Interested in having a natural birth? Read birth stories! Every month, I will post a new birth story. Sharing birth stories is an important way to build confidence in our ability to give birth and appreciate the diverse experiences of women having babies. There is much to be learned from the wisdom of others who have gone through what we are preparing for.
When we hear birth stories, we often pay attention to the details of the labor, particularly how long it was, and its level of difficulty. But what I remind people, is that you have very little control over what type of labor you get.... What you do have control over is your response to it. So, when you read birth stories, pay special attention to the woman’s feelings, sensations, and reactions to her birth experiences, as well as the reactions of others present at her birth. Studies have shown that the level of satisfaction a woman has with her birth, depends less on the type of labor (hard, easy, long, short) she experiences, but whether she was listened to, felt understood & cared for in a respectful and loving way.
Christopher’s birth story
I am always thrilled when a woman having her first baby decides to home birth. Women who makes this choice often demonstrate a strong belief that their bodies are well equipped to birth naturally despite having never given birth before & having grown up in a culture that promotes fear of the birthing process. Christopher’s birth story is a wonderful example of how preparation, a positive attitude & a supportive birth team all contributed to a very happy ending.
Matthew’s Birth Story
Labors come in all shapes & sizes: easy, long, short, fast, long, difficult... The list goes on & on. In the end, you can’t pick what type of labor you would like. You just have to go along for the ride. Rest assured, if you are well prepared & have a supportive birth team, even the most challenging labors can still lead to fabulously rewarding & blissful birthings! Matthews birth story is a perfect example of how this is possible.
On Sunday, July 27th, I woke during the night with lower back pain, cramping, nausea and sporadic contractions and thought it was the official start of labor and Matthew would be coming the next day. This ended up continuing every night for a week and was intense enough for me to have to use my Hypnobirthing CD to get comfortable and calm enough to go back to sleep. On Friday I started having bloody show in the morning but no contractions. I thought for sure this was it as that had signaled the start of labor with my other two. I had plans to take my kids to visit friends that morning, so after calling Rick, my mom and my midwife, Jen, to give them a “heads up” we left on our outing. I laid down for a nap that afternoon but couldn’t sleep and when I got up around 4 pm the contractions started up regularly again. I was so sure (once again) that Matthew would be coming that night that I had Rick set up the bed in the living room and had my Dad blow up the pool. I had also asked Rick to leave work early to get groceries because I couldn’t relax into giving birth with empty cupboards! Matthew continued fooling us, however, as contractions became more sporadic and another night and day passed.
On Sunday, August 3rd, the contractions started up again around noon and I told Rick I didn’t even want to tell him about them because I figured he wouldn’t believe me due to the week I had had! Contractions did become more intense and longer as the day went on though so I again called Jen to give her another “heads up” and tell her that I really felt like Matthew would be coming that night. Rick and I stayed downstairs that evening instead of heading up to bed and I labored hard throughout the night, with contractions coming every two to four minutes and lasting from thirty seconds to two minutes. I alternated between lying on my left side in the bed we had set up in the living room, walking throughout the house, and lying in the pool which we had set up in our dining room. By 5am I was exhausted and told Rick I was going to try to get some rest with the Hypnobirthing CD. He lay down next to me in the bed and we both fell asleep for about an hour when our kids woke us up for the day. At that time my contractions had slowed to approximately every half hour and I was feeling incredibly frustrated.
That morning (Monday, August 4th) I had a scheduled 37 week appt. with Jen at
our house and started crying just before she arrived at 11 am because I was so tired
and didn’t think I could take this stop and start labor much longer. My contractions
had once again slowed to about every twenty minutes. Jen measured me first and found
me to be measuring 49 weeks! I had been measuring about 2 weeks ahead since mid-
fantastic news that I was 7 cm dilated, almost 8!!!! I guess the week’s worth of contractions had been doing something after all. I was ecstatic! It was also just the kind of day I had imagined myself giving birth on – not too hot or cold with a nice breezconvinced e blowing through the house. We were ready!
