Making Motherhood

Now this is a post that I’ve been excited to write and share about! Comparing my experiences of having an unmedicated natural hospital birth of my first daughter, Eva, and having a home birth of my second daughter, Valerie. Just thinking about all that I want to say is getting me fired up. Let me preface this by saying both of my births were positive experiences. I plan to cover the pros and cons of the hospital birth and home birth; however, I think I’ll be sticking to home birth for any future babies–Lord willing!

Hospital Birth Experience
It was our first baby. I had done the research and educated myself about all things birth. If you’re an expecting mama, check out my letter to you here. I still chose to have a hospital birth for our first go around because at the end of the day, it was going to be my first time doing this. I didn’t know how my body was going to respond to labor and I didn’t know how I was going to be able to handle it. However, I do know some mamas who chose to have a homebirth for their first baby and what a blessing that is! For myself, I still decided that I wanted a natural birth at the hospital though. I also had a pretty clear and concise birth plan written up that I provided the midwife at my OB/GYN–so let’s start there. 

I downloaded a free birth plan template from Mama Natural. Check out her blogs and book if you’re expecting! I chose to have no fetal monitoring and no IV for labor. The hospital, however, required fetal monitoring upon our arrival for about twenty minutes, then I was free from any wires and cords. As far as the IV, they required me to still get that as well, but it was tapped off at the end with no lines attached. I was a free woman! A couple other things on my birth plan included no bath for baby, no eye ointment, no shots, delayed cord clamping, and immediate skin-to-skin contact on me. I also did not want my water broken for me, or any Pitocin to speed up contractions. I’ve read so much about natural birth and how our bodies are made to do this. When you have no complications in your pregnancy and nothing is high-risk, then let me be free to birth–and that’s exactly what I did.

We got to the hospital when I was about four to five centimeters dilated, for reference. I labored at the hospital for close to four hours until I was ready to push. My body had already been in early labor and some active labor before we arrived at the hospital. The nurse that was assigned to us was a big help with the back labor I experienced. She did counter pressure pushing on my lower back through a lot of my contractions. My husband was putting cool cloths on my neck and forehead and just talking me through the pain. Because let’s be honest–you feel it all. Talk about empowerment, though! 

Then came time to push. The biggest thing for me was trying to get in a comfortable position (and honestly being in a comfortable position throughout labor too). They ended up attaching the bar rail to the hospital bed. I bared down on that while standing in a squat position. That’s what felt the most natural to me! My midwife at the hospital made sure I was fully dilated when she arrived. Not like it mattered, because when you feel that urge to push your body knows! She was also there guiding me through my pushes while five to six other nurses stood around in the room. How awkward that is looking back on it, but that’s just one of the many things with a hospital birth you have to deal with. I had my eyes closed eighty percent of the time I was in labor before everyone arrived for the pushing stage. The iridescent lights in the hospital are not soothing, nor a vibe. After about thirty minutes later of pushing, our baby arrived! Might I mention, we actually waited to find out the gender! It was an amazing surprise when my husband cried out, “It’s a girl!”

While Eva was on me, she was still attached to the placenta that I had yet to push out. Once you think it’s over, you have just one more thing to do. The nurses poke and prod your abdomen area after you push it out. They’re also checking Eva and all around you/in your face during this time. My midwife said that I had a second degree tear and needed to get stitched up, so that happened during this time as well. The amount of people that come and go and request things from you during your hospital stay once baby has arrived is obnoxious–to be extremely blunt. And that is a major difference I wanted to touch on in my hospital birth versus home birth experience. I knew this was going to be the case at the hospital before it happened, so with a direct, and somewhat polite attitude, I asked the nurses to not come in throughout the night unless we are the ones to call them. It worked for the most part, aside from getting Eva’s 12 hour old exam. Yes, they come and check on you and baby and do some things once your baby is twelve hours old, and again at twenty-four hours old (at least that’s how it was at the hospital we were at). Most hospitals also require you to stay forty-eight hours after the birth. My husband and I did not want to do that because my birth was completely fine; no complications for me or baby afterwards, so we wanted to pack up our stuff and be on our merry way the next morning. For context, I was at the hospital on Wednesday morning at 8:45am, she was born several hours later at 1:02pm, and then the next day we were (finally) discharged by 4pm. I had to keep being adamant with the nurses that we needed to see all the ‘required’ people before leaving so we could be gone. There was absolutely NO reason we needed to stay a second night in the hospital (and get billed for it too!). Get me home to my comfy bed with my husband and precious, healthy, newborn baby. 

