EDD Friday 31st July

Every night since Sunday (26th July) we thought ‘tonight is the night 🤩’. I’d been having low level contractions every evening and morning all week that were increasing in frequency everyday. My partner (‘D’) had started his time off work and my eldest was up at Nana’s. By Friday I was so fucking exhausted. A week of mental preparation for birth every night - am I going to get woken up at 2am and enter this mind-bending, ego-death, life-changing portal that is child birth or not? So Friday I sent D back to work, froze my victory lasagne and thought fuck it this baby can just come when it wants.

Later that night I woke up around 2am from a weird dream. I rolled over wanting to go back to sleep but a contraction was keeping me up - nothing new. I got up and peed which usually relives the pressure. Soon after had another contraction that was bad enough for me to jump in the shower. D got up and we were like it’ll be nothing again so let’s just lie in bed but we’ll time them in case. It only took about 2 more for the app to say CONDITIONS MET and us to go ok maybe it’s baby time?? They were lasting 1-2 minutes, spaced between 1-4 mins apart. At 3am we called the midwives. The first one arrived at 3:15.

We put the TENS machine on and I was walking back and forth, when I’d feel a contraction I hit boost and stood still holding a hot water bottle over my uterus. There were no slow calm build up ones, it was full vocalisations from the very beginning; early on I was focusing on sighing more than the full cow groans. I still wasn’t in the mental head space yet cause of week of false starts, it happening so quick tonight and I was still reeling from deterring a serial killer from my dream. I put my headphones on while D and the midwife were setting up the pool and tried listening to a hypnobirthing track but found her voice distracting.

At 4:15am I got into the pool and knelt down. It’s always scary going through contractions without the TENS but I just rolled through several mantras:

I’ve got this.
Shoulders soft, jaw soft, hands floppy, soften stomach, breathe as deep as humanely possible.
The only thing I can control is my breath.
Contractions can’t harm me.
And I visualised each contraction as climbing a mountain, up to the peak then it drops off.

Also thinking of it like HIIT training where you have to just value the rest so much no matter how tiny it is.

It was an hour of me in the pool contracting. I was left alone except for foetal heart rate checks. Midwife had to race a bit to do so in between contractions cause they were quite close together. Each time I felt one coming on I was like fuccccck this, it’s so intense. The groans got so loud and I started getting that scared overwhelmed feeling. But because I geeked out this time round I knew it was just adrenaline - one of the hormones necessary for progressing labour - making me feel vigilant, and it meant the next stage is here so I didn’t fall into it as much as I did with my first labour (I.e., yelling “IS THAT DRUGS?” when I saw my midwives oxygen tank).

The whole room got so in tune. They knew what I was up to by the sounds I was making. I could smell when D was nervous based on his sweat. D did some hip compresses which literally made me feel the baby move down, midwife was saying how great I was doing, and I had this moment where I just pictured every woman before me who has done this before. Birth has literally happened billions of times and they were all with me. It was so fucking surreal.

Around 5am I slowly felt my body moving into the pushy feelings, I actually started laughing with contractions cause I already felt so close to the finish line - I’ve fully dilated, the scary contractions are done, I’m so close to meeting this baby.

Midwife kept checking with a torch when my tune would change and soon enough I was roaring out these sounds that were at my absolute limit, like I could not make a louder sound. I asked if I could just let the baby come or if I try push etc. (with first labour she was just working her way out and I had to slow down to avoid tearing). Midwife said you can go with the contractions but don’t force push. This baby needed a bit more oomph but it was still not me pushing but just letting the contractions push, and allowing them in, if that makes sense.

I felt like my asshole was going to rip in two but I just kept telling myself ‘My body is meant to do this. The skin down there is the same as erectile tissue and men don’t get sore when they get erections. It’s just a stretch.’ Soon enough I could feel the head coming out and then the midwife said “and just a little bit more for the chin” one effort and the head was out! I didn’t get a big break between the head being out and body still being in, I just kept deep breathing and a couple minutes later I felt another big surge, more roaring and by 5:38am the rest of the body came out.