Jen had another home visit to make about a half hour away but said she was feeling
that she should just stay with me. Since I was still only contracting every twenty
minutes or so I encouraged her to go and told her I was going to take a nap to try
and get some energy for the impending delivery since I had only slept about an hour
the night before. She left, but only after telling me to call her at anytime if
I felt she should come back. Almost as soon as she had pulled out of our driveway
my contractions started picking up again. So much for a nap! I wanted to be in
the water, so Rick set the pool up again and I got right in. I was so glad we had
gotten the pool as the water felt great. It did seem funny to be laboring in an
inflatable kid’s fish pool though! The contractions seemed to be picking up even
more and Rick convinced me that we should call Jen back. One of his biggest fears
was that I would have the baby without her there and he really didn’t want to be
in charge of the delivery! She was back by 1pm and sat down outside of the pool
next to me and poured cups full of warm water over my belly when I contracted while
Rick supported my head and neck from behind. It was probably the most comfortable
I’ve ever been in labor! We were still doing this at 3pm when Jill, Jen’s assistant
who is an RN and midwife-
After awhile I got tired of being in the pool and wanted to lie down on the bed. I lay on my left side, which seemed to make the contractions stronger than ever, but I was so tired that I didn’t want to move. Whenever a contraction would come on I would yell, “Heat” and someone would press my hot rice bag into my lower back, something Rick had been doing for me for days, and I joked that it was my new best friend! Jen checked me again and found that I was about 9 ½ cm dilated. She contemplated breaking my water, but said Matthew was just not down far enough for her to feel she could safely do this without the risk of his arm or something else coming through first, in which case we’d have an emergency. She suggested I try walking up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, to try to get the baby to engage. I did this twice, stopping each time at the top and bottom to lean against Rick while I had a contraction. His support throughout the entire labor was fantastic. Jen also suggested I squat during contractions, but I had a hard time doing that. I ended up squatting against the bed for a bit, but wasn’t too successful with it. Jill thought the birth stool might help, so brought that in from her car and I labored on that for awhile. Rick sat on the bed behind me to support my upper back, head and neck and during each contraction I’d lean forward (curled around the baby like I was hugging it is what Jill told me to do) and grab Jill’s hands while Jen applied pressure inside. My natural instinct was to lean back into Rick, so leaning forward like they wanted me to do was hard. We were still trying to get the baby down though and Jen said if it didn’t happen soon we would have to go in (to the hospital) which was the last thing I wanted.
Finally, around 6:30 pm, Jen felt Matthew was low enough for her to safely break the water. (My water has never broken on it’s own in all of my pregnancies.) She did so while I was still on the birthing stool and out it poured – “ungodly amounts” as Rick put it! He actually thought something was wrong when he kept hearing it come out without stopping, but when he heard Jen and Jill laughing about it he figured everything was okay. It seemed to me like it would never stop. They estimated I had about 10 cups of amniotic fluid as opposed to the normal 4 (so Jen had been right all along in her guess as to why my belly was so big).
As soon as the water was out I started feeling Matthew move down. It felt really
strange to me and I got pretty scared and nervous for the first time. I had gotten
partial epidurals with the other two so had never felt anything like this. Rick,
Jen and Jill all did a great job of calming me down. At first I remained on the
birth stool and when that started to feel too uncomfortable I switched to all fours
on the floor. That didn’t feel good to me either and I ended up on my left side
again, in the bed, with Jill lying next to me, Rick behind me on my right side and
Jen at my bottom. The urges to push were so strong (something else I hadn’t felt
with the other two either) and I became very vocal, screaming through each one –
not quite the gentle welcome to the world I wanted to give my baby but I couldn’t
help it. I was exhausted, so hot, and feeling out-
Rick cut the cord and I snuggled Matthew on my chest for a bit and then Jen and Jill wanted to give him some oxygen (he had inhaled a lot of fluid and his breathing was a bit raspy) so put him skin to skin on Rick’s chest in our rocking chair and did it there. One of the huge benefits of being in our own home was that he wasn’t whisked off to the NICU right away for oxygen and observation but was able to stay in our care the entire time, even to receive oxygen. I started shivering and asked for a blanket and since we didn’t have any more clean towels or blankets out and available Jill ended up covering me with a picnic tablecloth that she found in our laundry room! I’m sure I was quite a sight! The placenta had not yet come out so Jen gave me a shot of Pitocin but then ended up having to assist it out when it still seemed to be adherent about an hour later. That was not fun and I was a big baby about it. Rick was watching all of this from the couch where they had moved him and Matthew and said it was a good thing Jen was small based on what he saw her doing with me to get the placenta out! After everyone got cleaned up they returned Matthew to my chest and we all had some champagne and snacks. Rick and I were on a complete adrenalin high, which lasted for days, and couldn’t have been happier. The birth was long and exhausting, and there were definitely times when I didn’t think I could do it, but I did. Hooray for homebirth!
