Our Home Birth Story

Brad and I are so excited to share with you the story of our home birth. It was an incredible experience for us both and we feel so blessed to have had a natural, uncomplicated birth in our own bedroom in our house. We put so much research, consideration, and prayer into these decisions (hospital or home birth, chiropractor, midwife, etc.) and did not walk into it flippantly. We recognized there are always risks to birth, but ultimately we felt led to trust Donna Miller and her student midwife Danielle Mason at Gentle Beginnings Birth Center to walk through this journey with us. My prenatal care was amazing, and the girls were both very involved throughout each appointment- whether it was helping to measure baby, or pressing the on/off button on the doppler in order to hear Brock's heartbeat. Time was spent in each appointment getting to know me, the entire family, and what we ultimately desired for our birth. When we were told that Brock's kidneys were enlarged and we would need to see a specialist, Danielle arranged to meet us at the appointment. The care was more than we could have ever expected. For anyone in the area, I would highly recommend them based on our experience. 

We had anxiously been preparing for our sweet Brock for what seemed like an eternity! I woke up around 1:30 AM on Tuesday, the 26th with uncomfortable contractions that were about 6-7 minutes apart. Brad and I had stayed up until close to midnight so I was already feeling exhausted, but the contractions were painful enough that I could not go back to sleep. We got up around 3:30, touched base with our midwife, ate a snack, and began getting everything ready around the house. My contractions got closer to 5 minutes apart close to 8 am, so our midwife came by to check on us and get an idea of where we were in the laboring process. The girls woke up shortly after she arrived and my contractions immediately slowed down. This was definitely discouraging and I remember apologizing to her over and over when I realized it would be a very long time before we had a baby. Our midwife, Danielle, decided to grab some breakfast while we got the girls situated with Brad's mom and told us to let her know any changes while she was gone. It wasn't long after Brad's mom came to the house that Brad and I decided to attempt a walk with Brad in the 40 degree weather outside. My contractions started coming closer together and I was soon unable to walk or talk through them. We texted Danielle and she said she would head back to the house. When she got here (a little after 10), my contractions were much stronger, but didn't stay close together for very long. Within the hour, they had spread back to 5-6 minutes apart, and I begged to be checked. I was so tired and worried that I had several more hours of labor ahead of me. I also desperately wanted to get into the birth tub, as I remembered how wonderful the water felt when I was laboring with Brielle. I was between a 6-7, and Danielle told us we could begin filling up the tub with water while she called the other midwife Donna, and Kaitlyn (another student midwife) and told them to head our direction. I got into the tub as soon as I got the green light from Danielle (baby's heart rate was checked, temperature of the water had to be no more than 98 degrees, etc.) I remember being so excited to hear the other midwives walk through the door because I knew that meant we were definitely getting closer to having a baby in our arms.  Having an unmedicated birth is such a mental, emotional, and physical battle within your own body and the presence of those three woman at our birth who believed in me and who believed in the body’s ability to- in most cases- birth a baby without intervention was so empowering. Brad was my rock throughout labor, and I would not have been able to do it without him. Whether holding me up, swaying with me, reminding me to breathe, or retrieving drinks, wet washcloths, etc., he was absolutely wonderful! Our experience of working through each contraction together while listening to songs like "10,000 Reasons" and "Healer" and having our midwives pray over us while we labored is something that I would not trade for the world. My water broke about 10 minutes after 1 PM, contractions became super intense, and Brock was born about 20 minutes later. I pushed for one contraction and pulled my own baby out of the water onto my chest. 

I did it!