If you're here after reading my first birth story, welcome - and strap in! This birth was incredibly healing and eye opening in many ways. I'm going to discuss further how we came to decide on a Free Birth with our second baby, how we prepared for it, how I got my husband on board, and a few resources I found useful. I want to disclaim here that just because we chose Free Birth and it was the right choice for us, does not mean that it is the right choice for everyone. If you are someone who does not feel comfortable birthing unassisted, you do not have to! You should always, always, always birth in the most comfortable environment for you! For me, that is without any medical professional present to needlessly intervene. So long as I continue to have healthy pregnancies and have no cause for concern during labor and birth, I will continue to free birth my babies in the comfort of my own home with just my family present. If that is not for you, that is completely okay! Education is key when it comes to birth, no matter where that is. If that's in a hospital, educate yourself on how to have an undisturbed birth in a hospital (I provide my doula clients with a document stating their rights, along with the North Carolina laws to back them up, as hospital policy does not supersede law). If you prefer home birth with a midwife present, great! Make sure to interview the right midwife that also advocates for undisturbed birth but will know when they need to step in. I don't care where a woman chooses to birth - that is her right! I am just an advocate for natural, undisturbed, physiological birth practices. You absolutely can get that wherever you decide to birth, so long as you prepare, educate, and advocate for yourself every step of the way. We will not be tamed.
Deciding on Unassisted
I knew I didn't want to birth in any hospital near me, even though I live just a couple of miles away from one. I wanted my home birth that I dreamt about since before having my first! I quickly found out that there were no legal/licensed midwives in my area that attended home births. The only midwife I had heard of was much later in my pregnancy, after I had hired someone else for my prenatal care (more on this in a few), and she was an underground midwife who obviously didn't accept insurance. Because of this, I dove into education after finding a facebook group on unassisted and assisted home birth. I had no idea that it was even legal to birth your baby outside the system, but thinking about it now - of course it is legal! I read story after story about unassisted births, watched videos, listened to podcasts, read books, and researched like crazy on all things birth. The only thing I didn't do that I wish I would have sooner was take a free birth course. I have a comprehensive list of all the resources I utilized and more here. I am constantly adding new resources and categories, too, so keep this link on hand for updates!
Getting My Husband On Board
Getting my husband on board for my entirely radical idea of having our baby at home unassisted was definitely a hurdle. However, as Emilee Saldaya of Free Birth Society says, if your reason for not having your free birth is that your husband isn't on board with it, you don't really want to have your free birth. Once we come to the understanding that while our husbands may have their concerns about birthing outside the system, it is often because we have all been brainwashed into believing that birth is a medical event that requires assistance in all circumstances, and their fears are very misguided. Here is what I did to get my husband on board: I DIDN'T!
My husband fought me for a time on my birth plan. I provided him all of the resources, research, information—you name it—and he chose not to look into them. After a week of him saying he did not like the whole idea, I finally said, "I have provided you the information, I am well-prepared and I am continuing to prepare for all scenarios, this is my birth, and this is what I am doing. You can either get on board or keep your opinions to yourself. I need you to trust that I am doing what I know is best for our baby and myself." After that, he accepted that I was not going to change my mind and he couldn't very well force me to birth where HE wanted. He still didn't do the research, but he definitely heard bits and pieces of podcasts I would listen to around the house and in the car. While he never said anything about them, I feel that the things he heard on the podcasts helped him accept and trust the path I chose.
My husband never fully got on board, but I did make a couple of compromises and efforts to help ease his mind even though he didn't want to utilize the resources I sent him constantly. The first thing I compromised on was finding a crunchy home birth midwife in the next state over, about an hour away, for limited prenatal care. We paid out of pocket for this prenatal care, which was still cheaper than any other option. I saw this midwife maybe six times where I basically just updated her on the pregnancy and we checked vitals and talked about my birth plan. She was in full support of my free birth decisions and helped to give me some valuable information on what to do in certain situations (such as using Yunnan to stop a hemorrhage). She also helped give me some solutions to my SPD pain (more on that later).