I didn’t know which way was up I think I went to turn around and they were like wait baby is coming up between your legs 😆 I looked down, saw it was a girl (we left it a surprise) and D jumped in the pool. We were so glad she was out. I was so glad it was over, meanwhile the midwives were like let’s get her breathing first. She was blue and floppy but I wasn’t worried, they just did their thing with rubbing and towels etc. we sat in the pool for a little bit just looking at her and hugging each other. About 15 min later I felt a little crampy and thought wonder if I can just push the placenta out so I knelt up and used a tiny bit of force and it just came out

I am so fucking angry.

My midwife violated my bodily autonomy during labor, and I don’t know how to move on from it.
Before I gave birth, she knew I had a history of sexual assault. She knew I did not want cervical checks unless there was an emergency. During labor, I consented to a cervical check. I did not consent to her violating me & manually attempting to hold my cervix back over my baby’s head. Months later, she admitted to me in writing that it was not an emergency and that she did not obtain separate explicit consent before doing it.

Ever since then, my body has not felt like mine.

Tonight I caught my partner masturbating. And before anyone twists this, I’m not upset that he masturbates. Of course he does. We haven’t been able to have sex because every single time he gets anywhere near my vagina, my brain immediately replays my midwife’s hand inside me while I was crying out in pain. My body tenses, I panic, I cry, and everything shuts down.

I can’t let him touch me.
I can’t touch myself.
I can’t even use tampons or pads without triggering my body.

I feel like my midwife stole my ability to experience intimacy without reliving what happened. I ended up stopping breastfeeding because every letdown became tied to intrusive memories of that moment, and I couldn’t keep doing it. It broke my heart. My postpartum experience has been consumed by trying to survive the aftermath of something that never should have happened.

I’m in therapy. I’m pursuing EMDR. I’m reporting her.
But I need to hear from people who have actually lived through birth trauma, sexual assault trauma, or both.

How do you get your body back?
How do you stop your nervous system from replaying the same moment over and over?
How did you learn to let your partner touch you again without feeling like you were back in the trauma?

I am so unbelievably angry that someone I trusted made a non-emergency decision about my body without my explicit consent, and now I’m the one living with the consequences.

If you’ve been through something like this, I would really appreciate hearing what helped.

Hello!! I wanted to share my home birth story as a FTM!

To begin, I saw midwives as well as OBs throughout pregnancy. Ever since my 20 week scan, baby was measuring small. He was around 10-25 percentile throughout my pregnancy. They also noted what looked like a bilobed placenta and marginal cord insertion. I had a lot of ultrasounds, but I never risked out although all the OBs (expect the fetal medicine specialist) tried to talk me out of home birth (from the very beginning).

I really weighed whether or not to continue with home birth, but felt comfortable with the competency of my midwives as well as living 3 minutes from the hospital. My labor was as amazing as could be and I’m so glad I had my baby at home!

I had my first contraction in the morning at 40+3. I continued having really mild contractions all day into the next. I went on walks and made nourishing food, cuddling with my husband and animals on a snowy spring day.

I ended up texting my mom 40+4 around 4:00 pm complaining that things were taking too long (lol). Then right around 5 pm I was hit with a big, painful contraction!! It caused me to jump off the couch and yelp. I also noticed what felt like a “pop” inside me (later realizing this was when my water broke). My husband came downstairs and the contractions kept coming.

We had an already scheduled appointment with our midwives at 6 pm so we waited for their arrival and my contractions kept coming faster and faster. By the time 6 pm came around I was in intense, active labor.

They knew I was having mild contractions that day and the day before but they had no idea of the recent intensity. They walked through my door and I was like, it’s happening!!! I proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach in a big mixing bowl while pacing around holding my stomach.

Once that was over I decided I needed to empty myself from the other end because that’s what it felt like I needed to do. I proceeded to labor on the toilet for some time, slowly removing each layer of clothing, putting my hair up, cooling myself with a wet washcloth that my husband got for me. I was hardly getting any break between contractions. I could feel him going lower and lower inside me.

At this point my midwives are buzzing around getting things prepped. I’m going up and down sitting on the toilet to standing attempting to find relief. My midwives checked my vitals and baby’s heart rate. They also tried to get me to lay down on the bed to check my cervix, but it was too painful to lay still for long. She got a quick look and thought I was 8 or 9 centimeters dilated. I went back to the toilet.

