We chose to have an unmedicated, natural birth at a local birth center. With a team of 3 midwives and a peaceful “home-like” room, we had such an amazing experience that I felt compelled to share. Birth was intense and hard, but beautiful and rewarding.
I used to not completely understand why people shared birth stories. “You gave birth to your baby, what is there to be a story about?” (I did LOVE “A Birth story” on TLC growing up though) But, as I began to prepare for birth myself, I realized how HELPFUL birth stories were. Reading people’s different experiences helped encourage and prepare me.
So, without further or do. Here is my birth story:)
HOW IT STARTED
The Texas winter storm had passed and we had recently recovered from Covid. We were prepared and ready. Then, the due date came and went. 4 days had passed and I felt like it was time to start trying different “remedies” to get labor going. In my search efforts I found a video from a girl who I had been watching on youtube that said “These exercises WILL put you into labor”. Well, there are a lot of videos and content promising this exact thing, but for some reason I really trusted this random youtube girl and I did them.
Fast forward to that night, we went to sleep and around 2am. I had a contraction that woke me up straight from my sleep and thunder rolled simultaneously at the same time. I thought “this baby is going to be dramatic.” I grabbed Brance’s arm and said “I just had a contraction.” I could tell he was rattled and he insisted on texting the midwife. I reminded the both of our excited selves that we needed to stay calm and try to go back to sleep, labor could last a while and I needed to rest before things escalated.
I couldn’t go back to sleep, of course. I started feeling insanely hungry and went into the kitchen to start eating. I ate a bunch of cheese and crackers, took a really awkward video of me eating cheese and breathing through contractions, then went back to sleep around 5am. I woke up the next morning and the contractions were gone, I was disappointed. Around evening time they picked back up. We took a walk together and ate Jason’s Deli. Brance kept saying “This baby is coming tonight.”
I did the exercises one more time before bed, and when I was doing one of the exercises, I felt an intense shift and the baby’s head move down. My contractions became intense and closer together as I was just about to head to bed. I was still in denial that I was in active labor. I kept telling Brance, “he will come in a couple of days.” I really just did not want to psyche myself out that this was active labor. Brance finally convinced me to time the contractions and they were 5 minutes apart. I told my mom, and she was like “You need to go to the birth center.” I just kept saying I was fine and texted my midwife an update that I was about to try to get some sleep (lol).
ARRIVING AT THE BIRTH CENTER
Suddenly it felt like my contractions were back to back with not as much break in between. We timed them again and this time they were 2-3 minutes apart and INTENSE. I called my midwife and I asked her if we should head there, then she asked “do you think you should head there?” Right when she asked, I had a big contraction so I said “yep!” and we headed there. I joke that our drive was straight out of a movie scene. I kept telling Brance to slow down on the highway as he sped there. He was in a panic and I was laughing at my contractions while in pain saying, “This is so funny.” The entire thing was comical.
We arrived at 1am and got set up. The room was so peaceful and calm. The lights were dim and I sat on my ball as Brance did counter pressure during contractions. My mom, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law arrived and we said our hello’s.
I had contractions every 2 minutes and they would each last a minute. They were like waves. I stayed steady and focused with Brance by my side. One thing I did not expect was to get cold. I thought I would be hot from the contractions, but my body temperature dropped and I felt freezing, which led to one of the midwives handing me a really oversized blanket to keep me warm.
After a while I laid on the ball a certain way and began to have back labor. I had heard back labor was the most painful and that’s no lie. It felt like my back was breaking and I was not getting rest in between contractions. After about 20 minutes I communicated to the midwife assistant that I felt this way and she had me lay on all fours on the bed and that completely eliminated the back labor. Eventually I ended up laying on the bed to get more comfortable.
ACTIVE LABOR
As I was laying on the bed and squeezing onto the pillow, one of the midwives told me I probably needed to try to go pee before I have to push or anything, but she was *kind of* tricking me. She was wanting me to walk to speed labor up. As she somehow convinced me to walk to the toilet, I began to have a contraction and it was the most painful walk to the toilet I’ve had in my life. Right when I sat down, I started to throw up and see blood. I began freaking out. “I see blood, is this normal?” She assured me it was a good thing and meant that things were getting close.
As I finally gained the strength to walk back to the bed. I felt an intense painful pressure pushing and I started to scream. This was the first time I had yelled throughout the entire process and I really did not want to yell, but realized how good it felt to just let it out. As I was feeling the most intense pressure and pain, I laid down on the bed and felt a rush of liquid down my leg. I thought it was more blood and that something was going wrong.
The midwives at first could not tell what was going on and I started to worry. As they looked closer, they saw my water had broke! From then on I was in INTENSE active labor. With every contraction I squeezed the life out of my midwife’s hand (sorry Donna), and then would apologize to her every time my contraction ended.
The funny thing was during this entire time I was still making jokes in between contractions and was able to keep a sense of humor. I imagined that this would be the point where I felt out of control, and in some ways I did, but my mind was still very present. I remember every detail vividly.
One thing I want to highlight is how amazing of a coach Brance was. We took Bradley birth classes for 6 weeks leading up to Ryder’s birth and I am forever grateful for those classes. Brance was calm with every step and was such an amazing emotional support. He reminded me to breathe, did relieving counter-pressure, and basically never left my side. He was a big reason that amidst the intensity of labor, there was peace that still remained with every step.
