Although he was born on Friday, Benno’s birth story starts on Monday of that week. Ok, wait. That’s not true. His birth story, or at least my journey to it, actually started years before he was even conceived and this birth story feels incomplete without at least a little background on my journey to natural birth, and ultimately, the birth…
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The Birth of Ellis: A Planned Homebirth, Uplanned Unassisted
My son, Ellis, was born at home on the 6th of November, 2015 in our bathroom unassisted and perfectly peaceful in every way. I had a very healthy pregnancy and worked hard to prepare my body for birth and labor. I envisioned our birth daily, seeing a dark, quiet house, with just my family around me and birthing in our…
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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…
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Our Home Birth, Turned Hospital
We were having an amazing homebirth with our midwife team. I had reached 9 1/2 cm, and my body was ready to push. What we didn’t know was that Emma-Leigh had turned “sunny side up” and her head was creating a lip on my cervix that was swelling with each contraction. I swelled all the way down to 6cm, but…
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A Birth Story, with photos
This was my second baby and I knew exactly how I wanted to experience his birth. He was born at 36 weeks, when my water broke unexpectedly. He came out quickly and with little effort on my part. He was completely perfect and healthy. His big brother was there for the whole thing and I am so glad I was…
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Unassisted Home Birth
I had a very eventful, and luckily smooth, second birth and thought I could share a little picture of it. I’ve never felt as empowered as I did in this moment. My second little love decided to come a week early and fast! We had decided to do a home birth, since our previous hospital experience with our first son…
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Sweet Baby Jane: A Birth Story
Sweet baby Jane, this is how you came to be. Long before you were here, you were loved and wanted, not only by Mommy and Daddy, but by everyone in the family. I still remember when we found out I was pregnant – you were only the size of a poppy seed at the time, a tiny but very precious poppy seed. It…
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Dear Raegan, A Birth Story Letter
Dear Raegan, You are beautiful, and I love you to the ends of the earth. I had so much fear upon learning we were pregnant again. Between finances, balancing life, and figuring out how I was bringing you into the world, I was nervous. You were not planned, but you were loved from the minute we found out you existed.…
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Peregrine’s Birth Story: From Home to Hospital
An eternal 12 days after my due date, which contained both moments of patience and absolute cry-my-face-off, hormonal battiness, a complete lunar eclipse, two stretch-and-sweeps, two ultrasounds, and the looming likeliness of medical induction, it was finally starting to look like I was in labour. I had been having short, manageable contractions about 15 to 20 minutes apart for the…