My daughter looked right up at our midwife at our 6 1/2 week checkup. She also cooed for the first time. I think she actually remembered her voice. It was so precious.

 

After my relationship with a local OB who was known to allow women to labor naturally as long as possible went sour because of my fear, we decided to have a natural birth at home, partly at the recommendation of my Bradley teacher. I did not feel confident about this at all. My husband thought it was a good idea since we were learning all the reasons having a natural birth was so beneficial to the mamma and baby. I had had the ideal Bradley birth 24 years before with my son, literally a heavenly birth, it couldn’t get any better than that. I gave birth in 3 hours from the start of intense contractions, with very little pain just a lot of hard work. I recovered quickly and pretty much felt amazing. I was back to church in 2 weeks. I was also 20 years old. 

As much as I wanted this to happen and even started to plan it I had a feeling it may not happen this way again. After much thought and consideration we started interviewing midwives. I think my criteria was pretty simple and I think it worked out perfect that I got the woman I did. She was recommended by our Bradley teacher. I really believe that if you are older you should take extra care and have a back up plan in case of complications. This turned out to be wise planning on our part. 

  1. Medical and well as natural minded. I wanted someone with a nursing background so that if anything went wrong at home, it would be able to be addressed immediately as well as know that she would make sound medical decisions if I needed to be transferred to the hospital. The nurse midwife I hired had worked as a nurse practitioner in the past, had experience working with women who had a sexual abuse background (which I happened to have) and was extremely knowledgeable and was always able to answer my questions. 
  2. She was completely non-judgmental. That may seem like a strange thing to say, but I had some medical issues that I was embarrassed to talk about never mind bring up with a midwife. This one particular issue had nothing to do with birthing or childbirth. My midwife told me that it could possibly affect the outcome of birth but she was not at all deterred or even showed any signs of judgement or fear about it. It was an emotional issue. I don’t usually talk about it but if you have questions email me and I will see about sharing more with you jofaith77@aol.com. 
  3. She was in our budget. Budget is not always the best way to make decisions, but when they are an issue you have to factor that in. She was the least expensive but for the best choice. Don’t let your personal circumstances deter you from choosing what you may consider to be an inferior choice. Trust that circumstances are a factor in all our decisions and that the best thing may be happening for you without you even realizing it – it usually is. Trust it and life.

While those may seem like very simple things to make a decision by, you have to trust your intuition and trust that life and God are directing you even when you can’t see how everything will work out. I didn’t know that she would bring a helper doula with her at first. She told me that at the very end of my pregnancy. I didn’t know she was had been a nurse practitioner when I first hired her I only knew that she was an RN. Trust is such a huge factor in making many decisions. Trust your intuition, that life and God have your back and are working things better than you could expect, your husband or partner that you can make great decisions together, your circumstances even when you think they are less than ideal. My pregnancy and birth were a complete trust in God. I had let go of control early on when I saw blood in the first trimester. We had worked so hard and paid so much money to get pregnant and yet I still had no control on the ultimate outcome. Keep it simple and trust that things will work out whatever the obstacles. God has your back and things will work out exactly as they are meant to. 

If you have more criteria you used to make your decision about your midwife I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. I really do love hearing people’s experiences and stories. So please share and I will respond as quickly as I can.

 

When I first started planning my birth I didn’t think I would end up with a C-section. I wanted another ideal birth like I had with my son Zack. We were talking one day and he said to me, “Mom it’s not gonna happen like it did before. It’s going to be totally different.” I had such an ideal birth with him that the only thing I could imagine was C-section with every complication. But I refused to think about that until the last 3 months of pregnancy when I kept having visions of a C-section. And my OB asked me if I wanted to have her naturally still even though I’d been in labor for about 20 hours. Looking back I don’t think I had a choice. I think she was tangled in the womb. The OB said she had the cord wrapped around her leg which really should not have posed a problem but in my infant baby’s mind, there was no way she was coming natural. I firmly believe she was avoiding some kind of problem. I will probably never know what but none the less, I am very grateful for the preparation I did. I believe it all helped surgery and recovery go better as well as helped me have a good size and healthy baby without too many complications considering my lung collapsed when I was 6 months pregnant. This is what I did that I may not have done otherwise:

  1. I ate better pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy. I believe the way I ate helped prevent miscarriage because I had bleeding in the first 3 months of pregnancy. After doing a lot of research on nutrition I believe it can help prevent pre-eclampsia, toxemia, and low birth weight. I believe the good nutrition I consumed helped me whether the depletion of epidural medication, anesthesia, pain medications and antibiotics. 
  2. I exercised and continued to exercise even though toward the end it caused me a lot of pain. As the pregnancy progressed and I gained more weight my breathing became more and more difficult. It did not help that I had a flair up of asthma that I never believed I had. After my lung collapsed in the 6th month of pregnancy my breathing was never the same. I had to take breathing medication from a breathing machine. I forced myself to continue to walk regularly. It started out almost daily and then went down from there. I started at 3 miles a day going to down to 1 mile and sometimes only 1/2 a mile. Walking is one of the most important things you can do in pregnancy and before. It keeps you strong, breathing well, and able to endure a long labor.
  3. I got the emotional support I really needed. I took Bradley Husband Coaching Childbirth classes and had already had an ideal Bradley birth so that is what I wanted and was preparing for. I had a lot of fear being an older mother and having used IVF to get pregnant, I didn’t fully trust my body to do what it was designed to do. Because my fear negatively affected my relationship with one doctor. We ended up changing doctors and I no longer felt comfortable talking to any doctor about my concerns. That is when I decided to attempt to have the baby at home which meant I needed a nurse midwife. Even though I had a C-section she was super supportive when I had a ton of questions especially after my lung collapsed. 

Please tell me about your birth plans and if they went as you wanted. Were you happy with the results? Would you do things differently?