Two more compromises I made were the NIPT blood test and the anatomy scan, both of which the midwife was able to call an order in for. We paid out of pocket for these services as well. In total, we paid around $2,600 for the midwife, bloodwork, and ultrasound. I then spent around $500 in birth supplies. This was still less expensive than a hospital birth or a home birth with a midwife, even with insurance coverage for a hospital birth! Both the blood work and the anatomy scan came back normal, which gave my husband more confidence in our birth plan.
The final compromise I made was to have a family friend who is a retired midwife come talk to my husband and I about our plans. Her husband was, and is, a retired OB/GYN and she worked alongside him as a midwife. In fact, she delivered me and two of my siblings, and even came out of retirement just to deliver my mother's last baby! She had unassisted home births herself, so I trusted that she would provide valuable information for my husband to ease his fears. Since my mother was my doula for this birth, which she was hesitant about but on board with, she was also able to talk to the retired midwife into coming after the birth, just to give a little check-up on me and Baby. After meeting with her, my husband felt a little better but definitely still had his reservations. He never fully got on board, but I took every step I could to get him on board. In the end, he didn't get on board until he saw how incredible the entire experience was after the birth.
If you are struggling to get your spouse on board with your free birth plans, there is no one solution. The best you can do is say "this is what is going to happen, and if you have fears or concerns here is all of the information you need to ease those fears and better understand my decision." Provide them the information, studies, stories from other free birthers, etcetera. If you know someone who has free birthed their baby and they are willing, meet with them so your spouse can ask them questions. Take a free birth course together, too! Go to local birth classes held by a local holistic doula or birth educator. Compromise on the things you're willing to compromise on if you have to (or don't!). The important thing about having a free birth is that your birth space is protected, you are comfortable and supported, and you are able to listen to and trust your intuition. If someone is hindering that in your birth space, kick them out. The health and safety of you and your baby are far more important than allowing someone to bring negativity into your birth space simply for the sake of them being there for the birth.
If you are struggling to get your spouse on board with your assisted home birth, bring him along to every single midwife appointment and have him ask questions to ease his fears! Take a class together, provide resources and information, watch videos and listen to podcasts together. Most importantly, PRAY. Pray for clarity for you both and pray that you both become at peace with your birth choices, and trust in God and the answers He provides.
The Pregnancy:
My first pregnancy may have been an absolute dream, but this second pregnancy was far from it. The morning sickness was ten times worse than my first. I was unable to keep anything down, even water at times, and I became so weak that any time I stood up or tried to walk anywhere I was getting light headed and dizzy and had to sit down before I blacked out. I ended up staying at my parents house for several days at a time in my first trimester so they could help me with my toddler son. My incredibly nurturing mother kept bringing me food to try and keep down and coming up with hydration solutions. If I didn't have her, I probably should have gone to get IV fluids once or twice, but I am blessed with an incredible support system and I stuck it out and made it through. My husband even bought a mini fridge for our bedroom and stocked it with ready-made meals since I couldn't even walk past our kitchen without feeling sick. Bless that man! The morning sickness finally went away around 16 weeks.
Around the same time the morning sickness started going away, I began feeling strange pulls in my pelvis/groin area. The only answers I could find when googling my symptoms, was round ligament pain and pelvic girdle pain (PGP). But where my pain was localized didn't really fit the broad description of PGP or round ligament pain. So, I took to Facebook for real-life experiences and advice... SPD. Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. That was it! My symptoms included:
Pain in the front of my pelvis/groin and inner thigh
Pain when moving - such as walking, standing on one leg like when getting dressed, getting up from a chair or bed, going up and down stairs, turning over in bed, etcetera.
Pain with activities of daily living such as picking up my toddler or grocery bags, walking short and long distances, standing to shower, shaving my legs, etcetera.
