My Home Birth Story

As I mentioned in my last post, I was reading a LOT of birth stories leading up to the big day, and I was a fiend for the details. So just a warning, the following contains some gross details and is essentially a stream of consciousness. But it’s exactly how I remember it and I hope it will be helpful to any expecting moms out there. Hopefully I can get a part 2 from Jason’s perspective so we can compare 😅

But until then, here goes:

September 27

I started to get my bloody show (this means the cervix is starting to soften and widen), and I got pretty excited, but it was soo faint that I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I texted my doula to give her a heads up, but that was all. 

September 28

I started feeling sad and extra emotional for no real reason, so I went over to my parents’ pool to let Leon swim and hoped it would cheer me up (that’s when I took my last belly pic shown above). Jason and I ordered Firehouse Subs and hung out for a while, then the bloody show became more obvious and my mucus plug was clearly coming out, so I had a feeling things were starting to happen. I chatted with my mom for a bit, and she said we should all go to bed to save energy—I could tell she was excited and thought baby was coming soon. I called my midwives to let them know and they said that it could mean it’s happening soon orrrr it could mean it’s happening in a week. That night I was super uncomfortable and had what felt like mild period cramps all night but nothing felt intense enough to time. Jason and I both downloaded the contraction timer app anyway though.

September 29

I continued to have cramps and started getting back pain as well, but it still felt like they were way too irregular and not intense enough to mean it was birthing time (Hypnolanguage for active labor). I watched When Harry Met Sally and did YouTube birthing ball stretches and exercises all morning and noticed that a few of them, like rocking my hips forward and back, felt way more intense than they had in the past. I had a chiropractic appointment at 12:30, and I was dreading sitting in the waiting room for my appointment to start. Jason was working and I was texting him about how I was going to suffocate from sitting in the waiting room with a mask on for 30 minutes—so dramatic. 

When the chiro saw me and I told her about the bloody show, she was like “alright, let’s put you into labor!” She did a few extra adjustments that she had never done before and she was like, “I definitely don’t think you’ll be pregnant at your next appointment.” I left feeling excited and when I got home, I listened to the “Your Birthing Time Begins” hypno track after asking Jason, “How early is too early to listen to it? Is there harm in starting it too early?” He laughed  because he totally thought I was jumping the gun. At this point I started watching Hunt for the Wilderpeople on Netflix—not sure if it was actually as weird as it seemed or if I just couldn’t focus because I was a lot farther along than I realized, but I sent this text to my sister and it cracks me up now, looking back (told y’all I was oversharing today—and sorry if you’re a Bridgers superfan, I just don’t get it).

The cramps continued and the bloody show started getting more and more, well, bloody. I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I was getting a little nervous thinking it might be a placenta problem. I texted my mom lots of gory photos and asked my doula about it. They both felt like it was normal and told me to try to get some rest. 

I listened to my “Birthing Day Affirmations” track a couple times and timed my “cramps.” They started feeling more intense and more like a wave (Hypnolanguage for contraction), so I was thinking things were getting started and timed them. They would be around a minute long and five minutes apart, but then I’d get a more intense one that would last 3-5 minutes. Everyone had told me that first time moms were often in early labor for a long time before dilation started happening, so I took this irregularity to mean that I was still in the early cramping stage and I still had a long way to go. Around 10 or 11pm I laid down in bed and listened to “Your Special Safe Place” and “Deepening Your Hypnosis,” getting up when the longer, more intense cramps would happen. I thought my bowels were emptying to prepare my body for active labor and that these cramps were just because of my dinner trying to get out of me (I even took a fiber supplement thinking once I got it all out I could just focus on birthing time… 🤦🏻‍♀️). 

