My 2nd Homebirth Story
If you’ve been around a while, you’ll know that my first birth story was anything but a pleasant birthing experience back in May of 2022. I had spent over 2 years healing mentally and physically from it before getting pregnant with my second baby in April of 2024. It was my first birth story that encouraged me to begin blogging in the first place, because I needed a place to get it all out in the open and process. So, despite it being a “bad” story, it is also a happy one that is also the “birth” story of this website!
Fortunately, this birth story is much different than my last and I am so excited to share it with everyone- especially those who encouraged me throughout my pregnancy and made me believe that I could have the homebirth I’d always wanted. So, here it is- my second homebirth story of our son, Oliver “Ollie” Gingerich.
Pregnancy
In April 2024, I left the job that I’d been at (and loved) for 8 years in order to pursue my health coaching and blogging. I was super excited to get started and had built up a lot of momentum in my head. This all came to a screeching halt when I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of May. My initial thought about being pregnant was, unfortunately, “I don’t know if I can do this again…” I knew that if and when we had another baby, we would try to have another homebirth, despite my self doubt of being able to do it successfully based on my first birthing experience. I contacted my midwife team and got established with them again. Meanwhile, my first trimester was a lot different than my first trimester with my daughter. This time I felt extremely tired and unmotivated to do anything. So, all that momentum I mentioned earlier was pretty much gone.
I continued to exercise up until about week 26. I made a point to at least walk every day but I was also teaching barre classes as well. By week 26, my pelvic floor physical therapist advised me to stop doing core exercises altogether, which meant I couldn’t coach or attend barre classes anymore. I had pretty painful pubic symphasis and it got so intense, I couldn’t even go on my walks anymore. So, I was living a pretty sedentary life the last few weeks of pregnancy, which scared me. I wanted to be as physically fit as I could be during this pregnancy so that I knew I’d be physically ready for birth. This contributed to me also continuing to doubt myself, but I never acknowledged it out loud to any one else.
Throughout this pregnancy, I received chiropractic care at least once a week. Near the end, I was going nearly 3 times a week. After going to the PT for a while, I realized that it wasn’t helping to resolve my pubic symphasis pain, but chiropractic care would give me relief for a few days. So, I focused on making sure I got my adjustments regularly and rested my body as much as I could. Luckily, during this pregnancy I did not have gestational diabetes (I had it with my first baby). So, that did make me feel a little bit better. However, I was low key hoping I would have gestational diabetes again just to motivate me to eat better. Whenever I am not pregnant, I eat pretty clean and very nutritionally balanced. During this pregnancy I did not. In fact, all I wanted to do was go out to eat and eat whatever I want- which I did. In turn, along with being immune compromised from being pregnant in general, I got sick quite a few times during this pregnancy.
While I didn’t have nausea from pregnancy, I got a cold about 3 times and I even got shingles all over my arm and back in my second trimester. This was alarming to me because I literally am never sick. However, I wasn’t nourishing my body and my immune system was trying to protect me and a growing fetus, so I really believe that is why I was sick so frequently (for me). I also had a rash appear on my right hand that progressively got worse throughout pregnancy, so that was annoying as well.
After week 26, I was pretty much over being pregnant because I was so uncomfortable. I carried this baby very low and it made it difficult to do anything physical- even picking up my toddler. The PT I was seeing advised me to try not to lift her because she was concerned I may have a prolapsed bladder (which now I know I did not). So, as I got closer to delivery, I got more physically uncomfortable and disheartened. Other than that, I was very blessed to have all normal scans and tests throughout my pregnancy. I only got 2 ultrasounds- one for the anatomy scan and one as a follow up to ensure they got all of his heart chambers from the anatomy scan. My “due date” came and went on January 15th and I tried things to encourage labor like the Miles Circuit and harvesting colostrum, but none of it was really doing anything so I eventually gave up and just let it be.
Delivery at Home
On Sunday, January 19th, I woke up feeling totally normal. At this point I was technically 4 days past my due date and knew that he could arrive at any day or time. However, since I felt normal and had no contractions or broken waters, I proceeded with the day as usual. We went to my best friend’s house, took a trip to Sam’s Club for more labor snacks and meals for the week since it was supposed to snow in Alabama, and then hung out back at my friend’s house until about 4 PM. As we got into my husband’s truck, I felt uncomfortable, but no different than what I’d felt for the weeks prior- similar to my prodromal labor.
