to the physicality of my job, my history of athletics, and my attention to nutrition. The biggest difference in my diet from many pregnant woman I have talked with is that I ate plenty of grass-fed beef and butter, avocado, eggs, olives and other similar fats (for more information on proper nutrition before and during pregnancy I recommend reading The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby by Lana Asprey and Primal Moms Look Good Naked: A Mother's Guide to Achieving Beauty through Excellent Health by Peggy Emch). I am also a runner and I felt great running up to about the eighth month of my pregnancy. I even ran a half marathon at seven months pregnant and loved it!
Week 32 rolled around and my midwife could see that our baby, Braxton, was breech. However, she wasn't worried. Instead she charged me with homework. From Weeks 32 to 39 I went to the chiropractor twice a week to have the Webster Technique performed to try to turn Braxton. Opting out of a risky version, every night I lay upside down while watching TV with my husband, I played music by my pubic bone to get Baby to turn towards it, I put ice packs on the upper part of my stomach where his head was to turn him away from it... No luck. Every day Braxton reassured me he was still playing "heads up {seven up}" with little bobs against my rib cage.
At Week 38 my midwife tells me that I would be going from what I was envisioning as an all-natural water birth in a birthing suite to a cesarean section in an operating room. I would not only be required to have anaesthesia, but also to be cut open in this all-too-common surgical procedure. I was stunned. She insisted this was the only way. I prayed sincerely that if this was the birth story I was meant to have that I could find peace with this outcome. But over the next few days I felt the intense urge to educate myself on vaginal breech births and what my options were. I learned that the midwife told me this was the only option because the doctors would not deliver a breech baby vaginally. The politics of the hospital system wouldn't allow it because of the extra time and hands-off monitoring typically taken to deliver a breech baby. The education of doctors today does not cover many natural vaginal births, let alone breech vaginal births. Because I could not find any birthing centers in my immediate area my only option became home birth. I honestly couldn't believe I was seriously thinking about it.
The more I read the more I felt strongly compelled to bring up home birth to my husband, Brian. But, that was crazy. I was nervous to dare talk about it with him a mere one and a half weeks before I would be full term. Insane. But, I felt helplessly stuck with the thought of allowing a c-section to happen when I was healthy, my baby was healthy, I was made to go through this natural process. Even more importantly I was in the mental space to achieve such a feat. What I discovered was that I either had to find a doctor who was willing to deliver breech -- doubtful, especially at the last minute and highly likely he would insist on intervening anyway -- or change our plan of delivering in a hospital and find a home birth midwife who was available... at a moment's notice! At 38 1/2 weeks, my husband and I watched The Business of Being Born, he listened to my views, but wholeheartedly disagreed.
But with nothing to lose, I pressed on, reaching out to friends who advocate the natural birth process and contacted a few home birth midwives through them. They were all very nice and told me the same things I had read, but of course how could I expect any of them to volunteer to deliver my breech baby at the last minute without even knowing me!
Miraculously, at my last chiropractor appointment at Week 39, my doctor recommended talking to a home birth midwife she had met just a few days prior. We chatted on the phone about my situation and about her experience. The next day my husband and I met with her in person. I felt confident after meeting her. But, that night I seemed to float above my body and as I watched my husband say the dreaded words, "we should just go do the c-section in the hospital." I felt completely demoralized. Still, I knew I needed my husband to be a part of our decision so that he would be completely comfortable. I knew I would default to what he felt was right. That night I prayed anyway for my hopeless situation.
The next day Brian called me from work and said, "you need to call the midwife and get all the plans situated for a home birth." What?! I couldn't believe my ears. I was ecstatic, relieved and sprang into action. The next day I went into labor.
For me, I never had to convince myself to go without drugs because I never wanted an epidural in the first place. I read and envisioned the different ways the birth could go. But not once did I see my body failing me in any of these circumstances. This mental game, along with my faith, is what I feel were key components of such a successful delivery. My co-workers said my birth story was "legendary." I disagree. Unfortunately, it has been engrained in us that we need medical interventions for processes that our capable bodies were created for with great genius.
I look back without a single regret. This is not because my labor was short and easy or because home birth is the correct and only way to go. It is not because I was knowledgeable about the process of birth beforehand (I knew absolutely nothing, besides a few horror-ish stories). I grew up with the "truth" that c-sections were "normal" and hospital birth was superior -- the only way to go. I had to re-educate myself at crunch time.
Don't let society tell you it can't be done or it's too late. Question what you already believe to be true. Is it true to you only because you have heard it from so many people for so long? Whatever it is you are struggling with physically or mentally, it is never too late to change your approach to it.
Resources I Found Helpful | Navigating Natural Birth Options
The Business of Being Born
Another Home Birth Baby Boy
February 2017
A LONG PREGNANCY
We welcomed Royce Atlas into the world at 1:35am on Valentine's Day. He was born at home with two incredible midwives we feel blessed to have found shortly after moving to Charlotte last year.
