Can I just start this post by saying that birth is wild?! I mean, I’ve always known that. But actually going through it is truly something else. Let’s take it back to the moment I found out I was pregnant.

Why home birth?

Over the last several years as I’ve leaned into my natural living/crunchy side, I knew that I wanted to do a home birth when the time came. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I felt pretty strongly about pursuing a home birth. People ask why all the time, and it’s really hard to sum it up quickly, but I’ll say this: I firmly believe that giving birth is a normal, physiological thing that women were made for. I think in our culture we treat it too much like a medical emergency when really God created our bodies do be able to do it. Given this, I think birth outcomes are better when there’s fewer unnecessary interventions. I knew that for me personally, the best way to accomplish this was at home with the support the right birth team.

I reached out to my midwife pretty immediately since I know their schedule fills up pretty quickly. They had availability for my birth month and so we set up a consultation. The consultation was so affirming of everything I had envisioned for birth, and Wade was on board, so we were super excited to pursue a home birth!

I hadn’t personally known many people who have had a home birth, especially not any who did it for their first birth, but I was still super confident about our decision. But again, based on the kind of birth I wanted, doing it at home just made the most sense to me. Even though I knew what I wanted, I was still a little nervous about what our families might say, but they were so supportive from the beginning which really brought me comfort. Even if they were secretly thinking I was crazy, they never showed it.

My pregnancy was actually way smoother than I anticipated. I had some morning sickness during first trimester, but I truly had the best pregnancy and had no issues or complications. I feel super blessed by my pregnancy because I know that’s not everyone’s story. Of course I got a little uncomfortable toward the end of third trimester, but I really did feel great up until the day I went into labor.

I will say that put in a lot of work throughout pregnancy to set myself up as well as possible for a smooth labor. Birth is so unpredictable and you really can’t control the outcome, but I knew there were intentional things I wanted to do to give myself the smoothest birth possible.

Wednesday, May 22

Okay now fast forward to my “due date”, May 22nd. I always knew that due dates were just estimates and not to put too much stock in them. Combined with the fact that it’s common for most first time moms to go past their due date, I was fully expecting to go to at least 41 weeks. So I kind of just had that in mind my entire pregnancy.

Sure enough, my due date rolls around and there are no signs of labor. I go to my midwife appointment, then my chiropractor appointment, make a TJ’s run, do some last minute bread baking and meal prep–– and the day comes and goes and Wesley is still sitting pretty high and comfortable in my belly!

Friday, May 24

Pretty much my entire third trimester I had Braxton Hicks on and off, but Friday night was the first time I felt like I was having legit contractions. I tried to ignore them but they kept waking me up about every 30min-1hr throughout the night, so needless to say I didn’t get great sleep. My doula said that a lot of time contractions can pick up at night and then fizzle out the next day. So I just tried to ignore them and get as much sleep/rest as I could!

Saturday, May 25

Well wouldn’t ya know it, I woke up the next day and the contractions fizzled and kept getting further apart as the day went on. I had a handful throughout the day, but they were all less than a minute long and nothing intense. I kept having contractions throughout the night but luckily I was able to get some pretty good sleep! Looking back I know that was a grace from the Lord because little did I know, things would reallyyyy pick up on Sunday…

Sunday, May 26

Woke up feeling pretty rested and kind of just hung out around the house since we didn’t have church that morning.

11:00am

I lost my mucous plug and in that moment I was like okay, I think this is about to pick up soon! We decided to get out for lunch and go to one of our fave taco places in town to keep my mind occupied. Little did I know that would be my last full meal before having a baby lol. By this point, I was definitely continuing to have contractions around every 30min or so, but still just trying to ignore them.

1:00pm

We got home from lunch and decide to get out and go on a walk to help move things along. After the walk I decided I wanted to just chill and watch tv and do some hip circles on the birth ball.

4:00pm

And this is when things start to kind of pick up. I remember telling Wade around 4:00pm that I think things were intensifying. At this point my contractions were about 5 min apart. We had made plans for my in-laws to drive down and come get our dog so we went ahead and told them to come because I felt like this was it.

