After a long pregnancy battling severe hyperemesis gravidarum, Hannah gave birth to her first son in a birth center at nearly 41 weeks. Ten months later, she became pregnant again, this time with a set of twins! Despite living in a state that considers twins to be a "high-risk" pregnancy, they were able to work with an OBGYN and midwife team to deliver their babies out-of-hospital. She carried her twins for 38+5 weeks until her water broke and they shot out of her body in just 1.5 hours! Hannah struggled with breastfeeding all of her children, due to tongue-ties and tight jaws. She was forced to exclusively pump with her son, but was able to breastfeed her twins successfully after a difficult 3 month journey working with a lactation consultant and occupational therapist.
LC gave birth to her first child on Feb. 22, 2017 (her four year wedding anniversary)! After a complicated pregnancy involving blood thinners, gestational diabetes, and a degenerating fibroid that landed her in the hospital at twenty weeks, LC still hoped to have as natural a hospital birth as possible. Her hopes were dashed when she realized she would need to be induced; but, she was not expecting all the ways that her birth story would ultimately surprise her! After slowly progressing for the first eight to ten hours, she quickly progressed from a 3 to a 10 in only 90 minutes - so soon, in fact, that her husband almost missed the birth when he stepped out to grab a snack!
LC is a writer, activist, and entrepreneur residing in Columbus, OH. She is the founder of Zora's House - the first coworking and community space created by and for women of color in Ohio. In her spare time (what does that even mean?!) LC enjoys reading, watching HGTV, and hanging out at local breweries with her dog, hubby, and two year old son. Connect with her on Instagram at @no1doesitlikelc
Both of Charity’s babies were born in the UK. After excitedly planing for an unmedicated hospital birth centre birth, Charity had to quickly change her expectations when she was told her baby would be delivered via cesarean section. Her body and baby disagreed with the doctor, and her son was born vaginally on the operating table as preparations were being made for surgery. For her second birth, Charity was determined to have a greater ability to advocate for herself and her baby, so she and her husband hired private midwives to help deliver the baby at home. Her second son was born in a birthing tub in the living room of her small flat in central London.
On this episode, Mika shares her three homebirth stories and discusses the importance of advocating for yourself.
Heather shares her experience laboring and pushing at home, until her midwife noticed her baby's heart tones were not recovering after contractions while Heather pushed. She was rushed to the hospital, and the ER doctor on call gave her one chance to push with forceps before taking her in for a cesarean birth. Her son was born with that one push and she describes her hospital experience as being very positive. They spent one night at the hospital before heading home.
Katie trained to be a doula 6 months before becoming unexpectedly pregnant on her honeymoon. She always knew she wanted an unmedicated vaginal birth, and switched care providers from an OB practice to a birth center at 30 weeks. She and her husband took hypnobirthing classes while she was pregnant, and they hired their hypnobirthing instructor as a doula. Though labor and birth didn’t progress as she had imagined (does it ever?), she achieved the goal of bringing her baby into the world in a peaceful, sacred, empowering environment, surrounded by love. You can watch her birth video here.
Meg gave birth to her first child at 40w5d on May 15th. After her water broke and labor progressed she experienced over 3 hours of pushing culminating with assistance of a vacuum to help deliver him. Going in without a birth plan and not knowing what to expect, this labor was quite traumatic and postpartum recovery was difficult.
Danielle spent her pregnancy reading Ina May Gaskin's seminal texts on natural labor and envisioned having a peaceful, drug-free delivery. Once she crossed the 41-week mark of her pregnancy, Danielle's doctors began talking to her about scheduling an induction. Hopeful that she would go into labor naturally, Danielle begged her doctors to let her go as long as possible to avoid an induction. After some negotiation, they collectively landed on a scheduled induction at 42 weeks. Still convinced she would go into labor naturally, Danielle tried everything to induce. But nothing worked. At 42 weeks, Danielle was induced by her doctor and labored for 13 hours. In the end, her labor was anything but drug-free, but it was somewhat peaceful. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Quinnah.
After every effort to have a holistic, uninterrupted pregnancy and birth, Arielle was induced at 41 weeks due to low amniotic fluid. She went through ten hours of unmedicated labour using hypnobabies techniques and the support of her husband, when her water broke at 9.5 centimeters. When her water broke, the umbilical cord prolapsed and her daughter was delivered by emergency cesarean.
Sarah returns to share the birth of her second child.
Sarah gave birth to Braxton Rainwater on July 15th, 2018 at 4:36 a.m., after almost 27 hours of unmedicated labor. Braxton was born at 40 weeks and 5 days gestation. Sarah started labor at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Contractions faded in and out all day Saturday, and active labor started at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night.
Sarah met her midwife (Stephanie) at the hospital around 8:00 p.m. Labor moved slowly, only progressing a centimeter every few hours. Her waters broke at 12:30 a.m. and Braxton was born at 4:36 a.m.
Sarah was able to labor however she needed, utilizing the birth ball, bathtub, and shower. The nursing staff was amazingly supportive of Sarah’s birth wishes and cheered her on every step of the way!
After Shannon found out she was pregnant with her first, there was no question that she wanted an unmedicated, untouched birth. The questions were: where, and with who.