Clicking and grinding sounds or sensations in my symphysis pubis
A loose and wobbly feeling in the pelvis like I was going to just fall apart
What I did to help with the pain:
Cat-Cow stretches on my yoga ball (as recommended by my message therapist).
Message Therapy - specifically acupressure (find a holistic prenatal specialist) - bi-weekly, then weekly for the last few weeks of pregnancy.
Sleeping with a thick pillow in between my legs at night (not too thick that it's uncomfortable).
Hot showers (often in the middle of the night when my RLS was also acting up or the pain was becoming unbearable to turn over in bed).
Belly band bound around the hips.
Chiropractor (Webster certified AND/OR knowledgeable in SPD - 1-2 times per week when pain became unbearable/crippling, once every week or two when in early stages and still manageable.
NO reclining.
NO crossing legs.
Not doing too much moving around; taking lots of breaks when in the middle of stuff like cleaning the house or caring for other children.
Tried not to rest too long; making sure I was not sitting in one spot for too long.
No lifting over 10-20lbs, depending on the pain.
No using my feet to move things AT ALL even if it was light, and definitely no kicking anything.
Miles circuit was still manageable in third trimester after all the above was implemented, but I definitely avoided overdoing the curb walking/stairs lunges just to be safe.
Getting in tune with my body and my baby.
Talks with God.
Mindful meditation (I used the gentle birth app and christian hypnobirthing app), and breathing exercises. This also helps with labor prep significantly!
PRAYER! Pray for yourself and ask for prayer from others. We believe in the power of laying hands for healing and prayer in our church. Seek out your pastor or someone you trust.
Implementing all of the above significantly improved my SPD symptoms and I was finally not a cripple anymore. If you have tried many other things and none of these have worked for you, PLEASE go see a pelvic floor therapist. They often say that the SPD pain disappears entirely after the birth, but that was not the case for me. I continued with the steps above during postpartum and it certainly made a difference, but the pain was still present to an extent. Do not feel discouraged if this is you as well! Seek help if it is affecting your mental state like it did with me. I was a complete nut-case while dealing with this pain. I was peeing my pants any time I sneezed, coughed, yelled or even if I spoke too loud. I was having daily meltdowns from feeling entirely useless as a stay at home mother, wife, and home maker. If I had not found the right routine that worked for me, I certainly would have needed to seek out mental health professionals for help. It is never a bad idea to seek mental health help, anyway!
Aside from those two struggles, my pregnancy symptoms were fairly normal. Heart burn, restlessness, soreness, difficulty breathing as my belly grew larger, and so on. I typically have low blood pressure during pregnancy as well so I increased my salt and protein intake, as recommended by The Brewer's Pregnancy Diet, and that essentially ceased any dizziness or weakness I felt.
Lastly, this baby's kicks were STRONG. I remember during my first pregnancy how cool all of those baby movements felt. But with this second pregnancy... SHEW! Usually, you would start to feel your baby move sooner with subsequent pregnancies, but I didn't start feeling movement until around 20 weeks. I felt movement with my first around 15 weeks, so I came to the conclusion that I had an anterior placenta with this second pregnancy. This was later confirmed by an anatomy scan. I felt so validated and confident that I was able to be in tune enough with my body to know the position of my placenta! But my goodness, when I did start feeling my baby kick, it actually HURT! I remember that during the time where my emotional state was very shaky, I would actually get mad at my baby for kicking me so hard, and I would constantly talk about how mean she was! I was worried that this baby was going to be very difficult for me, and I had a hard time connecting with her the way I felt connected with my first in the womb. SPOILER: This feeling went away completely the second she was born and I feel insanely in love — and she was the easiest baby EVER! So if you are having these feelings about your baby and it's worrying you in any way about yourself as a mother or your baby, don't worry! It can be normal to feel this way and they are most often irrational fears brought on my your pregnancy hormones and symptoms. These negative feelings do not control reality!