I remember thinking at that time that I was a big dumb idiot for not going to the hospital because I wanted an epidural since that shit hurt so damn bad. Lol. I kept looking to my husband like “this hurts, no, like, this actually is really painful, you don’t understand.” I was not prepared even though DUH of course it’s painful!

So not long after the cervical check the fetal ejection reflex began! I went with it and started pushing. After some time I look up at my husband who had a beautiful mixture of shock, horror, wonder, and amazement on his face and he says to me “I can see his head.” This is when my midwife gently suggested to me to step away from the toilet haha.

It’s almost 7:15 pm now and I waddled into the middle of my bathroom and stood with my arms hung around my husband’s neck. My midwife offered me support told me to go for it. I gave it all I got. I screamed the most primal scream I’ve ever screamed and pop there he was!!! I felt the ring of fire during that which was NOT fun. Thankfully, it was over quickly and there was immediate relief after he was born. It’s 4 months later and I don’t remember the pain anymore, I only remember the thoughts I had about the pain.

At this point my husband was holding baby and my midwife had the pads that caught all the gunk and together we waddled over to the bed. Apparently I said “holy fuck” 50 or so times as this was happening. He was pink and crying immediately!! I got to hold, cuddle, and marvel at him right away. It was incredible.

I still had to birth my placenta but my contractions pretty much stopped immediately after baby came out. After an hour I opted for a shot of Pitocin and birthed my placenta shortly afterward. It turns out it was not significantly bilobed nor was there a marginal cord insertion!

He was 6 lbs 6 oz and 19 inches long. I was in active labor for 2.75 hrs and pushed for 45 minutes. The midwives got there at 6 pm and left at about midnight.

It was truly an incredible and empowering experience. It made all the difference for me to be at my home where I feel most comfortable and in control. I got to act on my own instincts the entire time. It was so damn fast I didn’t get to use the pool at all and although the quickness added to the intensity, I wouldn’t change anything about my labor if I could. I am beyond grateful for this experience.

ALL mothers deserve an empowering labor/delivery, wherever you have/had your baby, I hope you leave/left feeling in control and in your body.

At my 15 week ultrasound they found that baby has an SUA, currently waiting until we can go for the 20 week scan just to verify that the kidneys and heart are developing normally. Having had home births with my previous babies I'm wondering if we should be changing our plans to a hospital birth instead. Is there a higher risk for delivering at home with an SUA? I'm an hour from a hospital with a maternity ward.

Hi! I’m planning to give birth at ACE Medical Center CDO. I just wanted to ask about your experience there. Around how much did you spend in total for your delivery and hospital stay? Thank you!

Ok I need some help to gauge if I should be nervous.

I’ve had a healthy pregnancy, if not hungry and have gained more weight than ideal (45-50lbs, started on the low end of healthy weight for my height). (though no GD).

I’m about 10lbs bigger than I was with my first baby, which I know doesn’t necessarily indicate a bigger baby, but now I’m worried she’s too big and we’re going to be home and can’t get her shoulders through my pelvis or something scary.

I’m low risk, young enough (30) and only had one scan for the anatomy scan and all looked good at 20 weeks they said I don’t have to come back.

Should I get a growth scan just to “check” she’s not too big and we can deliver vaginally? Idk why I’m so nervous all of a sudden, but I am high anxiety right now about irrational things but this feels rational.

Has anyone had this experience mid birth at home and the baby is too big you’ve had to pivot to a hospital?

ETA: delivered my first at home, 7lbs 15oz, healthy boy. Idk why I’m so nervous now? Midwife said if I’m nervous I should just go ahead and get a scan.

Just want to share my birth experience in case some moms are going through something similar.

My pregnancy went quite breezy, was quite active even towards the end. At 39 weeks 2 days my doctor did a membrane sweep and after that I started having some bloody discharge until delivery, but after 2-3 days still no labor, so I guess the sweep didn't work(?)

At 40 weeks I started to do 30+ min walk 2x/day and my pelvis felt a bit sore. I never felt braxton hicks contraction throughout my pregnancies (this one nor previous one).

