Jun 3, 2013 | Fear, Home birth, Midwife Attended, Pain, Partner Attended, Planned Pregnancy, Vaginal Birth, Waterbirth
This is going to be outrageously long, sorry. However, the reason for me writing it down is to remember all the little details that I probably would not be able to recall years down the road. Deciding to have a natural, un-medicated birth at home began with not having...
May 7, 2013 | Breast feeding, Cesarean birth, Epidural, Long Labor, Pain, Pitocin
On Thursday April 18 at 8 am I had an appointment at my maternity clinic to check my blood pressure. I was feeling very uncomfortable and swollen, but when I woke that day my feet were so big I couldn’t even shove my shoes on! Austin sat me down, undid and...
May 6, 2013 | Breech, Fear, Pain
BIRTH Novus 1972 plays on a loop through the long march of hours in the darkened birthing room. Do I move you? Is it thrilling? Do I groove you? Are you willing? I am mouthing these familiar lyrics, swaying through the tightenings I take standing up, the corset of...
Apr 26, 2013 | Cesarean birth, Doula Attended, Epidural, Hospital Birth, Long Labor, Pain
I have two daughters, so have two stories, but they are so integrally related and my first story defines my second and my second defines my first so importantly that they have become one story. Annabel Wren was born June 23, 2007 and Emaline Iris was born 4 years...
Jun 24, 2011 | Afterpains, Doula Attended, Epidural, First Birth, Hospital Birth, Overdue, Pain, Partner Attended, Pitocin, Vaginal Birth
February 5, 2010, at 4pm, I sat on the end of my postpartum-room bed, cradling my hatted, swaddled, 8-hour-old baby, framed by a window filled with white light as the first flakes of twin record-breaking, city-paralyzing blizzards began twirling down the sky. February...
Jun 24, 2011 | Fear, Home birth, Midwife Attended, Pain, Partner Attended, Second birth, Vaginal Birth
Selena’s Birth Story This was baby #2. Birth #2. Frankly, I missed the bliss of the well-educated ignorance I enjoyed with birth #1. This time I knew what was coming. For exactly 40 weeks and nine days I knew what was coming: I had to push this baby out. But first, I...
