My 3 Hour Pain-Free Home Birth

WHEW! I DID IT, Y’ALL. WE HAD A BABY AT HOME (and, it wasn’t scary). 

I remember deciding on our decision to have a home birth and it was a no-brainer for us, but that didn’t mean that we still didn’t have our concerns about the ‘what-ifs’ of doing something for the first time.

The main reason we didn’t choose to have a home birth the second time was because we weren’t very comfortable with transferring to the nearest hospital to us. Although that didn’t change from baby #2 to baby #3, our confidence in ourselves to birth at home and the confidence in our birth team to support us during a medical emergency gave us peace.

The one thing that was very different during this pregnancy versus my previous pregnancies was that I was very determined to work on my spiritual preparation. I knew that it was the guiding light in my second birth (listen to my VBAC birth story here) and I knew that I wanted to experience and be connected with God’s vision during this pregnancy and birth experience even more than before. 

The interesting and different thing about this pregnancy compared to our previous two was that this time, I was a doula and had helped hundreds of women have babies locally and internationally. This meant I had A LOT more knowledge about the process of birth than I did before. However, that didn’t stop me from taking my knowledge to another level. I knew that there were things that needed to be true for me to have the birth that I desired. So, I decided to take my own course with my husband and take a hypnobirthing class. I believe in treating each pregnancy and birth with a clean slate - so, that’s what we did.

When we got near the end of pregnancy, I was ready to meet my baby but didn’t exactly have the ‘over it’ feelings I had in the past. I was hoping he would come while our family was in town during the week of our due date (a very different desire I had this time around) so that they could meet him and also help take care of our kids 😂, but I am very aware that it is very rare to have a baby on your due date.

When 40+1 rolled around, my husband and I went to see our midwives for our appointment. It was a very calm appointment, but we were told that our baby was in a perfect position to be born. I had been feeling some Braxton Hicks that week and during our appointment but it wasn’t something I thought twice about. I had tightening here and there but I was never uncomfortable. We all knew this was a good sign that baby was getting ready but I didn’t get my heart or mind set that it would be anytime soon.

At this point, all I was focused on was my date day with Harold and hosting family dinner at our home later that evening. I made a special request to go to my favorite sushi restaurant for lunch so that I could get some spicy edamame for what could be my last lunch as a mama of two. My heart was full and so was my belly. 

Before picking the kids up from school, I wanted to get a pedicure - partially for the look but mostly for the acupressure points that could help encourage my baby to get things going if he was interested. When I sat in the chair to get my pedicure, I kindly requested the normal foot massage. The woman doing my feet signaled at my belly a few times to inform me that it could stimulate contractions. I kindly reiterated that I was okay with that and understood my risks as a full term pregnant woman. She clearly wasn’t very comfortable with that so a man that worked there came over to me and told me what she was saying (I’m assuming he didn’t think I understood what she was trying to say) but I kindly but firmly insisted that they were okay to push on the acupressure points on my feet. This went back and forth a few times until another woman spoke up and helped me voice my desires of having a baby soon. Finally, they agreed.

After my pedicure, I was still feeling my Braxton Hicks but again, it was nothing more than some tightening in my belly. We went to pick up our kids and head home to enjoy our family dinner party with all of our family in town. 

The evening was perfect. It felt like a real home. There were so many laughs, smiles and joy as we enjoyed being together in our home. In a previous season of life, I would have felt stressed and overwhelmed trying to control my situation to stick to the plan but God gave me unwavering peace and stillness - something I hadn’t felt before. I had a feeling the rest of the night was going to be pretty sweet - and, it was. After dinner, the tightening in my stomach began to get a little stronger. It still just felt like tightening but it began to wrap from my back to my stomach. I knew it was time to calm the house down and get the kids in bed so that I could rest just in case this was the real thing.

While I started to get ready for bed, my cousin helped me set up the tub in our room. But, to our surprise, we were greeted by some visitors when we started to clear things out in our room. There was a large family of ants that clearly decided to join us for our family dinner and congregated at our glider. Apparently, our kids dropped some food behind the chair at some point and now our focus turned from blowing up the tub to spraying down and vacuuming up the ants and glider that I was hoping to rock my baby in the next day.

During all of this, I could tell that my tightening was now real contractions. They were very manageable and I was able to talk through them, but after timing for a while, I noticed that they were 4 minutes apart. I was pretty surprised because it didn’t feel like I was entering into active labor but I decided to call my midwife and doula to let them know what was going on. I didn’t feel like it was time for my midwife to come yet but she insisted she at least came over to check things out and could leave if it was going to be awhile (and I am glad she did). 

She arrived at our home around 10:45pm. She set up her things and listened to baby. Everything looked and sounded great. I decided to lay down and rest until my doula arrived. I turned on the Kardashians for some mindless TV to keep me distracted and closed my eyes for a short period of time. 

When my doula arrived shortly after, she could tell baby was not yet engaged. I wasn’t surprised because I didn’t have the pressure that I knew would happen when he was really low. She did some active rest movements and positions for me with the peanut ball which helped him have space to engage and about an hour later, I went up to go to the bathroom and felt him turn and drop. 

At this point, it was around 12:30pm. Our tub was filled with water and I started to want to move around but not to the point where I was going to exhaust a lot of energy since things still felt very manageable. I am very convinced that because of the work I did to mentally and spiritually prepare, I was able to ride the waves very calmly and my contractions didn’t have as much power over me. I felt very in control. Before getting in the tub, my husband and doula encouraged me to go for a walk. Since the tub slowed down my contractions in my second birth, I think my husband was a little nervous that it would do the same thing this time if we got in too soon. 

I could feel my contractions getting stronger and coming closer together, I was in denial that this could be transition. I threw up a few times, noticed my contractions coming every few minutes but I still thought this was just active labor. Since I was GBS positive, we discussed administering antibiotics but I wasn’t interested in being still for the time that I would need to let them start. I agreed that I would do them after our walk. 

We decided to go for a walk to the end of our street which was great! The contractions were coming back to back and I held onto my husband for each of them. He was a great support system while my doula would provide me hip squeezes. The pressure was increasing with each contraction and I could feel everything getting lower.

We got back to the driveway, our photographer pulled up. I wanted to get some photos outside so I decided to walk to the end of our driveway to give her some time to get her camera out and start shooting. I started to feel more pressure on my bag of water. I told my midwives that I felt like my water was going to break with the next contraction and it did! My body was beginning to bear down and push - but, I wasn’t back inside yet. I was in between our two cars in the driveway! I got down on hands and knees which is what felt the most comfortable. I wanted to have a water birth so badly but it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it back inside. 

Within 10 minutes of my water breaking and a few pushes, my husband caught our baby and he was in my arms with no tearing. It was the most amazing, beautiful and unique experience I ever experienced. It was the most peaceful birth. I heard God speaking to me the entire time and reminded me that I was stronger than what was happening in my body. 

In total, my labor was approximately 3 hours from start to finish and it was amazing. I loved every minute of it and couldn’t have asked for a better experience. 

Watch my full birth video here.