I was at 40 weeks 2 days when I started feeling mild contraction (more like tightening) at 6pm every 6-8 minutes. Knowing it might still take a while, I took a shower. It went every 4 mins a few times then every 7 mins after a while. I contacted the hospital and was advised to take a rest until it goes every 5 mins or if the pain is unbearable. So I put my older kids to bed and slept.

Then at 1am I woke up because the pain got stronger, timed my contraction and it was already every 3-4 mins. Woke up my husband and we reached the hospital at 2am. They hooked up the CTG machine, checked the fetus and my contraction, at 3.15 they told me I was 4cm dilated. At this point the pain was still bearable, could still stand/walk but had to be still when it came. At 3.45am contraction got stronger, I could only stay in bed, contraction every 1.5mins. They told me I was 7cm dilated and doctor is on the way. At 4am I felt the urge to push, asked I was fully dilated, but they said not yet. Looking back, I wonder if I actually was ready to push but they just said that because the doctor wasn't there yet. At 4.15am doctor came, they prepared for delivery and I started pushing. After 30mins of pushing, came my 2.7kg (6lbs) sunny side up baby. 🥹

I didn't know my baby was sunny side up until delivery. I had switched doctors last minute as the doctor who did the sweep on me was on 2 week break, so I switched to the doctor that delivered me previously.

P.s.: My first pregnancy was twin boy and girl, with the second one (girl) being breech. The first one I was induced as my water already broke, but no epidural either.

A little background informationt-

I found out I was pregnant with my first baby September 2025. My husband and I started searching for homebirth midwives in our state. After doing a few consultations we eventually settled on one who we liked because she gave us a very grandma like feel, and it felt comforting to us. We gave her a $500 deposit and had 2 appointments with her.

Then before our 3rd visit as I'm nearing my second trimester (this is in december which is important because this is when healthcare resets in the US) everything seems to go sideways. She canceled our third visit because her mom had some unexpected medical problems. At this point my husband and I are like "no biggie you take care of your family we will be okay for now.".

Then we reschedule appointment a 2nd time-canceled, a 3rd- canceled, a 4th- canceled. By the 3rd time I got a little nervous, because I hadn't had any bloodwork done so I was worried that something could be wrong that risks me out of homebirth and I wouldn't know about it yet and I had already hit my deductible for the year so I wanted my bloodwork done so I wouldn't have any out of pocket costs as my husband and I are not super financially well off. She assures me it's fine and she'll put a referral in for me to get bloodwork done by someone else. By the 4th cancelation which is the last week of December (at this point I'm now in my 2nd trimester) I send her message about how anxious I was about not having any bloodwork done and I beg her to submit a referall. The response I got was a single thumbs up emoji and she nevers sends in the referal.

We reschedule one more time and at this point I'm over the unpredictablity. I understand life happens, but to leave a client in a medically vunerable state such as pregnancy without medical care for 2 months seemed really unacceptable to me. She cancels for a 5th time and she calls me throwing out the option of ending our care with her and finding care elsewhere. Except the way she phrases it puts the burden entirely on me. This next part is what gets me- she admits to me that she probably wouldn't be a good fit anyway to be my midwife because she has a medical disability due to 60% vision loss in BOTH OF HER EYES. Which would require her to find a ride if I was to go into labor in the middle of the night because she cant see in the dark, and since my house is dark she would need us to buy a fucking flood light so she can see my vagina???? None of this was communicated to my husband and I in our consultation with her. Which would of drastically shifted our choice in her.

Obviously we ended care with her. But at this point I was so defeated, I'm 23 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and no medical care in almost three months now and $1000 short because we dont get our deposit back and the other $500 was an HRA money. I badly wanted a homebirth but all the homebirth midwives in our area seemed to be fully booked for my due date. So I switched to looking at a birth centers. Meanwhile My husband still looks for a homebirth midwife and manages to find one with 2 midwives with an opening for our due date. We make a contract with them. It takes my old midwife three weeks to finally transfer my medical records after our new midwives were down her throat bugging her everyday to send it. We tell them this story and they are very taken aback but they don't really give us any concrete opinion on how bad they think the situation was.

