Minnie's Home Birth

​Each of my girls’ births I have written out a birth story. I thought about not writing this one since Minnies birth was at home and I know it’s out of the normal. But what is right for one mom might not be right or feel right to the next and that’s ok. What matters is mothers get the chance to birth the way they want.  

Now more than ever women might be re-thinking home birth and wondering if the hospital is the safest option for them. Wondering what the actual evidence is, the risks, heres some information for my pregnant mommas out there 
click each link below to read or listen to more evidence based facts.
Sure...Home birth isn’t for everyone, hospital birth isn’t for everyone...what is right for you might not feel right to the next. But let’s do our research and then let mom make her own choices. 
https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/…/home-births-as-safe-as-hos…/
https://www.wnpr.org/…/women-america-are-dying-childbirth-a…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/opinion/home-births.html
https://www.who.int/…/qual…/midwifery/case-for-midwifery/en/
https://www.acog.org/…/Committee-on-Obs…/Planned-Home-Birth…
https://evidencebasedbirth.com/what-is-home-birth/
https://www.whynothome.com/home-birth-data
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2742137/
https://www.ctvnews.ca/…/home-births-as-safe-as-hospital-bi…
https://www.thelancet.com/…/PIIS2589-5370(19)3014…/fulltext…
https://www.thespec.com/…/9540703-mcmaster-university-led…/…
Planned home birth with a certified midwife 
vs.
A planned hospital birth with a midwife 
vs.
A planned hospital birth with a physician/OB
In the category of planned home birth with a midwife in attendance we had the:
- Lowest amount of perinatal deaths
- Lowest mortality rate over all
- Lowest adverse maternal outcomes such as: Post Partum Hemorrhage and 3rd & 4th degree tears
- Lowest rates of infection
- Lowest amount of intervention needed
- Lowest chance of pyrexia (fever)
- Lowest chance of birth trauma for both mom and baby
- Lowest cesarean rate
- Lowest need for resuscitation 
- Lowest need for oxygen in their first 24 hours of life
- Highest maternal satisfaction
Here are a few other articles/studies 👇
Planned home birth: benefits, risks, and opportunities
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399594/
Planned hospital birth versus planned home birth
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4238062/
New studies confirm safety of home birth with midwives https://mana.org/blog/home-birth-safety-outcomes
Dueling Statistics: Is Out-of-Hospital Birth Safe?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4944459/


Here's our birth story. 

Actually once one person found out my plans were to birth at home the news spread like wood fire. I’m pretty sure everyone knows by now lol. At first I kept a low profile with my choice. Only 1% of women choose home birth today. I didn't choose home birth because Im crazy, because it just looked beautiful(don’t get me wrong, it is), or because of any other two unlogical idea. I didn’t wake up one day and think I’ll just stay home. It took years of research to uncover the understanding of home birth and how it was a good option for me as a low risk pregnancy + two prior risk free births under my belt. Every piece of facts I under-covered lead me closer to home birth being my best option for how I wanted to birth.  Which now that I birthed I’m cool with people knowing because I no longer have to worry about bringing the negative vibes into my birth. Plus I’m all about educating families about their birth options. 

Minnie’s birth started like my others by losing my mucus plug the morning before my birthing time started. I dropped Georgie off at preschool, came home, sat in my driveway as I had a light surge, and then went in to the bathroom to discover a bit of my plug. Excited but tried to not get my hopes up. I mean I was at 41weeks and 5days so I was going to be pregnant forever at this point, right?? 


Throughout the day I had those same “practice waves” that I had been having for probably the last 3-5months of pregnancy. So nothing new, I was bound to be pregnant for life. Lol!!

Around 5pm I started to question if maybe these practice waves were in fact the real deal. Now one of the surges seemed to be working all the way to my cervix. I messaged my birth team (midwife and birth photographer) that this could/might be real and might just be my body practicing. I just wasn’t sure.

7pm I started realized these are real. I am going to give birth to my baby. Tonight. I became so oddly nervous. It’s hard to explain because for years I had practiced and in fact had erased my fears around birth. Not once did I get nervous this pregnancy for my birthing day. Yet here I was with these not so strong surges and already starting to question myself, my strength, and choice of location. My only fear ...could I handle all my bodies power without drugs?! 

Don’t know why but I was on the edge of a breakdown and these surges weren’t even strong! I needed my birth team to tell me this is normal, your good, everything is fine and normal. At this point Georgie came in the room and gave me a much needed hug! I hugged her so tight and cried tears of happiness. In that moment I remembered her birth, how strong I was, how beautiful everything was, how much I loved her then, now, and always. As I held Georgie’s hand through the next few surges I felt so much more peaceful. She was the doula I didn’t know I would need. We sat at the edge of my bed and me on my birth ball just rocking through each surge as Georgie held my hand and gave me drinks of water after each new surge.

About 8:30pm my birth photographer, Tiffany, made it to our home. Another key to support that I much needed to reassure me I could do this and I was already doing this! I decide the jet tub would be nice to get into. I sat in my jet tub in my amazingly just finished bathroom surrounded my candles and just sang my baby songs between each surge. It was so peaceful!!! Singing helped me chill the crap out and take my mind back to the place and peacefulness that me and baby needed. Georgie also came in to put her hands on my shoulders and make sure mommy was getting water to drink. 

 It wasn’t long and my Midwife had made it over around 9:30pm. She again reassured me everyone gets nervous as they try something new and all was well. She checked in on baby’s heart rate, perfect. And my blood pressure, perfect. Then she went to set up everything for birth as I continued to rock, sway, and sing to my baby in the tub.