Instead of going into too long of detail, here’s the different types of people that come into your room after baby’s born: nurses for all the things, the lactation consultant (I didn’t mind this one), the hospital pediatrician, the newborn hearing screen person, the newborn genetic testing person, the hospital photography person, the birth certificate person, the ‘do you want to do donate your placenta’ person, and I’m sure there were a few more! How’s a mom and dad supposed to get acclimated to their newborn baby that first day or two when you have all that traffic. Let me sleep, eat, cuddle/nurse my baby, and chat with my husband. The last thing I’ll mention in my hospital birth experience is that after we were discharged and at home for a day, I got a message through MyChart saying that CPS was notified because we didn’t take Eva to an appointment that the hospital set up–when we had already made our own for the following week. CPS means Child Protective Services. Why would they contact CPS because of that!? Talk about absurdity. And that my friends, is just the cherry on top of my hospital birth experience. Cue all things homebirth, please! 

Home Birth Experience
We decided to have a homebirth pretty much right away after finding out that I was pregnant again. If you haven’t checked it out yet, read Our Story here. When going the homebirth route, one typically needs to find a local midwife that will take care of any prenatal care you want along with being present for the birth. In my opinion, finding a homebirth midwife isn’t as clean cut and easy as going into an OB/GYN office and signing up with a midwife or doctor there to take care of things. It took getting the right information from a friend, and then doing my own homework by interviewing three midwives that I was recommended by. Two of the midwives did their prenatal care out of their home, while the third one uses a small office that she rents out of a chiropractic suite. For me, I wasn’t a fan of going into their homes for prenatal care just based on the interviews I had with them. I actually liked that the other midwife utilized a small office space to conduct her visits, so that is the midwife I picked to use throughout my pregnancy! I also had the best connection with her. Even though it was more work up front to get acquainted with how the homebirth stuff works, I would definitely recommend looking into your area if you even have the slightest interest in having a home birth. 

Just to touch on, the prenatal care I got was awesome: very personalized, no wait time for my appointments, actually being heard and listened to, and having choice available for what I wanted and did not want to do. Alright let’s get into my birth experience at home now…

Due date for baby girl number two was August 14th. I actually started having some contractions on and off the week before. I texted my midwife and gave her a heads up, since she needs time to get over to our house. However, it was a false alarm. Contractions subsided when I went to bed. This happened on and off over the next week, and each time I would feel one creep on I tried relaxing through it. This was very different from how I experienced contractions at the hospital birth with my natural labor. Instead of allowing the pain of the contraction and my body dilating to overcome me and be in agony…I would breathe and take a more relaxed approach as I ‘rode the wave’. This is actually what’s known as the Bradley Method is. Check out the book here if you want to get more information.

August 14th arrived and still no baby. Then, I woke up the next morning on Tuesday, August 15th with some early signs of early. The rest of my mucus plug had come out along with the bloody show. I didn’t want to get too excited that today could be the day, but spoiler alert: that’s when she arrived!

About 9:30am, I finished breakfast with Eva and we went to go play. My husband actually decided that we were going to get our new driveway installed that day, so we had an excavator out front of our house shoveling rock and dirt that amused Eva and I for a little while. I felt a little contraction here and there, but didn’t pay any mind to it. I got on FaceTime with mom at 10:45am, and I remember telling her that I’m feeling a stronger contraction happen so I need to go. Today could be the day!