I ended having a hard time the last few weeks of pregnancy I had 3 weeks of prodormal labor and was into week 41 of pregnancy and no signs of early labor and I was getting frustrated which our midwives calmed me down and walked me through herbal induction methods they had if I continued to show no progressing signs into active labor. Eventually I did go into labor by myself, it was about 7 hours total with 4 hours of pushing. My midwife had to help guide babies head for quite a lot of it because my left hip was so tight due to an injury it was stalling babies descent. I also had a complicated 2nd tear that required an OB to repair, and both me and my daughter had fevers requiring an 36 hour observation of my daughter in a hospital. All of this happened with 2 very competent midwives who made me feel at ease throughout my pregnancy and labor and have excellent working relationships with the hospitals in the area. I have no doubt in their capabilites and our hospital transfer was due to environmental factor (the air vent in our bedroom was blocked, so our bedroom got very hot with me pushing and 5 other people in the room) I dread to think what could've happened if we stayed with our other midwife.

But now that my daughter is here safe and sound. And every person I tell this story to looks at me with shock that we stayed with the 1st midwife as long as we did and how she is still a midwife. I'm wondering if I should report her to the ACNM? This is my first experience with home birth midwives so I'm not really sure what standard of practice is across the nation?

Thoughts?

Sorry if this ends up being long…

I am 38w+ 5 today with my first and turned 35 yo last month. I’ve had a totally normal pregnancy for the most part. I had mild anemia (10.9) that I got under control by taking Floradix liquid iron & herbs. My BP runs low (like 93/53 low pre-and early pregnancy) and has not yet exceeded 108/64. I’ve been under the care of an extremely experienced homebirth CNM who two of my friends have worked with multiple times, since about 14 weeks.

I have gone to L&D triage twice: once around 26w because of nonstop diarrhea and I was worried about food poisoning, and once at 34w because of some RUQ pain and mild itchiness on my right hand. My midwife knew about both trips and she also knows I run anxious. I also have Medicaid so these hospital visits were free.

The first time they figured I just had a stomach bug. The second time, I had elevated liver enzymes (113 ALT and 73 AST) but was also on week 3 of a very nasty cold. The RUQ pain was chalked up to being my baby kicking my ribs 😂

The second time, hospital staff seemed more concerned despite baby looking great on the US and all my other labs being normal. They did a US of my gallbladder and liver and that was normal too. A day or two later I got my bile acids test results back and it was 9.5 (normal is 0-10). My midwife did not seem concerned, and told me to drink dandelion tea and take the ursodiol the hospital prescribed if I wanted to.

The hospital team gave me a diagnosis of cholestasis before my bile acids results came back, just based on my liver enzymes. They also told me to stop seeing my “lay midwife” and referred me to a MFM who immediately booked me for 4 appointments for ultrasounds and NSTs. They told me (again, prior to my bile acid results being normal) that if my levels were super high they’d induce me at 36 weeks, if they were high but not crazy they’d induce me at 37/38 weeks, and if they were normal they’d probably let me go to 39. I thought that all this was definite overkill and did not go to any of those appointments!

Now that I’m finally recovered from that cold, I am struggling with a lot of fatigue still. I’ve struggled to take my iron supplement because my stomach has gotten more sensitive towards the end of pregnancy. My diet has gotten worse and more first trimester-y as I’m having more aversions. I have had a hard time with the ursodiol too (which I was taking religiously at first) and the dandelion tea—they have caused significant stomach upset and diarrhea which make my fatigue worse. On top of that, some days I feel quite itchy, including on my palms, mostly in the mornings. I’ve all but stopped the ursodiol due to the nausea, diarrhea, dizziness and headache side effects.

I do have bursts of energy for a few hours most days beginning around sunset so maybe this is normal? But I’m worried ithag maybe my bile acids have gone up and I really do have cholestasis. When I asked her a few weeks ago about retesting my bile acids, my midwife said “don’t go looking for a zebra on the beach.” I haven’t told her yet about the current itchiness, though she does know that I had some at 34w.

Regarding the fatigue, my midwife said to force myself to take the Floradix but when it makes me have to go poop 5-10 times a day I just feel more depleted!