At some point in there (In birth you have no concept of time) I decided the tub was getting a bit hot so I’d get out and cool down for a bit. Brice came in the bathroom and I told him to shut the door I had some pooping to do and didn’t want anyone coming in. Lol!!! Yep your body naturally clears itself out. Anywhos....little did I know I got up and opened the door to my bedroom and my whole birth team was just sitting there quietly. Birth ninjas. Seriously they are so behind the scenes doing all kinds of things you wouldn’t even know. I rocked on my birth ball some more working baby down. 

I soon realize pirates life was the life for me. And by that I mean I needed to get back into my water. From there timing gets more hazy as I felt my surges become stronger. My midwife came in, had me recline in the tub so she could reach baby’s heart tones(baby was deep in my pelvis).  Again perfect. 

The surges were definitely taking all my concentration now and it wasn’t long before my surges started to become back to back with little rest between. Lots of power and strength swept through my body. That’s when I remembered my number one tool at Lollies birth. Horse lips. Horse lips would be my savior as I did horse lips I would sway my legs back-and-forth back-and-forth in the water and picturing myself rowing a little boat down the gigantic rocky sea trying to make it to shore. And with every new surge I would again do horse lips and rock back-and-forth back-and-forth until the peak of the wave reached which became the strongest then I would moan so I could reach over the top of that wave, ride it to the bottom, and get closer to that shore. 

Birth is all about state of mind and working with your body, surrendering and just going along with it. No fear just working along with your powerful body. By this point my midwife could hear in my tones things were close. Real. Close. My body was starting to feel a bit pushy. Again she checked heart rates. Perfect. 

I knew I’d be most comfortable pushing in my bed so out of the tub I went. As soon as I reached the bed I leaned over, with my hands on the bed, rocked my hips in circles, felt small pushes, and noticed some bloody mucus drop out. This is it I thought, I am going to have my baby, it’s pushing time. I rocked through many strong pushing waves standing at the edge of my bed. Brice said it was probably 20mins of me standing at the edge, rocking my hips. Oh this was a cool odd sensation, with every rock of my hips I could feel them clicking and opening as baby dropped down further. I tried to lie down on the bed. Nope, I can’t birth lying down like my cat. I need to be able to move my hips. So I stood back up. A few more pushing surges I worked through then I realized I need up on this bed. I grabbed my birth ball, put it onto the bed, got on my knees and rested my head on that ball. A split second of me thought, I don’t want my butt pointing at everyone. Ha! But then a surge hit and I knew this is what I needed. Some of the surges felt pretty dang good. Then they became work. Hard work. I never felt so much sweat drip from my head. Like someone was pouring a cup of water down my head lol. Just then I felt more pressure and I knew her head would soon come out.

 I felt her head come down during the next surge then back up a little bit after surge ended. Not much longer now. Next surge her head merged. But man it was a weird shape, it was big, and it was just sitting there not coming out. I thought what is this hanging out of me.l?!! As I reached down and felt I discovered she was still in her bag of waters!! Unreal, so cool. I said “your crazy baby!” It took a couple more surges to work her head out and at some point her waters broke. My midwife told me to sit into my surge which helped me birth the rest of Minnie out. I jumped away at the last push and Minnie gently slid onto the bed. There my baby was. I looked in awe for a split second, picked her up, and cried. She was here. We did it. 

I almost forgot again to look and see if she was a boy or girl. I pulled back the blanket to see. A beautiful girl. Georgie had been waiting in the hall with my mom. I guess she had kept saying “I need to go help my mommy” And then watching YouTube videos in between surges. I kind of thought it would be cool to have her in for the pushing but during thought probably too much of a distraction for me. She did come in after Minnie’s birth. Got to watch the placenta be born. “That’s the placenta” she said. She was very much in awe and didn’t feel like cutting the cord. Didn’t want her Daddy to do it either lol.  So my mom did. Then all us women sat around in amazement about birth and shared our stories for the next couple hours as I nursed my newest princess. 

Ginger, my midwife, was the absolute best piece of my puzzle. She made sure my birth wishes were met and not once did I have to change my positions during birth for an unneeded pelvic exam. Not even 36weeks leading up to my birthing time did I get checked. Because it tells us nothing ( https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-prenatal-checks/ ) I got to catch my own baby. I didn’t have to lie in a bed on back every hour for 40mins ( https://evidencebasedbirth.com/fetal-monitoring/) No one wiped off my baby but me.  ( https://www.mamanatural.com/vernix/ )    I didn’t have to have a IV in my arm (  https://evidencebasedbirth.com/the-saline-lock-during-labor/ ) My entire birth team I had I had known months before hand. If I wanted to eat, I ate  ( https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-eating-drinking-labor/  )I didn’t feel like I had to ask permission for anything...I danced what I felt. I didn’t have to drive 45mins to my team they came to me. No one put me into a wheel chair. I walked to the bathroom after birth and went potty. No told me what position to birth in, one yelled at me to push, hold my breathe to push. No one cut me open, baby came out without hands pulling on her, and result ...zero tears ( https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-birthing-positions/  ) My provider stayed with me 3 hours postpartum to make sure everyone was happy and healthy. No one took my baby right after she was born to weigh and measure, instead I nursed and admired her with zero interruptions. APGAR scores were checked while baby lie on my chest and nursed. I didn’t have to tell anyone to not cut baby’s cord too soon ( https://m.acog.org/Clinical-Guidance-and-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Obstetric-Practice/Delayed-Umbilical-Cord-Clamping-After-Birth )  I didn’t have to have a birth plan in hand or explain my wishes because my birth team already knew. Of course you could say no to any and all of these things in a hospital setting, but I didn’t have to worry about that. 

Photos by T.Marie Photography