11am: I’m starting to time the contractions, since it seemed they were starting to get regular. I also called my midwife and gave her a heads up that I was pretty sure I was in labor, but I didn’t think she needed to come yet. The cool thing with having a midwife is that I can tell her when to come. She could have come right then, but since this was my second rodeo, I figured there was no sense in that since I was still doing fine. Plus, I was waiting on my husband to get home!

12pm: Husband arrives home and feeds Eva lunch for me. I’m sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Biggest Loser while timing and breathing through contractions. Talk about luxury. No uncomfortable drive to the hospital and no one to tell me I can’t eat anything when I’m hungry! I grabbed a homemade blueberry muffin and some fruit and got comfy–praying for baby girl and waiting on my body to keep doing its thing.

1:40pm: Grandparents arrive and take our toddler, Eva, back home with them for the rest of the day and night. I wasn’t sure how long my labor was going to be, so we decided to have them come then since things were starting to pick up.

2:30pm: Midwife arrives. I’ve moved to lay down on my bed to get into the Bradley Method position to keep breathing through my contractions. Up until then, I had been moving around, sitting on the birth ball, leaning over the dresser, or squatting. Things were getting intense, and I needed to be in that position to really focus through my contractions. My eyes are closed, just like how I was at the hospital. I had calming music playing. My husband at my side talking me through the peak of each contraction. My midwife was setting up her gear and filling up the birth pool in our bedroom.

3:45pm: Contractions are lasting over two minutes. I think I’m in transition. It’s time to move into the pool. I get up to use the bathroom before getting into the pool and have another contraction while standing up. My midwife provides counter pressure. Ahhh, I can breathe again. In between contractions I’m at ease. I’m not tense. I’m letting my body do what it was made to do–open up and get ready for a baby to come out! Let’s go ahead and mention that my midwife never ‘checked me’ to see how far I was dilated or effaced. I never once got a cervical check by her (out of choice)–during the last prenatal visits or in labor. There wasn’t a need to get one during my labor because she could evidently see that this baby was coming. Getting into the warm, birthing pool was serene. I was actually shivering before this (probably due to me being in transition), so the water was relaxing me all over.

4pm: I have a couple more contractions in the birth pool. I’m sitting on my butt with my back to the edge of the pool and my arms resting on the edge, but I feel like I need to rotate over onto my knees. I say this out loud to my husband and midwife: “I know I need to turn over on my knees and open my legs wider, but if I do that then the next contraction is going to hurt.” Was I right or was I right? Within seconds of switching to that position, I had another contraction that sent me through the roof it felt like! I called out, I think my water’s breaking! And indeed it did. “Is the baby coming?” I asked my midwife in disbelief. She replies, “Why don’t you reach your hand down there and feel.” I put my hand under the water and reach down there. “I can feel her head!” I shout. “It feels like she has a lot of hair!” Feeling my baby crowning was another surreal moment in my home birth experience.

4:18pm: Two big pushes.

4:20pm: Valerie Yevsin was born! 

My home birth experience couldn’t have been better. I genuinely felt at peace through all of my labor–thank you Lord. What a blessing it was to be able to do that in the comfort of my home. After Valerie was born, I got out of the birth pool and took a hot shower. Then I got into bed and my midwife needed to check everything out down there. She said there was a small tear, but instead of getting stitches or surgical glue, she wanted to wait until some swelling went down and check back tomorrow. So I laid in bed and nursed my baby while my husband laid next to us. Oh, did I mention with a home birth that my midwife drives back out to us for multiple follow up appointments? That’s service, baby! She comes back at 24 hours post birth, 72 hours post birth, one week later, and three weeks later to check on me and baby. How amazing! And then I go to her for my final six week check up. All in all, the home birth experience exceeded my expectations.