THE FINAL PUSH
As time went on, I started saying that I felt like my body was trying to push. They flipped the lights on and I saw one of the midwives bringing out a towel, scissors, and measuring items. Seeing her bring these items completely made this moment real for me. The entirety of labor I had felt like the “ending” was far, I had prepared myself mentally to be that girl that was in labor for 24, 48, etc. long hours. The fact that we were THIS CLOSE to meeting this baby after 6 hours (at this point) of being at the birth center felt c-r-a-z-y.
When I first began to push I didn’t feel much progress, it took me a couple tries to get the hang of it. I laid on the bed and would have the midwives grab my legs so I could have something to push off of. I definitely did not feel like standing like I know some people do, I physically could not stand at this point. After a couple pushes, my midwife began coaching me and encouraged me to push harder.
I began pushing with the most energy I have ever used in my life. I had about 1-2 minutes of break in between each push and would make jokes. This felt like a track meet. Like I was running a (long) 400 Meter that had ebbs and flows of bursts and pauses. I thought I would be out of energy at this point, and in some ways I was, but I had so much adrenaline to give all my effort because I was DETERMINED to meet this baby.
I pushed for about 50 minutes at this point (it actually felt much shorter than that) when I started to feel Ryder getting close. At this point, my mom, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law (who was taking these lovely pictures) began cheering me on. Ryder began crowning and I heard someone say “He has hair!” At that moment I looked up and saw both of my mom’s faces light up. The room felt hopeful and happy, giving me that final burst of energy to push like there was no tomorrow.
Pushing was personally the hardest part for me. I never knew that I was “that strong” to be in labor for hours, no sleep all night, physically exhausted, and yet pushing with everything I had.
As he got closer to coming out, my midwife then instructed me to slow down and pace myself out. Within minutes he came, and the first thing I saw WAS THAT HEAD OF HAIR. The hardest part was over, and our little miracle had officially arrived.
MEETING RYDER
At around 8am he entered the world. His tiny eyes were open as he made little baby sounds. 7 pounds and 14 ounces of bliss. I had expected him to be either crying or (what I was really worried about) sleeping with his eyes closed, not too responsive. He was calm with his eyes open. He was perfect.
At this point I let out a cry of emotion, partially from the physical exhaustion rearing its end and mainly from the flood of love that I had for this baby in my arms. Brance was holding me and we were able to experience the entire moment together. It was unreal seeing all his cute little features for the first time and just thinking “Wow God. Thank you for trusting me with this precious life.”
GOING HOME
Unfortunately a bit after Ryder was born my blood pressure spiked and I almost passed out, twice. They gave me IV’s and a cool rag over my head. After some rest, water, and consoling from my midwives, we headed home after 8 hours at the Birth Center. We ended off the night with pizza and quiet, both still tired but excited to have this precious baby in our arms and thankful to God for a healthy delivery and a new little blessing. Coming home is my favorite part of this story. One of my favorite parts of having Ryder at the Birth Center was being able to come home within the same day.
MIDWIVES AND BIRTH CENTER
I want to give a quick shoutout to my midwives and Birth Center. My main midwife Donna was calm, cool and collected. She stayed near when I needed her to and she let me have my space when she could see I wanted it. It wasn’t up until active labor that she really checked in more and that was just the way I wanted it. She let Brance and I be a team and really honored my wishes. Her entire presence brought a sense of security to me. Her relaxed tone reassured me throughout the entire process that everything was okay. I could go on, but I will stop myself here, Donna rocks. Fun fact, she delivered Brance for his birth as a baby!
The other two midwife assistants made the entire team come together. Each midwife having their role and strengths play into the birth. Danielle, acted as the doula, and her smile continually reminded me of the joy that was to come. She coached me through difficult contractions, spoke life-giving words, and did pain relieving techniques. Though I didn’t have an official doula, she practically was one, and I scored big with her!
Shannon was the one with the checks and balances. Making sure everything was medically progressing as it should. She made sure to continually check my blood pressure, Ryder’s heartbeat, and her presence reassured me that I was physically in good hands. She also held my hands and consoled me when I was having a huge hormone dip about 2 hours after birth
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The Birth Center itself was the most peaceful, tranquil, and perfect place to give birth. I felt medically in good hands with the equipment they had. There was a solid back up plan in case something were to go amiss. The room (“The Uptown” they call it) was cozy and quaint, with a speaker playing worship music in the background. Everything was clean and they brought us a big IHOP breakfast after delivery, yum! The Center’s name is “Gentle Beginnings” and it lived up to it’s name:)
FINAL THOUGHTS
Too many thoughts to really sum up into words and I know this post is longer than my usual ones (and I STILL didn’t share everything.) I share this because it is important to me to share our positive birth story, amidst some of the negativity surrounding birth in general. Yes, birth is intense and it can be really scary leading up to it thinking of everything that could go wrong. I remember spending many nights praying and worrying about birth.
The truth is, birth is out of our control, in a beautiful way. It tests us. It challenges us. It shows us the strength that we never knew we had. It brings us the most beautiful blessing. And I pray that you can be encouraged by this story and know that each and every piece of your birth is in God’s hands.
XO,
Cherise
Gra dma
That was so beautiful and amazing. So proud of you and Bra nce and Ryder.