I had the honor of supporting Nicole as her doula from about 35 weeks until her sweet babe arrived 4 days after her “due date”. As a new doula I was grateful to be walking alongside Nicole on her journey to trust her body and have as few interventions as possible. I learned so much! It was such an empowering experience and I’m excited to have Claire’s Birth Story for you here in her mama’s own words. Enjoy!

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“This was my second baby but first home birth and I had been having prodromal labor for almost 2 weeks starting around 37 and half weeks. Since my first baby came at 38 weeks it was very frustrating to have the start/stop of contractions and think it was going to turn into active labor and then just stop completely. My due date came and went and that was the hardest part mentally for me. I had been preparing for this home birth since around 20 weeks and with every day that baby wasn’t here after 38 weeks, the doubt and fear of if I could really do this crept in a little more. 

At 40 weeks 4 days, I woke up to a little bloody show. I knew it meant something was happening but because of the previous 3 weeks I didn’t want to get too excited. I text my midwives, West Michigan Midwifery, and doula, Randi Armstrong, to let them know and the midwives confirmed it could be hours or still days until baby was here. I felt a little cramping but went about our day as there was no immediate signs of labor starting soon. At 6:20pm we were eating supper and I felt my first true contraction. I decided to get in a bath and try to really relax in hopes that this would turn into real labor. We got our almost 3 year old ready for bed and I couldn’t read the bedtime story because contractions were pretty consistent around 5 minutes apart and I needed to focus on each one. I mentioned to my husband I thought this was the real deal and I was going to update our birth team. I was in the bathroom for about an hour timing contractions and was surprised by how close they were together, already 2-3 minutes apart and lasting between 50 seconds to 2 min. At this point I started to feel everything in my back. I tried leaning against the wall and swaying and sitting backwards on the toilet but nothing was comfortable. I decided to ask Randi to come and give her support and also updated the midwives. I moved out to the living room and got on all fours while leaning over my yoga ball. This definitely felt better but the contractions were really close together and only getting stronger. Once Randi arrived around 9:15pm she jumped right in giving counter pressure as my husband finished getting the tub ready. Nothing specific happened once Randi arrived but I just felt like this was going to happen fast so I called my midwives and asked them to come. I got in the tub as soon as it was ready and it felt really good, it didn’t completely take away the pain but looking back I think I was in transition. I was very shaky and felt like I was going to be sick. I told myself I would do each position for 3 contractions before trying a different one and after 2 position changes I still wasn’t able to get comfortable. At this point I needed counter pressure for each contraction and was really questioning how much longer I could do this. My midwives arrived at 10:00pm and I wanted to try going the bathroom because I had read that if your bladder’s too full it can make it really hard for baby to get through the birth canal. Almost instantly when I sat on the toilet my water broke and I knew this meant go time since my first labor went the same way. I stood up to go back to the tub and it was like baby instantly dropped and I had the ring of fire. It was intense but my body instinctually knew to start panting and apply counter pressure on my perineum. My midwives reminded me to listen to my body and push when it felt right. I honestly can’t say that I did actually push, it was more of my body taking over and I just didn’t fight it. Before I knew it our baby’s head was born and that was so incredible! I felt another contraction and again my body did what it’s made to do and the rest of baby was born! We hadn’t found out the gender so I immediately wanted to pull the baby up to me but the cord was loosely draped a couple times around their body. Once the midwives got the cord off I lifted the baby up and saw we had a GIRL! Claire Elizabeth was born just 11 minutes after I started “pushing” and only 4 hours from the first contraction. The overwhelming rush of love was unlike anything I’ve every experienced and big brother slept through the entire thing even with being right across the hall, I couldn’t believe it!

The placenta was delivered about 20 minutes after Claire and we waited until it had completely stopped pulsing before we cut it. We then moved to our bed to snuggle and she latched rather quickly. After a little over an hour we did her newborn check in bed right next to us and she was perfect! My husband did skin to skin with her while I showered and then after checking on me, making sure we didn’t need anything to eat and cleaning up our birth team left us to rest and soak her all in.”

“The biggest difference from my first birth for me was I truly feel that having the Pitocin and Epidural blocked my natural oxytocin and didn’t allow that initial rush of love at first sight. I had only heard how bad the pain could be and never even considered that I could do a birth without pain medication let alone a home birth. After this amazing experience I would encourage anyone who’s pregnant to at least meet with a few midwives and doulas and educate yourself on the statistics of hospital birth interventions and outcomes versus outcomes of home births. This was truly an experience of my lifetime and I’m so grateful for my amazing birth team, husband, and faith. Some of my favorite resources were @painfreebirth, @2lifedoula and @womanlymadeco on instagram and Happy Home Birth, Doing It At Home, and Birthing Outside the Box podcasts.”

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Wasn’t that incredibly peaceful and sweet? I’m definitely feeling very grateful to have been a part of Claire’s arrival earth side, and to have met this dear family.

If you have any questions or want to chat about all things birth / doula / photography / or really anything else, send me a message! I’d love to get to know you and hear your story.

Much love, Randi