My “due date” was November 20th...Hello! and Goodbye! My hope was to have the baby before Thanksgiving so I could eat a BIG dinner but the baby had other plans. On Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 27th) we had two dinners, one at Joe’s parents and then one at my moms. I felt great all the way up until we got home from my moms at nine o'clock. Even then I felt fine but I was very moody. Joe said I saved up my nine months of being moody into those two hours! We went to bed at eleven o'clock and I started having contractions. Of course Joe fell asleep three seconds after his head hit the pillow so I decided to just let him sleep. I ignored the contractions for an hour but couldn't fall asleep. I didn't want to get my hopes up that this was the real thing since it was the first time I had ever felt contractions. They continued to be steady enough that I couldn’t fall asleep so at midnight I got out of bed and walked around the house. By one o'clock the contractions were gone…good thing I didn’t get Joe out of bed! So I went to sleep and woke up at 4 am with more intense contractions. And this time I just knew it was the real thing!
I let my husband sleep for a while and just walked around down stairs, luckily our
house is designed so I can go around in a circle instead of pacing back and forth.
I woke Joe up at 6 am and he joked that I was lucky I was in labor because he couldn’t
have taken another hour of me being so moody. I went downstairs while Joe took a
shower and I called Jen at 6:30 am to give her a heads up that today was the day!
Unfortunately, I had to interrupt her Black Friday shopping, but of course she didn’t
mind. She just told me to call again when I wanted her to come over, and that I would
just know when the right time was. The contractions were every 3-
My husband and sister got the pool ready and I just remember breathing through the contractions. I knew my baby was coming today and I was just listening to my body; visualizing the baby moving down. I got in the birthing pool at 9 am. The contractions were three minutes apart throughout the whole labor; they just kept lasting longer and getting stronger. I really don’t remember much until Christopher was born. I was so focused on breathing through the pain and relaxing my face. I remember Jen telling me at one of our appointments that if my face was relaxed that my body would relax and I could open up to birth my baby. That is what I did.
I do remember getting out of the pool once to go to the bathroom and I can say for sure that the water definitely helped the pain. At some point I asked my husband to put music on and I didn’t even care what it was. That was another focus for me. The second the music stopped playing, I asked him to start the cd over. No one else had even realized that it had stopped. Jen got there at 10:30 am (sorry I interrupted your Black Friday shopping). It took her a little longer than usual because my angel baby decided to be born in one of the first winter storms of the year.
Throughout my labor I remember that everyone was there for me but I really felt that I didn’t need them to do anything except just be there. I remember Jen telling me I was doing awesome and my husband being at my side. But mostly I was just so focused on birthing my baby that I didn’t know what was going on around me. I was leaning over the side of the pool on my hands and knees and stayed that way until I felt like I had to push. It was about 12:30 pm when I got that very uncomfortable urge and couldn’t stay leaning over anymore. I tried sitting in the pool but I soon realized it wasn’t going to work. I remember going back to leaning over the side of the pool and looking at Joe. I told him that I couldn’t do it anymore; that I just wanted the baby out. Looking back I laugh because Jen told me and Joe at one of our appointments that this is when she knows it’s almost time for the baby to come. Of course I didn’t think about it at the time.
Speaking of time, I mention the time just to tell my birth story but during my labor I had no clue what time it was. I wasn’t on a timer like in a hospital, I was birthing my baby and my baby was going to come when it was his time. I wasn’t hooked up to a machine to tell me when a contraction was coming, I was just focusing on making each contraction count and using each contraction to open to birth my baby.
Right after I declared that I was quitting labor, Jen suggested that I try to squat (not told me that I had to but wondered if I wanted to try it to see if it would help the baby come down). And what a great suggestion it was! After three pushes, I welcomed my baby into the world and all pain was instantly forgotten the second I held my beautiful baby. Jen handed the baby to me and my mom announced “It’s a boy!” Christopher Joseph was born at 1:57 pm on Nov. 28th (of course he had to stay in my belly long enough to have Thanksgiving dinner). He cried once and then just looked at me; as if to say “We did it, Mom!” Joe came over behind me to look at his son and I remember him telling me I was amazing! Christopher was so calm and it was like he was just enjoying the moment as we were. My husband’s family was anxiously waiting in the bedroom across the hall and peeked in to welcome their 10th grandchild into the family. After the cord stopped pulsating, my younger sister cut the cord and Joe got to hold his son for the first time. I got out of the pool and delivered the placenta on the bed. Then I looked around the room at everyone that shared in the birth of Christopher and just thought about how perfect my birth had been.
Everything was so relaxed; no bright lights; no one timing each contraction; no one telling me when to push, when not to push, or how long to push for; telling me where I could or couldn’t go. I was making the decisions for what was best for me to naturally birth my baby. There were only people we loved touching our baby and most important our whole family was there to welcome our baby into the world.
Christopher Joseph Hubler weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 21 in. long. He is a wonderful calm and happy baby and I truly believe it’s because he was born into a wonderful calm and happy environment! I couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful way for my son to enter the world!
