birthED Homebirth Story - Doulas, Midwives, and Letting Go
If you had asked me about our birth plan for baby #2 after we became pregnant I would have never imagined we’d be doing a home birth. Now being on the other side I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way. We had a pretty textbook birth with our first (Emma) at Methodist with the midwife group, but I knew I wanted a different experience this time around. I didn’t exactly know how to describe what I wanted but my gut told me it could be better. I knew I wanted to explore birth centers and Doula’s this time, so I reached out to Liz. We had done our first Lamaze class through birthED with Liz and had a fabulous experience. She was the first one to suggest exploring home birth as an option. Truthfully when she first suggested it I went straight to all the fears (which I now realize was a lot of inaccurate assumptions) and thought no way. When I floated the idea past my husband Travis his first reaction was “absolutely not, there are hospitals for a reason!” I didn’t push the topic and decided to focus on finding a doula first before exploring this crazy idea.
Liz connected me with Justine Temke from Midwest Doulas and she was the first and last doula I met with. We were a perfect match! She helped us navigate the decision making process for where we wanted to birth and connected us with Northstar Midwifery, who I ultimately transferred my care to as we landed on a home birth. She’s also a big reason we came around to feeling comfortable with home birth, sharing lots of evidence based information that addressed fears we both had. Once we had our plan in place and switched to the Northstar midwives I got really excited about the plan we had dreamed up. I genuinely was excited for the labor experience which is crazy to think about. Something I never felt with Emma’s birth.
Here's how it all went down. A few days before I went into labor I had about 24 hours of flu-like symptoms. I wondered if I was in early labor, but knew that I wouldn't know if that was the case until after the fact. I was 39 weeks so I knew it could happen any day. Later that week on Wednesday evening I started noticing that I was having rhythmic cramping and as the evening went on the timing became more consistent and closer together. We let our midwife team and doula know and they all said to go to bed and try to rest. I asked my husband if we should send my daughter to my moms house for the night just to be safe, and he said "No, you're not even moaning yet. I'm sure we'll have the baby sometime tomorrow but we've got awhile." I reminded him that second births typically go faster, but he didn't seem too worried and so I convinced myself that we had a ways to go. The cramping really wasn't painful at all, so off to bed I went! At 1:30AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and also realized I was having a contraction. Nothing really painful, but when I went to the bathroom I felt a pop and then realized my water had broken. I let Travis know that we should start getting things ready to go and call all our people. Within minutes contractions started to intensify and the “moaning” sounds as Travis called it, kicked into high gear! He looked at me with a little panic realizing that things were picking up pace FAST. I looked at Travis and had a moment of panic too. I told him I couldn't believe we were having this baby at home and that maybe this was a bad idea and we should just escape to the hospital before anyone arrived. He laughed and then reassured me that I was going to be fine and could do this. I called all our people and told them it was time. While waiting for everyone to get there I went into total project management mode between contractions, running about the house trying to organize things and barking orders at Travis for what he needed to do (bring the home birth bins upstairs, blow up the tub, get Emma ready to head to my mom's, unlock the doors, double make the bed, light the candles...all the things!). I'm so thankful Travis was able to stay calm amidst me randomly shouting out orders between contractions. For some reason I kept fixating on the candles that I wanted lit all over our living room. He finally looked at me at one point and was like, "Do you want a water birth or not? I have to focus on the tub!" I was like oh yes, focus on the tub....but then 5 minutes later I was back on the candles topic!
As I tried to help Travis I kept having to pause because contractions were getting intense and I now had to breathe through them and have Travis support me (meanwhile he was trying to do a million things at once). At one point I remember being on my hands and knees breathing through a contraction and he said “I need you to hold the hose for the tub for me so I can stretch it out and snake it down to the laundry room.” Ha! I was literally moaning on an exercise ball with my eyes closed, holding on to the hose as more of my water was breaking (thankfully into a depends that I had put on...highly recommend during labor!) thinking don't let go, you want a water birth!
Right before everyone arrived I moved to the bathroom to labor on the toilet. Minutes later I opened my eyes to my midwife, who was the first to arrive and appear in the bathroom. I felt like an angel had descended on our home! I had never met her in person but she had the most calming presence and I remember feeling immediately reassured by her encouraging words. A few minutes later my Doula Justine arrived and joined the party in the bathroom and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had seen my mom walk down the hallway out of the corner of my eye so I knew Emma was covered which I was most worried about. Surprisingly she never woke up.
