Around 10:30pm April 24th, 4 days before my due date, I was getting off the phone with my mother. The conversation was a lot of “I’m going to go over due” & “Nothings happening this baby will never come out”. I had been sitting at 4cm & 80% effaced with a bulging bag of waters for weeks, but I knew that…
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Military Base Homebirth
My husband and I have been married 6 and a half years and he is active duty Air Force. We had our home birth in base housing here in North Dakota. As I lay here in bed on Father’s day, with my son wrapped tightly beside me and Aaron catching up on some sleep he’s missed in the past few…
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Difficult Pregnancy and Traumatic Birth {Hyperemesis Gravidarum, Gestational Diabetes, Cholestasis And Induction}
My pregnancy and birth were by no means ideal or what I had planned. But sometimes its more important to hear about the births that didn’t go to plan than the ones that did. If my experiences can help just one person then my story is worth sharing. – Johanna Ever since I was a little girl I have been…
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Fast Labour and Birth Center Waterbirth {Awesome Tattoos}
My first daughter was something of a miracle. She was born 9 weeks early in your typical hospital setting. My water was leaking one morning so my husband and I went to the hospital. By that afternoon it completely broke on its own and my 3lb 8oz baby was born that night. From the first contraction to delivery, was about…
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Why Don’t You Write Your Birth Story? (Follow-up to Why Should I Write My Birth Story?)
About a month ago, I wrote a post about a topic near and dear to me: birth stories and the women who write them. I shared the words of BWF mamas who had written to me about some of the benefits of and their motivations for writing their stories. All so beautiful and insightful. These were women who had reached…
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Calm Water Birth {Every Little Thing Is Going To Be Alright}
According to my dates and cycle tracking my “due” date was August 27th, but I knew that I would go past that date. I had my heart set on a September baby this time, with good logic… “If their birthdays will only be about 2 weeks apart, then I want them to at least have their own months.” So as…
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A Much-Desired VBAC with a Supportive ObGyn
The stories of my children’s births are both my worst and best day ever. My son was born February 26, 2011. I had wanted a natural childbirth, unfortunately that did not come close to what I got. I was called by my midwife on the 23rd, stating that she had concerns regarding some of my blood work and said that…
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Birth of Twins {Baby B-Birth in OR before CS}
A few days after finding out I was having twins, I began mourning the loss of my birth experience. Dramatic? Probably. But as a Doula and at the time, prospective, Childbirth Educator, and someone who’s frankly quite terrified of needles, I knew that medication, needles, scalpels and augmentation were not for me. Coming to terms with the possibility that my…
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A Bathroom Hospital Birth with 2 Doulas and a Midwife
I woke up around 3:00AM on April 29th with an achy feeling and saw that daughter Mia had wandered into my room and was staring at me. I like to think that somehow she knew today would be the day; that kids know these things. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up, made myself a red raspberry…