The Birth
Finally! I get to share my birth story! This is the first I have written it out and it has been almost a year and a half since birthing my sweet baby girl. I will preface this with the following background information leading up to labor:
I was having Braxton Hicks contractions nightly from around 32/33 weeks gestation, which became stronger in the last two weeks of my pregnancy. I used these opportunities to practice my breathing, relaxed face and brows (floppy face, floppy fanny), horse lips, and other hypnobirthing methods. I would go to my room, sit on my birth ball, and listen to the hypnobirthing tracks on my gentle birth app. I highly recommend doing this any time you feel anxious, angry, stressed, or during prodromal labor (Braxton Hicks contractions)!
My husband was working three hours away on a job as a contractor for dominion energy. He was gone Tuesday through Friday every week. He also had been carpooling with a co-worker each week (which I fought him on and lost LOL).
My son came five days before my estimated due date, so I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to make it to 4o weeks with this baby, either.
Contractions woke me up out of a deep sleep at 5:00am on a Friday morning (so husband was 3 hours away). I decided to take a shower to see if that would stop contractions, because they could have just been more of the same prodromal labor I had been experiencing for several weeks at that point. When they didn't stop after my shower, I tried giving my mom a call around 5:30am. No answer. I tried again.. No answer. Even though my dad rarely answers his phone in the mornings, especially that early, I gave him a call. Thankfully he answered! He woke my mom and she got on the phone with me. She heard me "ahhh-ing" through a contraction and said, "okay, we're getting ready now." She called my sister, who was my second backup photographer as the first two I had on call couldn't make it.. Oops! So my sister got up and started getting herself ready while she waited for her son to wake up.
I called my husband after getting off the phone with my mom. I spoke to him around 5:45am just as he was about to start work. "Do I need to leave like right now?" he asked. "I mean, definitely start getting prepared to leave but I don't think this baby is going to be here in the next couple of hours." I responded (SPOILER: God loves humor). Since he had carpooled with a coworker, he had to wait for him and they had to leave together. He sat at breakfast at their hotel with his foreman and casually mentioned that I was in labor and that he was waiting for his carpool buddy to come down so he could talk to him about a plan. His foreman seemed far more concerned about him leaving ASAP than my husband did. "Why haven't you left already?!"
When my mother and father arrived at the house, I was on the toilet in my bathroom as my body was clearing out my system getting me even more ready for the birth. My father was in the living room trying to get the birth pool blown up for me and taking care of my son while my mother was in the bedroom with me. After I got off the toilet, I came out to the bedroom and sat on my yoga ball next to my bed. I was so set on having a water birth that I didn't even have my bed ready for the possibility of birthing on it. After a few contractions, my mom felt I was farther along than I thought I was. After all, it had only been about an hour and a half since my contractions woke me up. There was no way I was already in active labor!
My mom called her midwife friend and ask for advice. She recommended we prepare the bed just in case. My back labor was awful, just like it was with my first. Contractions continued to intensify significantly with each surge, and I stayed on my yoga ball because I simply did not want to move. Another contraction came and I was yelling and screaming through it. My mom called her midwife friend again and asked if she would come help because this was moving so much faster than we ever could have imagined! My mom was hurrying to get plastic on the bed and sheets overtop. I told her to put some towels in the dryer to get them warm, too.
