Pregnancy and Birth

Why I chose an unassisted birth: My Pregnancy Story.

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For my 3rd baby, my husband and I chose to have a natural, unassisted, homebirth with no doctor or midwife present. This was an intentional choice that took months to decide. Today I want to tell you my pregnancy story and how we came to the decision of having an unassisted homebirth.

It’s not for everyone and we certainly don’t tell anyone they SHOULD do this too. We just want to tell you our experience in case it’s helpful in some way.

 

 

 

 

The story actually starts in the previous pregnancy when I was preparing for my 1st homebirth WITH a midwife.

 

40 weeks pregnant with 2nd baby

We lived somewhere else and I had a wonderful midwife! I was so lucky to have her. She was very hands off and completely

jived with my “birth-giving personality”.

 

I loved how she helped me prepare and supported me throughout my labor and birth.

home, water birth with 2nd baby

Now, we fast forward to almost 4 years later

pregnant with baby 3

and I’m living somewhere else and do not have access to a homebirth midwife I “Jive” with.
We originally started out with a hospital based, midwifery practice, thinking it’d be OK to go back into the hospital setting because we’re experienced with natural birth now. I went to a few midwife appointments with a very sweet midwife who unfortunately, had

so many policies or “rules”

to follow during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. I just could not accept some of these things for myself, including multiple vaginal exams during pregnancy and birth.

 

 

I felt dishonest returning to appointments knowing I was probably going to end up staying home and “accidentally” delivering myself.

So I left that practice about halfway through my pregnancy and found a homebirth midwife that took our insurance. I thought this would be the solution but something just didn’t feel right in my gut. She was a great midwife so I couldn’t figure out why I felt soooo uneasy after my appointments and when I would think about my upcoming birth. I finally really

started praying about this decision

because I had had several thoughts throughout the pregnancy thus far of “let’s just do this at home, ourselves”.

 

 

What did my husband think?

 

 

Up until about 30 weeks, my husband wasn’t comfortable with an unassisted birth. What changed his mind was this:

I met a friend, through a chance meetup for this homeschooling thing, the year before. It stuck in my mind when she mentioned she had her baby unassisted. Somehow I was able to track this sweet lady down and ask her to sit and talk with us about unassisted birth. It turned out so awesome! She invited us to her house and gave us a CLASS on unassisted birth. Turns out she’d done it with several of her kids and she even teaches other moms about it now. So we end up getting a free, very informative class that eventually changed my husbands mind. She gave us books and so much good information that really helped us feel comfortable with the idea.

 

 

So I finally left the other midwifery practice and we were decided we’d do it at home, on our own. Funny thing was, we didn’t have a house! It wasn’t until 3 weeks before my birth that we ended up buying a house and moving in! It was crazy timing but turned out perfectly.

So, we set up our supplies, prayed a lot, and went forward with our unassisted home birth of our 3rd baby.

You can read the birth story here

Unassisted Home Birth Story

or watch the live birth here.

Thanks for reading. As always, you can ask me any questions you might have in the comment section or send me a message.

Peace.

Mother to 5 kids and wife to a cute Filipino guy.