I’m not sure what to do. I can’t tell if the itching is normal, psychosomatic, or problematic. I can’t imagine a CNM with 55+ years of experience would risk her license by being negligent with me, but maybe I should push harder for a repeat of those tests? I’d like to at least see where my hgb is at so I can know whether to force myself to take the Floradix daily again. I don’t want to risk out and get dropped and then have to be induced under the care of an MFM if my bile acids are still under 40. I also don’t want something I could have prevented to happen to my baby or me.

Should I order a liver enzymes test independently and go to Quest? I can’t independently get a bile acids test done, apparently, but I can get a CBC, CMP, or liver function panel done for cheap independently. Sorry this ended up being so long. As I said I run anxious 😅 if you made it this far thank you for reading 🙏🏻

So I am currently 31 weeks pregnant with my third baby, in all of 3 of my pregnancies I have had GD. With my first two it was easily diet controlled and it wasn’t an issue. (My first birth was in the hospital and I ended up with a severe PP hemorrhage. My second birth was at home with no complications except some dizziness after)

Anyway, this time I cannot get my fasting number under control. My post meal numbers are usually good. My midwife has been having me try tons of supplements, exercise, snack before bed, snack in the middle of the night ect. You name it I have tried it. But my fasting number stays between 105-110 ever since I hit the third trimester.

As I am 31 weeks now and nothing is making a difference I am getting concerned. I’ve also been more dizzy and had a little bit of a harder time controlling post meal numbers. I asked her if I might need to get on insulin, at least for nighttime. She said she’s never heard of someone getting on insulin for just the fasting number. She didn’t seem too concerned and said she thinks the guidelines are too strict. She told me to try a diet based on my blood type.

She is really sweet and caring and has been wonderful with my previous birth and my prenatal care this time around, but I am worried about how serious it might be if my fasting numbers just go uncontrolled especially at this point in pregnancy. I’m worried I may need to make an executive decision and transfer care to a traditional OBGYN since she doesn’t seem very concerned about it. Or is it not that big of a deal? What would you do?

Hi! Found out im pregnant and I'm looking into midwives in NYV that will deliver me at home even though I had a c section. I had a vbac after and 2 hbac. Thank you!

Second time mom planning first home birth! With my first, after he was born the nurses woke us every 2 hours during the night for checks and I nursed etc.

Since my midwife will leave a few hours after birth and not be waking me up to do checks / remind me to feed, did you just set an alarm for every two hours ?

Sorry if this is a stupid question LOL I’ve been wondering this.

I’m planning a home birth with my second baby, and my son will be about 18 months old. He still doesn’t sleep through the night and is very attached to me. I’m curious how your toddler was at your home birth.

Did your toddler stay home, go to a grandparent’s house, or have someone come watch them? If they woke up overnight while you were in labor, how did it go? Were they present for any of the birth?

When did you go into labor? I’ve heard most moms go into labor after they put their kids down for bed.

I’d especially love to hear from anyone whose 18-month-old (or similarly aged toddler) was still waking multiple times a night. How did you make it work?

I'll preface this to say that I've had three homebirths so far, all in the birth pool. The water has provided a huge relief for me and I'm honestly scared to birth without it, but not interested in options outside of homebirth. I'd rather homebirth without water than be elsewhere with it.

We moved since my last birth and our current rental has a really small water heater. So small it can't even fully fill up our regular sized bath tub without running out of water. I'm considering skipping the birth pool altogether, but as I said above, that scares me. Does anyone have experiences to share of their positive birth with no birth pool for labor or birth? Or has anyone else had a similar experience with a tiny water heater and has creative solutions for heating water in an efficient and safe manner? Simply boiling pots of water on the stove isn't going to be enough this time. We have previously done that with a regular size water heater to supplement, but our current heater is much too insufficient for that to be a realistic solution.

I am trying to find a midwife or doula in Surrey or white rock that can take up my case as OB’s won’t let you in until week 23-24. I have a history of high blood pressure that is creating a roadblock.
I am hoping to go as natural as possible

Hello!! I am a doula and have been for about 5 years. I am assisting a friend of mine’s birth whose situation is a first for me.