I had been texting my doula and she told me to hydrate and take a bath to see if contractions slowed down at all. Since I had never been in labor before, I wanted her to come over and just see me in person to see how I was laboring through my contractions and I’m glad I did! I drew up a nice epsom salt bath and made a PB&J because that was the only thing that sounded good. I started timing my contractions once I got in the bath and they were about 3 min apart. Got out of the tub and they started getting closer together, like 1-2 min apart.

7:00pm

My doula comes over and I feel like I’m in full on active labor at this point! Contractions 1-2min apart, lasting for a minute, and I’m not really able to talk through them anymore at this point. I remember Wade coming upstairs and trying to show me something to help distract me from the contractions and I was tuning him out at this point so that’s how I knew things had really picked up haha.

For the next few hours, it was just me and Wade and our amazing doula– side note, if you’re on the fence about hiring a doula, I HIGHLY recommend it! Our was incredible and even though Wade and I were both very educated on the process of birth, we really loved having our doula there for extra support and we truly couldn’t have done it without her.

So like I said, the next few hours I was just laboring through contractions, really focusing on my breathing, trying to keep moving and working with baby boy to get him moving down. It’s getting later in the night so I was also trying to rest in between contractions, but that felt impossible since they were coming like every minute at this point.

10:00pm

We’ve been in our bedroom where I had planned to give birth and so our doula suggested that Wade and I lie down and try to get some sleep if we can. She turned off the lights and left us alone and it was honestly really sweet having that time just the two of us. Wade definitely fell asleep but I stayed awake and just kept working through the contractions, maybe dozing here and there. I don’t remember much because I was in labor land but it was nice to just lay down and rest my body for a bit.

Sunday, May 27

12:00am ish?

Time stamps are going to be fuzzy here because at this point I was really in labor land. But I know my midwife and her assistant showed up around this time. I think at this point I was laboring on the toilet (a very popular place to labor) and contractions were pretty intense. I remember feeling like my body was already trying to push on its own which is crazy because I had only been in active labor for a few hours.

When my midwife got there she checked on me to see how I was laboring, checked baby’s heart rate and everything was going smoothly and things seemed to point to me potentially having our baby within the next couple of hours. That’s at least how I felt at the time because labor just felt like it was reaching peak intensity. We started filling up the birth tub because it can take a while (I always wanted to have a water birth). My midwife checked me and I think I was already 7cm dilated? She didn’t tell me that in the moment which I’m actually kind of glad because I knew I would get in my head if I knew how dilated I was either way. But Wade told me afterward that the first time I got checked I was already at 7cm or so.

She did tell me after she checked me that I had a cervical lip. I had actually never heard of it but it’s when part of the cervix stays slightly swollen and doesn’t fully move out of the way during labor–in my case it was slowing down my body’s ability to fully dilate. It’s not a huge deal and it is common but it’s obviously problematic because you need that to be out of the way in order to have a baby lol. So my midwife asked if she could try manually removing the lip. She did warn that it could be painful and man oh man she was right. It was probably the most painful part of my labor ngl. Unfortunately it was too painful for me (maybe I was being a baby about it? idk) and I just couldn’t hang on long enough for her to get it. So she was like okay, let’s just see if we can get you moving around and into some different positions to try and get it out to go away on its own. She also gave me some Arnica to help with the swelling! Looking back I wished I had pushed through the pain and let her try to move the lip before it got more swollen but Iya know what they say, hindsight’s 20/20.

2:00am-5:00am

This was probably the most intense it got. Minute long contractions basically one on top of the other. I fully believe my body was trying to push on its own at this point but that darn lip was still in the way. We tried everything. All I wanted to do was labor in the tub so I could relax, but my midwife and doula highly encouraged me to get up and stay moving and stretching as I worked my way through the contractions. Lots of evidence that movement in labor has so many benefits. It can help baby get in position, open up the pelvis, encourage further dilation, and just help things progress in general. So it makes sense why my birth team was like hey let’s not chill in the tub justttt yet. Even though I was dying to get in haha I knew it was best to keep moving and I’m so glad I had the perfect birth team looking out for what was best while also honoring me and my plan. Aside from obviously meeting my baby, the feeling of getting in that warm birth tub was what truly kept me going.

