I want to preface this personal blog with this. I do not think any woman’s way of birthing her baby or what preferences she has for her birth are any less important or empowering than my own. I truly feel that women giving birth, whether it be a homebirth, a hospital birth, unmedicated, medicated, with an epidural, or having a surgical birth, deserve to feel capable, empowered, strong, proud and supported.
Wow… that felt a little intense reading it back to myself, but that is how I really feel!
Let’s begin now shall we?
In this blog I want to tell the story of how I went from being a hospital labor and delivery nurse, seeing my future self having a hospital birth just like the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of patients I cared for, to wanting a birth experience completely out of the hospital. I want to share this story because I know any mama considering an out of hospital birth will resonate with my journey to a homebirth. Maybe through telling my story I can help another mama feel confident about the decision she has made about her birthplace.
If you know a mama trying to decide on her birthplace or who is considering a homebirth, please share this blog post with her and have her reach out to me! This means so much!
I’ll start with a little bit about my background as a nurse and where I gained my knowledge of birth. As a new nurse, I was trained in the hospital to work in labor and delivery. It’s where I knew I wanted to get my first job right out of college and I am so glad I made it happen! In a mainstream city hospital, I saw many births over the 3 years I worked there. I saw a wide range of birth experiences with my patients. Births which I hoped to achieve for myself in the future and births that I wanted to do everything I could to prevent from happening to myself in the future. I guess you could look at it like that experience taught me [mostly] what I didn’t want for my birth. It also taught me what it was like to be a part of a medically managed birth process. Most of my time in L&D was spent medically managing births, performing countless interventions and seeing less of the naturally progressing and low intervention births.
My training and exposure had defined birth as a medical complication waiting to happen. Often that’s what I would hear from everyone around me as well when I told them I was considering a homebirth. People all around me were conditioned to feel that birth is a complication waiting to happen. They would tell me, “What if something goes wrong and you’re not in the hospital?”
Nonetheless, I was taught most of what there was to know about the process of birth (or so I thought).
In the couple years after working in L&D, I spent some time working in other areas of the hospital before becoming pregnant for the first time. It was during this time that I often reflected on my experiences of birth caring for others and I continued educating myself about birth through many books and online resources. Little did I know at that time, I would become so passionate about passing my knowledge onto other mamas!
When the time came that my husband and I wanted to try to get pregnant, I began thinking about the type of birth I wanted. I learned through my career as a nurse in L&D what birth would most likely look like for me if I did not thoroughly prepare myself for a different experience. I needed to figure out what type of provider I wanted and what type of birth facility would best support my type of birth? Based on my decided birth philosophy, I knew that a hospital setting was not going to be the best setting to support the type of birth I wanted and that a homebirth would be. That is when I made the decision to do a home birth for my 1st baby.
Long story short I ended up having a hospital birth. I was seeing a great homebirth midwife up until I was about 32 weeks pregnant. At this time my husband and I were renovating our home and not even living in it yet (we were living with my parents). When my pregnancy was nearing the end we realized the house would most likely not be done in time for us to have the birth there. For my own peace of mind, I made the decision to transfer care to a group of providers who [I felt] supported natural childbirth in the hospital setting. You can read my 1st birth story here. I ended up having an unmedicated birth and a great hands off experience with my 1st baby in the hospital setting. I strongly feel that the reason for that is because of the birth preparation I completed and the birth team I selected as well as the specific hospital I chose for my birth.
Fast forward about a year and a half, we found out we were pregnant with our second baby. I knew right away I wanted to have a homebirth this time. When I envisioned my birth throughout my 2nd pregnancy I saw myself experiencing the true wisdom and power that labor and birth had to offer me and what that meant to me was birthing at home naturally. And we were now living in our new home. The barrier that was present going into our 1st birth was no longer in the way for our 2nd birth. At last, I could have a homebirth in my own home.
I knew I wanted so badly to experience having my baby born to me in my own home, with only loving people around me that I personally know, without the temptation of an epidural, without lurking medical devices and with more freedom. So I did it. I chose home birth. I wanted to be true to myself and my birth philosophy and take responsibility for my birth choices. It felt right for me.
This may not be the case for other mamas, but I can with absolute certainty say for myself that how I give birth affects how I feel as a woman. This is why I am so passionate about my birth preparation because I know that if I have done the best I could to prepare for the birth I know I wanted to have, then I would be fulfilled as a woman and mother bringing my baby into the world no matter the outcome of my birth experience. I would rest in confidence knowing I did everything I could to give myself the best chance at achieving the birth that I felt would fulfill my heart and identity.
I believe that informed women fear less and mothers who participate in their labor and the decisions that accompany the process, experience more satisfying births. I knew I needed to prepare myself as best as I could. My whole experience of preparing for my home birth researching getting ready emotionally and physically made me completely empowered prior to my birth experience at home.
With that being said, I knew that as long as I participated in all of the decision making during my labor process at home, I would feel satisfied with my experience even if I ended up transferring to the hospital.
My hope for all mamas is that we can look back on our experience in a positive light and feel empowered and know down to our core that we birthed with strength no matter how our story is written. No woman’s birth story is any less powerful or displays any less strength & courage than another’s.
Take care mamas! Go out and make choices true to YOU! Choices that make you feel excited and involved and empowered throughout your pregnancy and birth!