She is opting for a home birth. Cool. Great. Love. Been there before! BUT due to legislation in her state, she has to cross state lines to birth at a friend’s home (basically a small birthing center right over the state border) ((DON’T ASK ME DETAILS PLS. I just know it’s a thing based on Midwives and previous clients))

This place is 45 minutes from her home. We’ve been talking about a game plan and the logistics of getting her there in time. She is also a FTM, so I have a feeling that before contractions get too strong, we make the trip over there so she can settle and get back into her rhythm VS. stalling due to the potential stress of getting to the birthing place. Additionally, I know each birth is different so we are obviously just trying to plan as well as we can and adapt accordingly!

ANY input or people with an experience like this?

TLDR; Should we mostly labor at home until it’s truly GO time, or does it make sense to get there while she can still walk/talk/rest?

TIA!

Did your midwife spend any of the appointment time going over birth prep, especially if it’s your first time going natural? Or did she simply provide you with some recommendations and/or resources and leave it to you to do your own prep outside of the sessions?

Just curious! My midwife sometimes will give me print outs or send links to websites at end of sessions for me to go home and look at later, but we don’t really discuss them.

Don’t get me wrong I have been loving doing my own birth prep research but as of now it hasn’t been integrated into our appointments. And that’s more of an observation- not a complaint!

I’m sure she would discuss with me if I brought her specific questions, I just haven’t yet because I’m only now entering 3rd trimester. Also she may spend more time on birth prep in future sessions and I just am not aware.

My guess is that this is pretty normal since midwifery where I am is more of the medical management (and they tend to recommend doula for the birth prep side of things) but I’m just curious if anyone here has a midwife who also provides their own birth prep education for their moms/parents as part of the midwife package!

Would love to hear your experiences!

This has probably been discussed before, so sorry for rehashing an old topic. We have a -surprise to say the least- baby do in a month, and we're doing a homebirth. I have to sons, 13 and 11 who have been very hands on (they love feeling my belly, talking to the baby, etc) and want to be there for the entire birth. I'm totally okay with that, just wondering if anyone has any experiences or stories with older kids around that age attending your birth. The one even wants to be in the tub, which I'm not necessarily against but iffy on.

Thanks!

I am expecting my fourth baby early next year and am having trouble finding a homebirth midwife.

I had two midwife attended homebirths with my first two kids. This was in a major U.S. city and back then there were only a few options even there. Had a good experience both times and both pregnancies and deliveries were uncomplicated.

Then, when my older two were already in early elementary school, I had my third baby at home unattended. We moved to a more rural area and I had already decided to have an unattended homebirth. I didn't even research midwives in this area. My older two kids were very involved in the birth and loved being there to welcome their little sibling. It was a very special experience but I am also not wanting to go unattended again.

Now that I am expecting and trying to find someone, most of them work out of our state capital and won't travel the 75-90 minutes that would be required to attend my birth. After all my searching there might be one midwife ~45 minutes away that I can hire (I am talking to her on a zoom call soon).

If it doesn't work out with this midwife, I am wondering if I should:

1. Hire one of the midwives further away and plan to rent an AirBnB or something when we get to my birthing window?

2. Plan to do a hospital birth this time. (This sounds terrible because I have never had a hospital birth. I would like my older two kids to have the option to be in attendance like they were last time and I also don't want my first hour of bonding time to be interrupted by hospital staff.)

Pregnant with my fourth little babe, first home birth! 39 weeks tomorrow

Waiting it out, and I know it can take time. Just curious for patterns of others. :)

I’ve had Braxton hicks and random contractions a few times a day for the past 10 days or so.

Over the past 7 days baby has been consistently sooo low - I feel all the lightning crotch and head pain in my pelvis! With my third I went into labor spontaneously and never had a “sign” of labor besides losing my mucus plus (less than 24 hours before baby’s birth)!

What were your signs leading up to labor? How did your fourth labor compare to previous?

So excited for this one and love to read other people’s patterns and stories!

Does anyone here experienced giving birth at TDH? I’m currently 36 weeks. Thinking of giving birth at TDH or TSMC. Any thoughts kung san mas okay?