Joanna Elise Gabriella Birth Story
Our precious little girl is such a miracle! She is our sixth baby, but the first that we have been given the gift of bringing into the world and shepherding. Part of me cannot believe it has been almost a year—I had planned to do this much sooner—it has actually been written since May, but alas! ☺). However, the gift of learning the art of surrender with which Debbie and Claudia blessed me with has proved a more challenging lesson than I thought—which serves to prove how much I need to focus on embracing surrender. I am realizing that part of the reason that I could not write this until four months after her birth really had very little to do with having not watched the video all the way through (although it was enlightening—there were a few things that did not remember and that I was surprised by—namely that I was actually pretty sweet to everyone, even funny at times, that I called out to The Lord for help when I needed it most, and that I could transition so quickly to being this little one's mama—more on that later), but that I still feel I'm in the birth process.
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Jac 7/17/08 and Jake 12/15/12 Birth Stories
Back in 2007 when I found out I was pregnant with my first child, an acquaintance that lived in Florida told me all about her water births. I then did a lot of research and bought several books and decided from that point I would seek out a natural pregnancy and birth. Of course, at that point I didn't know that you weren't "allowed" to have a home birth in GA. And the OB/GYN I had at that time did not have those same feelings about even a "natural" birth. In fact, she told me her sister had a home birth and she is now estranged from her (very sad). She also proceeded to tell me a few medical fibs like the epidural doesn't get to the fetus, etc. Which was later referenced in the PDR as being completely untrue. So after that appointment, I stopped by a local herb shop and asked them about midwives. I figured they'd know about natural birth and possibly know a local midwife.
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Oliver James' Birth Story
I cannot believe it has been almost two months. My little boy, although I swear he just arrived yesterday, has now been here for two whole months. I have been trying to figure out how to start this post since the day he was born. How do you convey such a feeling? How do I explain the power of his arrival? The automatic shift in my heart and soul the moment he was put into my arms? I have NO idea. But I am going to attempt it.
And as fair warning, I won't be skipping the details. So if you are squeamish.. I don't want to hear about it.
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Noah X's Birth Story
I had been having contractions every night since 37 weeks. They would come and go, irregular, but would make me wonder "was this it??" and I would get my hopes up, only to wake up in the middle of the night to no contractions :/ Elijah (5 years old) was born at 37 weeks, and Jeremiah (3 years old) was 39 weeks, so I was SO sure I'd go early. Well, around 38.5 weeks I went into labor. I called my midwife team and my friends who were to attend the birth (this was about 10pm). Contractions were every three minutes, but not really increasing in intensity. So when the midwife got here I was at 3 cm. I labored like that until 6am...when the contractions just stopped. I was 5cm. I couldn't believe it! But I was pretty exhausted so everyone went home and I slept, believing labor would restart any second. It didn't.
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Karina Samir's Birth Story
To my beautiful daughter,
Four months later, I have finally sat down to write the story of your birth; you are a handful!
The funniest thing I will remember about your birth is the night before I went into labor with you. Daddy and I spent the previous day at the pool since it was the Fourth of July long weekend. Daddy had dove into the pool and ruptured his eardrum, but we spent the day there anyway. I did a lot of swimming and stretching to get ready for you! That night he said to me, “Please don’t go into labor tonight, my ear hurts so badly.”
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