I went home and took a shower while my husband and toddler went and picked up dinner. The contractions slowed down so I figured it wasn’t real labor, so I had dinner with them but by the end of dinner, the contractions were more intense and I had some signs of bloody show. I texted my midwife around 7 PM and she said to keep her updated. I blow dried my hair and had some electrolyte water to prepare for the night ahead. By 7:45 PM I was having intense contractions and shaking between them, so I texted my midwife again and she headed over along with my friend who is my chiropractor. I am not sure when my midwife arrived because I had headphones in and was listening to my birth play list, but by the time my chiropractor friend showed up, I was walking around my room and just breathing through contractions. My best friend came over to tend to our toddler and to get her to bed and from then on, everything sped by but in the slowest way possible.
Around 10 PM, my chiropractor friend left after giving me a few (amazing) adjustments during my labor- I think this made a huge difference for my baby’s positioning. From there, I labored for hours in different positions. Most of the time I was in our bedroom since I didn’t want to try to have a water birth this time. I would transition between hands and knees on our bed with my birth ball to the living room. In the living room, I was extremely tired so we used that time as my “rest”. I reclined in our recliner for a while despite it being extremely uncomfortable. My best friend left sometime during this because our daughter was asleep and we figured the baby would be here before she woke up. At this point, my water still had not broken and I had not tried to push. I was focused solely on breathing through my contractions- it is all I thought about. I didn’t do this with my first labor and I really think it was a huge contributor to it ending in an emergency transfer to the hospital.
Around 12 AM, I was already starting to get discouraged. It felt like I had been at it for a long time, although it’d been a few hours. I kept trying to get my midwives to tell me when they thought he’d be born, but they were tight lipped. I knew that every birth is different and that answer was impossible to know, but that didn’t stop me from asking. However, they were encouraging me the entire time throughout and that helped my mindset a lot. At one point, I was laboring on our bed and trying to breathe him down and I thought the end was near because I could hear my midwives preparing things that they’d need for the birth, so I had psyched myself out. Whenever he wasn’t born then, I got more discouraged. Every contraction was very intense back labor and I felt like my pelvis was literally splitting in two sometimes and I was unsure how much more I could endure.
Between 12 AM and 3 AM, I continued to labor in our bedroom, in the bathroom on the toilet, and on my bedroom floor. The entire time, my husband was by my side, talking to me and encouraging me (he’s the best birth partner in the world). At one point, I thought my water was trickling out since it hadn’t broke yet. We did a swab test to check and it had broken but it was leaking slowly. Later, I stood in the bathtub with steaming hot water on my feet because they were so cold. Around 3:30 AM, while draped over my birth ball in the hands and knees position, I could tell that my son was descending mostly because of my midwives’ encouragement. I had no idea how close I was to meeting my son. As I was breathing him down and crowning, we heard our toddler wake up in her room, so my husband had to leave me and go get her (something we really hadn’t planned for- I didn’t really desire her to be present for the actual birth). With my first baby, I didn’t experience the ring of fire because of the hospital interventions that were done to me. However, I had never thought about that while pregnant, which I am thankful for. The ring of fire was intense and my midwife kept encouraging me to push him out slowly although all I wanted to do was push him out quickly. I am grateful for her guidance because I did not end up tearing because of this (and all the oil they kept lathering me up with). I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to get through the ring of fire part, but I kept telling myself “you have to do this and then it’s over”.
Finally, at 3:54 AM, Oliver Gingerich joined us. My midwife caught him since my husband was holding my hand and holding our toddler in his lap. My midwife said she thinks he’d have come sooner if he hadn’t have had his hand up on his right cheek while he was descending. When Ollie was born, I was overcome with emotion and immediately started crying. I was so excited, relieved and in disbelief that I was able to have our last baby in our home like we’d always wanted without any medical intervention. All I remember was crying and saying “I f***ing did it”. The best part of this whole entire day was laying on the ground with my new baby, surrounded by people who love me and care about me, and watching Erik cut our son’s cord.
Afterwards, I got to take a quick shower and lay in our bed and nurse our son. Our toddler went to daycare for the day and once my husband got back from taking her, our midwives did his newborn exam which was so neat to watch. Our son weighed nearly 9 pounds and my husband got to weigh him- something I’d always dreamed of watching.
This birth story was a literal dream come true for me- especially after my first birth. My recovery has been amazing and not painful in the slightest. I have had the luxury of being able to stay at home and truly heal and spend time with my son, which I am eternally grateful to my husband for because he is our sole provider now. I will never be able to thank my midwife team, my chiropractor and my friends who encouraged me throughout my pregnancy. Their confidence in me made me more confident in myself and I really believe it contributed greatly to this amazing birth outcome.
