A timeline of a nearly 40-hour preterm Vaginal Birth After a Cesarean
My water breaks while we’re discussing what to cook for dinner (roasted chicken and potatoes!). I call the midwife on-call and tell her what happened and she is pretty convinced that my water did actually break. She tells me to come on in to labor and delivery where they can evaluate me to see if I can hold baby in a little longer or if this is a true water break.
From water to bed: our water-turned-hospital birth story
A sob escaped before the tears had a chance to start flowing in reaction to what my midwife was telling me. My wife, Kate, held my right hand and the nurse held my left while my midwife gave my leg a sympathetic squeeze. I cried bitter tears, agonizing over the hard work I’d done the past 26 hours — intense, induced, pain-med-free labor. As they streamed down my hot cheeks and onto the cool bed sheets, so fell my hopes for The Perfect Birth.
Pushba had her baby!
Because how could I not report the birth of my favorite Russian mama’s second child?! From what I can tell from Google Translator, Pushba gave birth last week to a health boy named Elisey via emergency c-section.
Why we switched to a midwife 32 weeks into our pregnancy
My decision to switch to this midwife group turned out to be so essential to the beautiful success of my birth not because I got the unmedicalized birth, but because I ended up with a medicalized one.
Lessons from a home birth turned hospital birth
My experience at the hospital changed me. I was so judgmental of that way of birthing beforehand, so sure that my way was better. But my hospital birth has made me less judgmental. Not just about birth, but about everything.
My thanksgiving birth story
Somewhere around my 26th week of pregnancy, our midwife Heike taught us how to find the baby’s head in my belly. “It’s called ballottement,” she explained. His head was just under the right side of my ribcage, meaning he was breech. “Don’t worry about it,” my midwife said. “Most babies are breech in the second trimester. He’ll flip.”
A transcendental cesarean birth story
Denise’s birth was one that enabled her to transcend the immediate pain and uncertainty and find a place from which she could gather strength for her unplanned cesarean section delivery.
Empowered by a caesarian birth
Caesarians are not always celebrated in the Offbeat world, but they are a very real part of the labor & delivery process many women experience. Gillie’s birth story teaches us that, with the right team and encouragement, a caesarian can be every bit as empowering as any other kind of birth.