This time around, doing a home birth was in our plans from the very beginning. In the 39th week of carrying our first son, Braxton, we decided to have him at home so we could do an intervention-free breech birth. With this decision came a lot of very last minute preparation and no time to wait around and anticipate his arrival.
Royce, on the other hand, felt like he hung around in the womb forever! We moved from Cleveland to Charlotte, started attending Elevation Church (whose Podcast we had been following for the past few years), looked for a midwife, did a ton of exploring in our new city, flew back to Ohio to shoot a wedding, and closed on a house three days before Royce's birth. While the couple weeks before his birth didn't feel as dramatic as Braxton's birth story, again everything fell into place over this long nine months through our faith and God's timing.
This time around, doing a home birth was in our plans from the very beginning. In the 39th week of carrying our first son, Braxton, we decided to have him at home so we could do an intervention-free breech birth. With this decision came a lot of very last minute preparation and no time to wait around and anticipate his arrival.
Royce, on the other hand, felt like he hung around in the womb forever! We moved from Cleveland to Charlotte, started attending Elevation Church (whose Podcast we had been following for the past few years), looked for a midwife, did a ton of exploring in our new city, flew back to Ohio to shoot a wedding, and closed on a house three days before Royce's birth. While the couple weeks before his birth didn't feel as dramatic as Braxton's birth story, again everything fell into place over this long nine months through our faith and God's timing.
LABOR + DELIVERY
In the last month or so of carrying Royce I started to experience some sciatic pain and "lightening" as Baby moved head-down (something I never experienced with my first breech pregnancy). When contractions started coming on Sunday, February 12th, this pain was only heightened and continued to be where the source of my most painful contractions seemed to emerge. On Monday afternoon my water broke in spurts. I attempted to entertain three-year-old-attention-hungry Braxton while working through the contractions. When I found myself stuck on hands and knees desperately trying to put together Braxton's IKEA train track for him, I called my husband home from work and my midwives, Julie and Malia, to come set up camp.
With my birth team in place, I kept to myself with my inspirational music playlist. Brian put Braxton to bed, made sure I was settled and went in the other room to chat with our midwives. It was comforting to hear quiet talking and laughter in the next room as I engaged my tunnel vision to focus my labor. I'm an introvert and I'm an athlete. I found out during my first home birth that the combination of these two traits results in me completely blocking out everyone else and moving towards my "finish line." I joke that I have the most boring home births ever after I found out some woman have movies playing, have lights and music and back rubbing going on...
With my birth team in place, I kept to myself with my inspirational music playlist. Brian put Braxton to bed, made sure I was settled and went in the other room to chat with our midwives. It was comforting to hear quiet talking and laughter in the next room as I engaged my tunnel vision to focus my labor. I'm an introvert and I'm an athlete. I found out during my first home birth that the combination of these two traits results in me completely blocking out everyone else and moving towards my "finish line." I joke that I have the most boring home births ever after I found out some woman have movies playing, have lights and music and back rubbing going on...
I could handle what felt like traditional contractions that had been coming and going on Monday, February 13th. It was those sciatic/hip contractions that were immobilizing. I did my best to find "comfortable" positions and stayed in them for long periods. It was when my midwife laid down to rest her eyes for a bit that things turned for the better. After only two minutes she shot straight up in bed and said definitively, "I'm going to go get you a TENS unit." After finding a 24-hour Walgreens she went out to purchase this marvelous little (TENS: Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) device that sends an electric current to stimulate deep, deep down into my nerve tissue. Shortly after putting it on I felt major relief and I was ready to push. It was as if the pain was causing such tension in my body that it was unable to do its job. After 15 minutes of working through the pushing, past the "ring of fire" (YIIIIKES, ladies, that moment—relatively short as it is—hurts more than pushing a breech bottom out first) and into the relieving freedom of reaching down to hold my baby.
And I mean RELIEF. It is like finishing a marathon–when you cross the finish line your legs are aching but your mind is soaring, freed from that tunnel of intense focus.
And I mean RELIEF. It is like finishing a marathon–when you cross the finish line your legs are aching but your mind is soaring, freed from that tunnel of intense focus.
THE CHECKUP
For the three years since Braxton's birth, I 've had this photo in my mind of my newborn in a hanging scale sling getting weighed for the first time. This was how Braxton was weighed, yet I missed my the photo opportunity in all the adrenaline and excitement. My second midwife was kind enough to take photos with my camera during delivery and handed it over to me shortly after delivery. So this time around Julie wouldn't let me miss my weigh-in shot. She weighed Royce at 7 pounds 6 ounces. She measured him at 20 inches long. His Apgar Score was 10/10.
ROYCE'S FIRST VISITOR
Shortly after the checkup as Julie and Malia were packing things up Braxton woke in the early hours of the morning and pranced into our bedroom. How incredible it was to introduce him to his little brother who was only a few hours old! I just cannot imagine doing labor and delivery any other way. I am so grateful to the women who devote so much love and education to practicing midwifery in this day and age. Thank you for helping bring these littles lives into the world!