I think my midwife had checked me again at some point during this window and nothing had really progressed, the lip was still there and still pretty swollen. So we used lots of movement and stretching, the birth ball, side-lying, counter pressure from my doula…all the things. I told myself before going into labor that I was never going to say out loud: “I can’t do this” because I just didn’t want to speak it into existence ha. But there are many moments that I said or thought to myself “I don’t know how long I can keep this up without anything progressing.” My laboring got to a point where it felt unproductive. Though yes, I was physically tired, I would say the biggest exhaustion for me was the emotional/mental side of things. I started to get really discouraged because I really thought I’d have my baby in my arms by this point.

5:00am

I can’t remember if this was just before or just after their conversation, but my water was still in tact at this point and so one of the things that my midwife recommended was to break my water and that with my water broken, it could help the pressure of baby to get the lip out of the way. So I agreed and she broke my water and I honestly think that’s when I turned a corner.

I didn’t know this at the time (which I’m really thankful for), but my midwife, Lauren, pulled Wade aside into the next room at some point either right before or right after breaking my water and basically told him that we might be getting to the point when she’d recommend going to the hospital. Everything was fine and there wasn’t an emergency, baby’s heart rate was fine this entire time. The transfer would have simply been for the purpose of getting me an epidural just to relieve me from the exhaustion. I had this thought in the back of my mind and I knew I would take their recommendation if it had come up because I truly trusted them, so I’m really glad I was never made aware of this conversation in the moment because it would’ve messed with my mental game I think!

Wade knew how badly I wanted to give birth at home and he knew how hard I had worked to make this a reality. So he basically just asked what the options were or if there was anything else we could do before getting to that point. Which I am so thankful for and so proud of him and the way he advocated for me in that moment. Obviously we would have done whatever they strongly recommended if it came to it, but I’m just so thankful that he pushed for us staying at home even though I can imagine it was hard for him.

So Lauren told him that she was going to check me one more time and if things hadn’t progressed at all since the last time, then they’d probably recommend us moving forward with the transfer. She came back in the room– I had still been laboring on and off the bed at this point– and she checked me again. And I HALLELUJAH the lip was gone and I was basically 10cm dilated! Seriously such an answer to prayer in that moment and everyone in the room was relieved and excited.

The very first thing I did was get back in the tub and getting in that water gave sooo much relief. By this point, Lauren had been at 3 middle-of-the-night births in a row and so she ended up switching off with another midwife on our birth team, Dawn. The switch actually brought such a new and fresh energy and I truly felt like I was getting close to meeting my baby.

7:00am

After the shift in energy I was like okay it’s go time! Something about knowing I was 10cm just gave me the confidence I needed. After laboring in the tub for a bit, the sun started to rise and my body felt that it was actually time to push. With each contraction, Wesley started to come down and at one point, Dawn was like hey do you want to reach down and feel his head? I did and he was RIGHT there and to my surprise, I felt a head full of hair. A couple more contractions/pushes and his head was out.

7:40am

Then the next contraction I pushed out the rest of his body and before I know it he was on my chest and I was finally meeting my baby. The most magical moment ever. No interventions, no one whisking him away, no fluorescent lights or being hooked up to any machines. Just peace and quiet and soaking up golden hour with my baby. I sat in the tub with Wesley on my chest and then about 30 min later delivered my placenta.

After that, I transitioned out of the tub and into bed for lots of skin to skin and to get a good first latch. My birth team drained the tub, cleaned everything up, started some laundry, and made us some breakfast and brought it to us in bed. They were truly amazing and I couldn’t have done it without them! I told Wade that we can’t ever leave Nashville, at least until we’re done having babies because I can’t imagine doing it without them.

Birth is HARD and I fully believe it is hard no matter what kind of birth you have or the route you choose to take. But for me, being able to do it unmedicated at home was so worth it. All of the preparation I put into it, both physical and mental, definitely paid off. I feel so proud of myself AND I’m just amazed at how God has created women’s bodies to be able to do something so incredible.