So I’d switch from lying in bed, to sitting on the toilet, to icing my back on the couch watching my soothing YouTube playlist, and eventually even had a heat pack on my abdomen. Jason asked if he should hang up the affirmations I painted and start getting the house ready, and I was like, “I don’t know… no?” This probably should’ve been a sign that yes, it WAS time. At this point I was too distracted to even time my “cramps” but everyone said I should get rest since we all figured baby was coming in the morning so I kept trying to ignore it. Jason was asleep when I got up with a super intense “wave” or “poop cramp” as I kept calling them. When ice, heat pad, and another trip to the toilet didn’t help, I launched myself into the hallway bathroom shower (I’ve never used this shower for anything but to bathe the dogs, mind you) and was aiming the hand-held nozzle at my abdomen to try to make the “poop cramps” go away. I had to sit down and fell trying to get up (only hit my ribs slightly thank goodness), but then I started shaking and felt like I was going to throw up. 

Again, I’d heard that nausea and emptying of the bowels were signs of EARLY labor, so I still thought I had a long way to go. This is when I started freaking out a little, thinking if I had to do this for another 12 hours there was no way I was going to make it. (This is SUCH a classic thing to think when you’re in “transformation”—Hypnolanguage for transition, but I was in denial). I was thinking, “If this is just the beginning, I’m going to have to go to the hospital and get an epidural…” and wondering how that would even work since I didn’t do a hospital tour, etc. etc. So I decided I should wake Jason up. I let him know that things were getting intense and I was going to take a bath. I started to feel like my doula should be there, but again Jason had no idea HOW intense things had gotten while he was sleeping so he wasn’t in the bathroom with me yet. 

Suddenly I realized I had an uncontrollable urge to push in the tub. I still felt like I had more in my bowels to empty out, so I moved to the toilet where the pushing was even more intense, so I got back into the tub. This was around 2am. I yelled for Jason to come in and told him I needed to push and he needed to call the midwives, my mom, and my doula. When we got a hold of the midwives they could hear me making gutteral noises in the background and asked me to stick my finger up there and let them know how it felt. I did and it felt hard—spoiler: it was her head. 

They said they would be there as fast as they could, but that it would be about 45 minutes (they’re in Gainesville and I live in Ocala). Next he called our doula and said the same thing and she left right away. Finally he called my mom and she and my dad drove over right away (they’re only a 5-minute drive away and luckily my mom is a retired RN who has been watching Call The Midwives religiously for the past year). I told Jason to cover the bed as much as he could with the waterproof mattress cover (we were planning to get help from our birthing team to put it on properly once they arrived, but it was clear now that we had missed a few steps). 

I moved to the bed and laid down on my side—within a couple minutes my water broke. My mom came into the room and we got back on speaker phone with our midwife. She said we should go ahead and call 911 to get EMTs on standby in case the baby decided to come before my team arrived. I did NOT want them to take me to the hospital, so I was hesitant, but she assured me that they would only be there in case me or baby needed emergency treatment. At this point my mom was trying to get me to breathe through the need to push to stall things, but my midwife said if I felt like I needed to, I shouldn’t hold back (such a relief because pushing felt SO good compared to all the other sensations I was feeling).

Jason called 911 and said his wife was going into labor and the dispatcher started explaining to him what to do in case the EMTs didn’t arrive in time. They told him to find something to clamp the cord with, so he goes tearing through his toolbox and couldn’t find anything. Finally he decided a shoelace would do the trick, but luckily the EMTs arrived very quickly (with a proper cord clamp) and at this point I’m naked and on all fours with my rear facing three strange men’s voices. My head was facing the wall and my butt was right up in the air for everyone to see. I zoned in so hard (conjuring my “Bubble of Peace”) that I never even looked around the room. I would push when I felt like I REALLY needed to and relax as much as possible and pray that my team would arrive in time when I didn’t. 

