My Home-Birth, Birth Story

Before I go into my birth story, I want to take you back to the beginning and what started me on the road of becoming a birth advocate and my passion for women's birth rights.
In 2005 my husband and I welcomed our first child into the world, a beautiful 7 pound 11 ounce bouncing baby boy. My due date was January 30th, my doctor pressured me into consenting to a non emergency induction ( for what I assume to be for his convenience)  I was scheduled for my induction for 7 a.m on January 31st however, My son wanted no such induction and I went into labor on January 30th (my due date) I arrived at the hospital at around 7 p.m at 2 cm dilated and was told that they would observe me for an hour and if I did not progress that they would be sending me home. The doctor returned in an hour and I had went from 2 cm dilated to 5 cm dilated and was immediately admitted into the hospital in active labor. It took around 45 minutes to get from triage and into my room. After they finished my intake I was checked and had progressed from a 5 to a 9 and immediately I was led to doubt my body and my baby and coerced into getting an epidural and being a first time Mother, I agree'd. I was never told the risks of getting a epidural nor did I know that getting the epidural carried the risk of living with back problems for the rest of my life and that is exactly what happened. Although my son was born healthy and happy at 6:53 a.m January 31st  2005 (Exactly 7 minutes before my scheduled induction) I felt that my birth had been stripped away from me, I felt like I had no voice for MY labor!!

In 2007 my husband and I got pregnant again and sadly lost our baby at 10 weeks gestation. In 2011 we welcome our Rainbow baby a bouncing baby girl, 9 days before her due date, weighing 8 pounds 1 oz due to an emergency induction because my blood pressure had spiked and they wanted her out. Again, I was pressured into medical interventions I did NOT want!! I was again led to doubt my body and my baby and was coerced into another epidural that this time took 2 hours to place, never fully took and only number half of my body and 45 minutes later my daughter was born (I went 17 hours of labor without it) I felt like each labor I was slowly losing a piece of me, a big piece, MY LABOR, MY CHOICES, MY VOICE!!!


Now here is my Healing!!

                                       Two days before Christmas 2013 we got a great surprise!! We were expecting our 3rd bundle of joy!! At 13 weeks I went to the hospital for bleeding (we decided to wait to tell family and friends till we were farther along) I was so scared that we may be losing our baby. While waiting for my ultrasound at the hospital I was talking to the doctor and had told him how my husband and I wanted to try a home-birth with a midwife this time. The doctor immediately showed his disgust for home-birth and made me feel like it was a horrible choice. After the ultrasound was done they found that our baby was very healthy and doing great but that they had "found" that I had placenta previa and I was told that there was no chance of it correcting and that I would have no choice other then having a c-section. I cried because I thought I would never get MY birth, the birth I craved, the birth I needed for healing my broken soul.  Fast forward a few months go by and my 20 week ultrasound was moved to 27 weeks (yes exactly what I said, a woman who "supposedly" had severe placenta previa not getting a ultrasound by my doctor till 27 weeks) that raised a huge red flag. While at my ultrasound I ended up with the most amazing ultrasound tech who totally understood my desire to have a home-birth. She immediately looked and said "YOUR PLACENTA IN NOWHERE NEAR YOUR CERVIX) I thought okay, it moved?!?! The doctor came in and confirmed that indeed everything was prefect and I could have a home-birth with a midwife if I want to. I later found while pulling my medical charts that placenta previa was NEVER noted in my chart by the ER doctor, I was livid!!


                                At 32 weeks I transferred to the most amazing midwife!!  For the first time in all of my pregnancies I felt whole and that I was actually going to get the birth that my whole mind, body and soul craved so deeply. My due date was August 23rd, it came and passed and I was getting to a point I though I would never go into labor, but my amazing midwife reassured me  that she would come when she was ready and she did!! On the evening of September 2nd I started getting period type cramps, I wrote it off as more false contractions, because I had them for the last few weeks and I didn't want to get my hopes up. My husband and I decided to go for a walk with the kids before bed. Around 11 pm I crawled into bed and fell into a deep sleep. Around 4 a.m I woke up to a contraction but was able to fall right back to sleep.At 6 a.m the contractions were getting closer but weren't unbearable, so I woke my husband up and told him "today is the day" and that he wouldn't be able to go to work. We got up and went about our morning, we got our Son ready for school and about 8;30 I had my husband run me a nice warm bath in our Jacuzzi tub. At 8:40 my husband left to take our son to school because it was about a 20 minute drive. Around 9:10 I started feeling sick and threw up, so I sent my husband a text telling him to hurry because the contractions were starting to get really painful and I was getting sick and I needed him home for his support. At 9:15 I got out of the tub and felt like I had to poop so I went poop and went and laid in bed and called my midwife at 9:20 I told her that it was the real deal and that my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and she said she was on her way and was calling her back up midwife who was closer just in-case. At 9:23 my husband got home and laid next to me in bed and rubbed my back through the contraction. Again I felt like I needed to use the bathroom, so I got up and headed there and before I made it to the door, I felt the ring of fire. I dropped to my knee's on all fours and immediately felt the urge to push. My husband didn't know what to do, he kept saying "Don't push" and I said "I'm pushing just catch her"  a few pushes later and my daughter was crowning, as her head passed, my water finally broke. My beautiful Daughter was born at 9:25 into my husbands arms and was absolutely perfect. I turned over and sat and my husband passed her into my arms, she had passed some meconium in the womb but was doing great. My husband called our midwife and was worried because she coughed some (which is normal) but he was so shaken up that he forgot to say the baby was born, so our midwife replied "who's coughing, was the baby born?" He told her she had been born and our midwife reassured him that everything was fine. While we were waiting for our midwife I put our Daughter to the breast and she immediately started nursing. I was over the moon in-love, we did it, we finally got the birth that my mind, body and soul so desperately needed. After a few minutes I delivered the placenta and a few minutes later both midwives showed up. They helped us move to the bed, waited till the placenta stopped pulsing so that our Daughter received all of her important corn blood, then we took a herbal bath together it was so relaxing and calming for both baby and myself. After the bath we got back into bed where our daughter was weighed right next to me, 7 pounds 4 ounces and perfectly healthy. After a few hours my midwife left and my husband got to just lay in bed and bond with us. Our midwife came the next day for a check up for baby and I and then several times after.

                                                 I finally got my labor, my voice, I was healed by listening to my soul, body and mind!! I made a vow that day to help be the voice that so many women need. I will advocate for women the rest of my life because I have been the woman with no voice, I was the woman who was stripped of my own labor. Birth is beautiful, empowering and natural!! We are all tigers, hear us ROAR!! We deserve to have our birth the way we want. I know their are some cases where sometimes that may not be an option and that doesn't make you any less of a warrior either!!



                                                Thank you all for reading and I hope that this will help other women find their voice as well!! Please feel free to share <3 and please forgive any typos and so on, I put this together in a short time as a very special tribute for my Daughter 1st Birthday!! Happy Birthday Baby girl <3 You weren't the only one born that day, you helped birth me into a different person!! I am a Mother of 3 amazing children, I am a warrior, HEAR ME ROAR!!