Tiffany lives in rural South Carolina running a farm with her husband. They recently welcomed their first child, a daughter named Florence at the Baby+Company birth center in Cary, NC. Tiffany is passionate about natural living and left her birth feeling powerful and confident with the support of her midwives and husband. Connect with her on Instagram.
My firstborn is turning 5 in less than a week, FIVE! How did the time go by so fast?! I know that's so cliche to say, but it truly surprises me that the little baby that made me a mama is now in full blown kid-mode. Since this time of year is crazy at our house with two birthdays and Christmas all within two weeks of each other, I thought I'd take a step back and do a couple replay episodes.
Today I'm replaying that first wild and crazy 34 hour labor and homebirth with my daughter Adelaide. It's a fun episode too because I shared it along with my husband, Richard, who was such a huge part of this birth story. I needed him every single step of the way during her birth so I love that we recorded this story together.
Toniette was so surprised to learn that she was having twins! She had previously had homebirths and knew that with twins she would be in the hospital, but she definitely wanted natural births. She had quite the whirlwind delivery with Baby A , who fell out on a moving delivery bed because none of the nurses thought she could possibly be that close to delivering!
Toniette wants to give other twin moms the confidence to do a breech Baby B extraction without an epidural.
Ellen Richards is English born, and is now an Australian citizen, living with her family in South East Queensland. She and her partner, Billy, have 4 children, aged 13 years, 11 years, 8 years and 9 months. She was 44 when her fourth child was born. All have been planned to be born at home, and two of them were. Each birth has been a incredibly positive experience and each was totally different: an elective cesarean birth at almost 43 weeks; an ecstatic birth after a 76 hour labour; an intense 50 minute labour after a patient 10 day wait (with broken waters); and, a chemical hospital induction (which was at the clear indication of her unborn child). She also had gestational diabetes during two of her pregnancies, including one of the homebirths. Each pregnancy and birth has required Ellen and Billy to make many choices, and it is these choices, with the support of their midwives, that have made each birth such a positive experience.
Amy shares her experiences dealing with her fair share of complications in pregnancy and birth. She has had 3 births within a hospital setting and has dealt with a subchorionic hemorrhage (vaginal bleeding for six weeks) during pregnancy, miscarriages, epidurals that haven't worked, NICU stays and so much more. She also talks about how intuitive birthing helped her cope with the pain of labor and childbirth during each of her three births.
Alexis shares the birth story of her son, Sebastian, which took place at Growing Families birthing center in St. Augustine, Florida. With her fiancé as her birthing coach, and Misti Balzar as the midwife (guardian angel) assisting the delivery, Sebastian arrived Thanksgiving Day 2014. Approximately 9 hours of labor produced an 8 lb. 13 oz. healthy baby boy. The birth wasn’t at all easy or painless, but she views the experience as a wright of passage.
Ashley Clarkson shares her hospital birth experience, which was very traumatic. She gave birth in Winnipeg, Canada when there was a really bad flu going around, and the hospital wouldn't let her have more than one person with her. She felt like she needed to choose her husband even though her mom might have been a better support person during birth. She ended up having a cesarean and struggled, feeling unconnected with her baby. She suffered postpartum depression, and wanted to share her story with other women to empower them to find help and advocate for themselves. Read more from her story at the bottom of this post!
In today's birth story episode, Brandi shares her pregnancy and birth experience. During her pregnancy, she kept feeling like something wasn't right and finally a midwife requested that she have some blood work done and they found out that she was severely anemic. For her birth, she had a planned cesarean with family members as support since she was a single mom at the time. We also have a great discussion about what an impact WIC had for her when she was a new mom.