My mom immediately went into nurse mode (and the adrenaline kicked her Parkinson’s symptoms away immediately). At one point she and Jason said they could see the head. On the phone I remember hearing my midwife say she was seven minutes away and I remember thinking, YES, SHE IS GOING TO MAKE IT. I’M NOT GOING TO THE HOSPITAL. Around 2:40am my team came in, my doula put twinkle lights around my bed, gave me some Hypnobabies relaxation cues, and the EMTs left. Immediately the entire vibe of the room changed, Jason visibly relaxed (according to the people who could see him) and two of my midwives were there to take over. Jason asked the midwives if we should get the tub ready because we had always planned on doing a water birth (that was one of the main reasons I decided against birthing in the hospital), and the midwives were like, “that’s a cute idea” because it was WAY too late for that 😂Jason put on my “Pushing Baby Out” hypnosis track, and even though I could barely hear it, I felt better knowing it was on. 

After some serious pushing (led by me—I only pushed when I felt a “wave” come and tried to rest in between) they said I could feel the baby’s hair. I reached down and felt her fuzzy little head and immediately smiled SO big and got this wave of energy. I was about to meet my baby!! From there it felt like I was pushing for quite a while (it wasn’t actually long at all) but I would move from pushing on my side to getting on all fours. I would hear Jason get so excited and think I was almost done, but then I remembered about how the head comes out and in, two steps out, one step back to help stretch the skin. It was the craziest feeling of my life. I reminded myself not to get discouraged and said that the more patient I am, the less damage there will be to the perineum. 

I was lying on my side As baby started crowning (the “ring of fire” was very intense), and Jason laid next to me holding both my hands and giving me cues. I squeezed his hands so hard and pushed like I was taking the biggest poop of my life. I remember thinking it was such a strange feeling knowing that the harder I pushed the more it would hurt, but I was going to and had to do it anyway. It was a strange, but powerful moment. Finally they said the head was out (I was hoping this meant all of her was out but it was just the head, and I was like oh boy, there’s more), I asked if baby was ok and they said yes, I just need to push a little more to get her body out, so I took deep breaths and with a couple more pushes my sweet slippery, vernix-covered baby was in my arms and on my chest for skin to skin. 

She was born at 2:58am, so it was just about an hour of pushing before she was born—aka Jason and my mom handled the first 40 minutes and my midwives arrived for the last 20 minutes. After the cord stopped pulsing, they clamped the cord and Jason cut it (we were both surprised at how thick it was). Then Jason put baby on his chest while we worked on getting the placenta out. At this point I had been losing a lot of blood but was too blissed out about holding and bonding with my baby to notice (Jason and co were a lot more concerned). I lost about 2.5 liters of blood, but after a couple shots of pitocin to help me deliver the placenta and stop the bleeding, it slowed way down. They think this was due to the extremely speedy delivery, but it was a good thing we had EMTs there in case the bleeding had started before the midwives arrived. 

From there my team monitored me to make sure the bleeding went down (and checked for clots) and my doula helped me get baby to latch on to start our breastfeeding journey. Oh, and I was VERY happy to hear that I didn’t need stitches for my very minimal tear (I was pretty anxious about tearing, so if you are too, just know it’s possible! I did perineal massage and applied vitamin E oil in the third trimester, but the perineum is insanely strong. I also think that pushing only when I felt the urge really helped as well). From there my sisters came to see the baby, my dad who had been in the living room came in to see her, and Jason brought British cookies (biscuits) and coffee for our midwives. I ate half a chocolate cookie before remembering I might be lactose intolerant again now that baby was earthside, so I had yogurt (probiotics help) shown above and peanut butter banana toast for my first after-birth meal. Jason also helped me drink Gatorade and coconut water from a straw.

Once everything was cleaned up (somehow the mattress was spared! Those puppy pads are amazing), I got a tour of my placenta, which had an extra lobe that we never noticed on the ultrasound. Then my amazing birth team left around 7am and my mom took a nap on our air mattress while we tried to sleep, but we mostly just stared at our beautiful miracle of a baby as she slept in the bassinet next to us.

What a wonderful, wild day that was.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Birth can be beautiful, happy, and empowering. Please don’t let anyone convince you otherwise ❤️