The Unassisted Birth of Kaia

A few minutes after 2am, after only 4 or 5 hard contractions, I suddenly felt the urge to push. I moved to my birth chair set-up – a kid’s IKEA Poäng chair on an ottoman base, covered in towels and chux pads. It was the perfect height for me to be in a mostly standing squat but have support under my thighs and behind my lower back. I straddled the chair and had 4 or 5 pushing contractions. I held a finger touching the bulging bag of waters the whole time, feeling her move down as I pushed, then back up a little, then down more. 11 minutes later, with the last contraction and a lot of bearing down and moaning, she crowned.

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Lily's Home Birth Story

So there I was, in my bathtub, having a ferocious internal struggle. “What if this isn’t really labor?” (I’d had 2 other times that I thought were labor but they were not nearly as strong.) “I thought early labor was supposed to be more spaced out than this?” “Should I wake Ross up?” (We had just gone to bed 2 hours ago.) Finally I thought, “I can’t do this alone,” and got out of the bath to go and wake Ross.

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The Home Water Birth of Simone

On January 18th of this year, just after midnight I started feeling my first rushes. Initially, I didn't think much of them. Even though I was "overdue" I really thought I feel a few rushes, go to sleep and wake up the next day still pregnant, ready to go about my day. Part of that was true.

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The Home Birth of Ivy

At 7.06am on May 30th, her little body was born. I’ll never forget how it felt to feel her body leave mine. Pamela helped Tom catch Ivy and laid her on my chest. Tom and I just laid there and took her in. She was a little purple and it took a minute for her to cry, but she was just fine.

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The Unassisted Birth of J

Saturday night at about 10pm I again had the labour pains.They were not regular. My kids went to sleep which was perfect. As soon as I saw my youngest close his eyes…Bang. I had a strong contraction. I told my husband, “Fill the pool”

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The Home Birth of Eliseo

I reached back and felt the baby's wet bulging head. I heard Alex exclaim "There is a head!" Jen rushed over from where she had been putting her gloves on, and David was right behind her. Ema backed away to get our camera. I pushed him out in about 90 seconds, and they scrambled to put pads down underneath. I heard the baby screaming immediately, and everyone laughing and welcoming him. It was 3:06 pm.

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The Home Birth of Gretchen Fawn

So there I was, on the floor on all fours, getting so close to pushing time and I could feel it all. There was a lot of fluid happening at this point. I had long given up clothing – another perk to having a homebirth is that only the people you are comfortable around will see you in such a vulnerable state. I had kept on a sports bra and track pants for part of my labour, but by the evening I just wanted to be naked. Things were getting incredibly intense at this point. I could feel a tremendous amount of pressure and I knew I would get to push soon. I knew that I wasn’t quite at 10cm yet so I did everything in my power not to push. Eventually it got to the point where my body was pushing whether I liked it or not & through the pain I felt SO excited knowing that my little girl would be in my arms in a matter of hours.

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The Unassisted Birth of Veda-Lou Calidonia

As soon as there was warm water in the pool, I joined it. My rushes were enough to require a substantial amount of concentration at this point. Brian rushed around, boiling water on the stove, heating it in the electric tea kettle, draining the hot water heater. Checking the waters temp with a candy thermometer. While I sat in the mini ocean that would never be deep enough. Waiting. Sort of patiently. At some point I gave up conversing. Not long after that I was "singing" my way through each rush. And using every cell within me to relax in between.

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The Unassisted Birth of Dorothy Emelia

I took optimum care of myself. and continued to read and encourage myself. Throughout my pregnancy, I never saw a doctor, I became more in touch with my body, and what was going on with it, than ever before in my life. I learned to not only listen, but also speak to it.

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The Home Water Birth of Tyler Andrew

Within a few minutes, my moan involuntarily turned into a small grunt at the end of a contraction. I opened my eyes and looked up at Trish to tell her I felt my body pushing, but before I could say anything she asked, "Are you feeling pushy?" "Yes!" From then on, every contraction came out as more of a grunt than a moan. I wasn't putting any effort into it, but letting my body just do it's thing. It was so nice to be able to feel that and let it happen and not have anybody checking me and saying, "No, don't push, you're only at an (8, 9, 9 with a lip, etc) and you don't want to swell!" Just full faith and trust in the process

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The home birth of Meredith

The house was really warm and it was a beautiful night, so Heather suggested we go for a walk. She took our dog and walked quite a way behind us and told me and Kris to just relax, go slow, and pretend she wasn’t there. As we walked I could feel the contractions getting stronger and closer together. Kris and I would stop and sway together each time. Heather told me sometime around then is when I probably went into active labour.

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The home birth story of Ava

I kept saying “I did it!” I was so excited and proud of myself. The doula had him pass the baby under me so I could hold her. We had planned on having Charles catch the baby, but we had no idea I was only going to push for 2 mins before she came flying out. He cut the cord, and helped me walk back to our bedroom. They got me and Ava all snuggled in and she nursed within the hour.

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The water birth of Fiona

Meredith was fascinated by the placenta and the midwife showed her how it worked and how the cord attached to the baby (and where). About an hour after she was born they weighed and measured her. We all guessed how much she would weigh and everyone else was guessing under 7 pounds. I guessed 7lb 6oz. She ended up being 7lb 8oz so I was pretty close.

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The birth story of Guthrie

I flipped onto my hands and knees, and pushed for about 15 minutes. Man. Pushing sucks. I know some people love it, but for me, it just hurts. Oh! A funny side-note. My boys had been upstairs watching a video with my mom. Once we broke the waters, I had one of my sisters go get them, since I knew baby would be born soon. They both totally freaked out that they had to turn the video off! So, here we are in the living room, I'm push-screaming, and the boys are both having complete meltdowns, and everyone in the room is trying to calm them down, while help me out. It was quite an intense few minutes!

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The unassisted birth of Estella Lenora

My birth partner, spoon fed me the smoothie and we laughed and talked. She cleaned up the futon and mopped the hallway where I had dripped some blood when opening the door. My birth partner had me take some cramping tincture that tasted like ground up grasshoppers. Seriously, it was worse than eating placenta raw I’m sure! But it does the trick.

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The home water birth of Jye

I quickly pulled back and scooped my boy up into my arms and sat back in the pool. He was still quite blue and unresponsive, so we did a lot of talking and stroking to get him to respond. At this point my midwife stated that she would need to give him a few puffs of air with the bag – she was quick and 2 minutes after he was born he finally gave a cry and opened his eyes to see what his mummy and daddy looked like.

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The water birth story of Annika

It all began on Friday, Feb.20, 2009. I had woken up early that morning, and mozied on down to the acupuncturist on the first floor of our building. I could feel that something was up, during the acupuncture, because whenever the practitioner turned the pin in my hand, the pins in my belly would start randomly quivering like crazy.

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