If you can't tell already, I was a little type A about my birth plan. I also like logic and predictability, and so I was very fixated on the phases of birth and where I was at. If you know anything about home birth midwives, they don't like to label where you’re at so they weren’t directly answering any of my timeline questions. I’m sure they were laughing to themselves when I asked if I was in active labor, when clearly I was…maybe even in transition at that point. I knew it was moving quickly, but I thought there's no way I'm as far along as I feel. It was like my brain and my body were not confident in one another and my brain didn't trust my body that it was moving at the pace it truly was.
One physical aspect of labor that I didn't expect was my body shaking all over between contractions. It was like the sensation that you have after birth when baby isn't on you. It was wild! I remember hearing my doula tell Travis that it was normal and that it was because I was transitioning fast. I clung to "transitioning fast" as my only clue of where I was at in labor.
As the tub was filling I asked if I'd be able to get in soon and they said in about 5 minutes it would be ready. I remember hearing my doula say so calm and casually “We’ll be ready in about 5 minutes so that timing works great." Justine was seriously the greatest gift. I didn't have a doula with my first so this was new for me, and now I can't help but wonder what my first birth would have been like had we hired one. She literally knew all the right things to say to me, the exact sounds to make during contractions, and gave me all the right encouragement. It was like she beautifully narrated the whole thing, and everything she told me to do worked to manage the intensity of contractions. She would say things like "At this stage it's normal to be feeling "X" and in my head I'd be like "OMG I'm thinking that exact thing!" She was a godsend.
Once I was able to get into the tub I walked out and was greeted by my other midwife and I remember looking around the room and seeing how everything was taken care of and had fallen into place. It was so peaceful and calm. Travis had even lit the candles! :-) Getting in the tub felt so amazing. Between contractions I could focus and have a conversation (and in my logical mind I thought...oh, have I already transitioned? But then I was like no, not possible) I even asked my doula if I had transitioned and she was like "We are done putting a label on anything at this point" and I was like ugh, Liz told us in our Homebirth Prep class you guys wouldn't tell me, but I just want to know! From this point forward my time in the tub felt slow and fast all at the same time. I wasn't in there long before I started hearing my labor sounds and realized it was time to push. The team encouraged me to listen to my body. That was a huge difference between this birth experience versus my first one in the hospital. I felt so empowered this time and encouraged to listen to my body, which truly allowed me to feel every sensation of this labor which was so cool. I literally could feel baby descending in my pelvis, getting lower and lower. It was such an incredible feeling it's almost hard to put into words. I was really able to use visualization this time around which I think helped me push more effectively.
At one point I reached down and could feel the baby's head and that was so incredibly motivating. We also didn't know the gender and so at that point I was motivated to find out and just kept saying "I'm ready to meet my baby!" After a few pushes I felt the baby's head come out but could tell that her shoulders were still in there and I heard my midwife telling me to pause and breathe, before pushing the rest of the baby out. I knew it was going to be intense so I took a deep breath and gave it all I had and out baby came at 3:41AM!
That’s only about 2 hours after my water broke. Baby came so freaking fast. I had been leaning over the side of the tub in a squat position so flipped over to receive baby in my arms. Baby was so chill. Eventually she made a few squeaks and I kept looking at Travis asking him if it was a boy or girl but he couldn't see. Finally he got a look and announced it was a GIRL! We were both shocked as this entire pregnancy we felt so strongly that it was a boy. I kept yelling "oh my gosh I can't believe it, a GIRL!" It took a few days but we finally landed on Brooklyn Ann.
I'll never forget that moment of relief, joy, physical relief and just pure serenity. I think I could have stayed in that tub holding her for hours. I kept looking at Travis saying, “I can't believe we just had a baby in our house!” The team all just sat around celebrating and admiring her and telling me how amazing I did and congratulating us. Nothing felt rushed and I was able to soak in every moment. Eventually they got me out of the tub after I delivered the placenta and they had Travis carry baby to the bedroom while they got me out of the tub. I got into bed, they layered me and baby with blankets and we got all cozy. I couldn't stop smiling. I just kept thinking, home birth was the best decision and how amazing that we never had to leave the house. I was so well cared for. It makes me sad to think I won't get to experience that again as this will be our last kiddo. I wish I could keep hanging out with the fabulous team. It's wild how joy and grief can be so intertwined during such a beautiful moment.
I truly couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect birth or team. I'm forever grateful for that crew and this home birth experience.