The Birth of Luna Pearl: A VBAC Story from Home to Hospital

For three years I’ve wanted to send in the birth story from my first daughter, born in 2012. She was a planned homebirth, with a transfer to hospital for a cesarean section. She was posterior and asynclitic, and super stuck. I planned my second homebirth this past summer. This time a VBAC and I never felt more ready. I love birth, believe in every bit of birth and had the support of a strong, confident, loving midwife. I let go of so many things this time. Well, my water broke on July first and I never went into labor on my own. After every induction trick in the book and close monitoring by my homebirth midwife, at 56 hours post water breaking, we chose to go to the hospital for Pitocin. The hospital staff was amazing and respectful every step of the way, welcoming my husband and I, and my midwife without judgement.

I received the maximum amount of Pitocin for 11 hours and didn’t feel ANYTHING, zero pain. The morning of the 4th of July, I finally felt a contraction and my daughter was born two hours later. During labor there were absolutely no signs of distress for either of us and I gave birth to her on the birth stool in peace with my midwife, husband, sister, and best friend.

Everything felt so right. Every push was relief and I did exactly what my body told me to do. After my previous Cesarean and the torture and uncertainty of being patient with broken waters, I was finally having the experience where I could be in awe of our amazing bodies! I was able to pull my daughter up myself in a room full of happy tears.

Pretty quickly we realized she was non-responsive and as floppy as could be. She was intubated and taken to the NICU for five days, where she was on a cooling mat for three days and then received an MRI and formal EEG. The belief is, that in the last moments when her head was born, she was somehow oxygen deprived, perhaps a compressed cord. The MRI of her brain and EEG came back perfectly normal, and she is six months old today, and as beautiful and happy as can be. I wanted to believe so badly that I was the woman that could squat in a field, alone somewhere, and birth my little miracle.

For some reason, that has not been my story. I still believe so much in everything: home birth and the power of our bodies.  All though I wasn’t at home and it was absolutely nothing that I planned, I had that powerful labor and birth experience with my little moon baby this summer. There are days that I can’t help but feel resentment – Why did she come out not breathing? Especially when I hear other birth stories and there are many obvious signs of distress, long and drawn out in a rough labor, and the baby comes out kicking and screaming… Now that we can look back on her birth day, while holding a healthy, resilient little one, I’m still trying to figure out a way to disconnect the wonderful, powerful, redeeming qualities of my experience, from the terrifying experience at the very end. I’ll let you know when I gain a deeper understanding. Maybe some other mamas out there have some words of wisdom for me. For now, I would Love to share with you the beautiful photos my photographer caught and the amazing slideshow she created. I am proud of these, because I didn’t get to feel the experience of truly pushing my first daughter down and out. This time, it was so strong and real and powerful. The song “Keep Breathing” is perfect in so many ways, from beginning to end.

Thank you so much for this blog it has been my absolute go-to and number one recommendation to my mama friends for four years.

Photography done by Paige Driscoll from Santa Cruz Birth Photography. Please enjoy the video they created below: