OK, I have to be honest. Writing this is hard for me. For some reason, I don’t want to write it. Like I’m dreading it? I think there are just too many things about it to write down so I know it’ll take me forever…? I have no idea. But here’s my attempt. I definitely want it documented. I have…
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Hospital Trauma and Healing at Home: A Story of Two Births (Part II)
Pregnancy and/or Parenting Through Adoption/Infertility/Loss blogger Sarah Robertson-Barnes shared the story of her first birth yesterday – a hospital birth which left her feeling guilty, dehumanized, and depressed and which she chronicled on her blog, Little Chicken Nuggets. Today, she shares the victorious, redemptive experience of her second birth, midwife-attended and completed at home. You can read the first part of her…
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5 Hour Home Birth
{Editors Note: This story comes to us from Elizabeth. I have to say that I really connect to the start of the story – my own labor started after a long walk around IKEA!} Our first daughter, Penelope, was born in 2010 in the hospital – natural and with no intervention. I knew that for our next birth, I didn’t…
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Logan’s Birth Story {Med-Free Hospital Birth}
My husband and I had been through two early pregnancy losses before we found out I was expecting again. The early days of my pregnancy were full of fear and living with Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which meant weeks of endless nausea, vomiting, dehydration, IV treatments and needle pokes from a Zofran pump. Around 16 weeks that subsided, and at 20 weeks…
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Sticking Up for Myself and My Birth
I went to get induced on the 12th of July 2011, I was getting regular contractions but they weren’t painful. I was in pre-labour. They decided to insert the first lot of gel, I was fine with that and went for walks around the hospital. Then, while walking my hind waters broke, so the nurses/midwives checked to see if they…
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Plus Size Mama, Natural Hospital Birth!
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” – Rajneesh On January 4th 2010, my husband, Chris, and I found out we were expecting our first child and thus began our almost year-long journey of becoming parents. We read pregnancy…
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The Birth of Archer {Fast, Intense, and Beautiful}
38 weeks, 4 days 5:53am Wake up from a few hours sleep. POP. Gush. There goes my water. “Honey, throw me a towel, my water is breaking…HONEY, WAKE UP…throw me a towel. No, under my bum, not on my stomach. My water broke.” 5:55am BAM. Contraction. Okay, time to get up. That was strong. David is awake now, and this…
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A Home Birth on Father’s Day 2013
Father’s Day For my Father’s Day, I was given the gift of a fourth girl. At home. Part of that gift was being the first person she looked at and providing the hands that caught her and gave her to her mother. Father’s Day 2013 will be one that I always remember. Even though Delaney is our fourth child, she…
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Home Breech Birth 2003
Well, this photo is of my planned breech home birth in 2003. My little girl is still very cautious and likes to “test the waters” before jumping into anything. I was 38 weeks when my midwife discovered a little head under my ribs. I did all the visualizations, yoga inversion poses, wore bells low down, etc. to get her to…