After shedding so many tears, I have been stewing over whether or not to open up my heart and share my honest and reflective thoughts about Ben’s birth. One night, after reading some powerful stories about women who successfully had a VBAC or HBAC (vaginal/home birth after cesarean) I nursed my baby, and then crawled into bed weeping in my…
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Cord Clamping {Give Me All My Blood!}
The Third Stage of Labor is one that is often forgotten. This is the span of time between the birth of the baby and the expulsion of the placenta. The typical medical birth looks like this for the third stage: baby emerges, cord is clamped immediately, baby is taken by a nurse to a warmer, mother is injected with pitocin, cord…
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A Story of Loss, Determination, and Hope
I wanted to share my birth story with you mostly because I’m completely inspired by everything you do and now I feel more prepared than ever to have have my second baby once I get pregnant. {Rebecca Cox} I got pregnant at 20 with my first baby, I found out while my husband was on a mini deployment (he’s in…
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After 5 Weeks Bedrest, Baby is Born After Nurse’s Intuition
“I spent 5 long pregnant weeks in my local hospital bleeding until I hit 35weeks and 6 days. I was supposed to go home for the weekend, but a nurse refused to let me, because she had a bad feeling. Sure enough at 7.32 am the doctors had me signing forms and calling my parents and at 9.52am my daughter was…
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Powerful Labor, Gentle Cesarean, Breastfed on Operating Table
On Tuesday Sept. 25th, after two weeks of prodromal labor, I awoke just before 6 am with my bleeding and cramping. At that point, my surges became much more intense and more regular. I called the birth center, and my midwife Cathy G. was thrilled for me and told me to check in when things got more intense. That night…
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A Peaceful Surgical Birth of a Breech Baby {after switching providers at 38 1/2 weeks}
I spent my whole life dreaming about my babies. I’ve loved children since I was young, and looked forward to being a mother for as long as I can remember. When my husband Kai and I got married, I was pregnant within a month. We couldn’t have been happier about it. I didn’t exactly enjoy being pregnant as much as I thought I would…
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Baby Pees on Everyone Right After Born {Cesarean Birth of a Rainbow Baby}
Sent in by Jillian. She says, “This was the birth of my son, Avery Reed. He is my rainbow baby. I had attempted a VBAC but decided to get a repeat c-section after a bad reaction to an epidural that left me weak and feeling pretty sick. It was a difficult delivery, and a long hospital stay after, but it…
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Watching an Induction Turn to a Cesarean
Mom seeing her beautiful girl for the first time after a scary c-section. The birth story that follows is from the perspective of the photographer. This was my first time attending a birth as a birth photographer. It was Mom’s first baby and she was being induced 3 weeks early due to a condition called cholestasis and her plan was to…
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Congenital Anemia, Three Days in Labour, and a Hospital Cesarean.
I was high risk my whole pregnancy. My doctor never thought I would make it to full term. After four blood transfusions throughout my pregnancy for severe congenital spherocytosis anemia, some bed rest, and hospital monitoring twice a week to make sure my fluids were okay, we made it to 40 weeks! I was induced Monday September 10, 2012, since my anemia was…