As she was scrambling to get all of these things ready, and my dad finally got the birth pool inflated, my water broke on the birth ball. I remember yelling during that contraction "MY WATER BROOOOKE!" and my mom helped me get onto hands and knees on my bed as the next contraction and FER (fetal ejection reflex) kicked in and I pushed my baby's head out. I reached back to feel her head and try to figure out how I was going to catch my baby. "Yep! That's her head!" my mom said. "I know, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to catch her," I contemplated aloud. It wasn't going to happen. "Go ahead and push," my mom said, to which I responded, "I'm waiting for the next contraction - she's okay." The next contraction came and four things happened at once: the midwife was walking through my front door (our ring camera caught it and that is the only reason we know time of birth LOL), my baby's body came shooting out and my mom caught her namesake while she squealed excitedly, my dad stopped in his tracks in my living room just as he was about to start filling the birth pool, and my husband had just left the hotel with his carpool buddy and was still three hours away. What an experience! The midwife walked into my bedroom at 7:35am (just two and a half hours after labor had started) as my mom held my daughter. My mom turned her head to see her and with relief she said "I'm so glad you're here!"
I got turned over so I could lean back and hold my daughter as the midwife friend checked me for tearing and did a quick once over of my daughter's breathing. Everything was perfect! I had a small tear but nothing concerning, and my baby girl started pinking up pretty quickly. After a few minutes of cuddles and complete shock, my mom said "do you want to try nursing her?" because my placenta had not yet come. My sister called my mom asking if we would like some coffee as she was about to head over, and she asked how it was going. "Well, we have a baby," my mom said still in total shock. "WHAT?! Already?!" my sister said in disbelief. She walked in shortly after and I directed her to my camera so she could take some after birth photos at least. My other sister came and we had the midwife take some blood from the umbilical cord so we could test my baby's blood type, then she left shortly afterwards as I felt confident we had it from there. My older sister took charge of testing the blood with the Eldon Card as it is right up her alley as a biology major.
My prenatal care midwife gave me a call just to check on me and I let her know how perfectly it all went but my placenta still hadn't come and it had been almost three hours (still no husband at this time because once he made it to his car an hour away, it broke down twenty minutes from home and my dad had to go get him... LOL). My midwife said "oh, we gotta get that thing out of there! Try standing up, squatting, and coughing. Shoot me a text when you get it out!" So I got up, squatted, and I tried coughing. My body would not physically let me cough! I got on hands and knees and we tried tugging and I asked for it to stop because it was so uncomfortable (not painful, but uncomfortable). My husband walked through the door as I was on the floor with my sisters and mother surrounding me trying to get the placenta out. It was a sight to be seen!
Finally we decided to go ahead and cut the cord at this point since it had been over three hours, and I waddled my way to the bathroom to try to pee (sometimes a full bladder can inhibit a placenta from coming). I emptied my bladder as much as I could, but the placenta still would not come. I had my husband get me the Angelica Tincture (used for a slow-to-come placenta) mixed in water and that did not work either. I later found out he did not give me the correct dosage. It calls for droppers full, and he read drops — oops! My mom texted my midwife and she recommended putting peppermint oil in the toilet. A couple of drops in the toilet and a bowl floating on top to catch the placenta, a slight tug, and out plopped my placenta! And what a relief it was! I got in the shower to get myself clean and felt my bladder release so. much. urine. No wonder my placenta was slow to come!
After I got myself all clean and dressed, my dad had just gotten back with lunch and we all sat around our living room and ate a family meal together as I held my newborn baby and ate my delicious soul food, and then we all played a few rounds of Rummikub. My after pains were definitely more intense than my first, but my gosh did I feel good! My recovery was so amazing that I actually went to church two days later and I felt totally energized and happy to show off my newest little bundle.
Postpartum
As I said, my postpartum was truly a breeze. I still had some SPD pain so I continued to go to the chiropractor after my bleeding stopped a couple weeks later. My husband could not stop talking about how much he loved not having to be at the hospital, or having to worry about going anywhere. He was sad that he missed the birth, but after hearing all about it he could not believe how incredible the entire experience had been. He is now 100% on board for all future babies being born wild and free at home.
Follow along for more birth stories, both of my own and of my clients. Next up on the blog will be some information on tinctures, herbs, essential oils, and other useful birth supplies for your home birth (assisted or unassisted), and I will share my ultimate free birth checklist.
Much love,
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