The Birth of Maple
North East England Birth Photography
First Time Mom, Georgia, shares her Free birth story in her own words
A Fast-paced Unassisted homebirth surrounded in love
As a labor and delivery nurse, I see birth all the time, and I also see completely normal births be sabotaged by the system, by doctors, by midwives, and by nurses. I learned about unassisted birth, or free birth, when I was in nursing school, the more I learned about normal physiological birth and how birthing in the hospital can disrupt the hormonal cascade of birth, I knew with everything in me that I would NOT birth in the hospital, and that I would have a free birth at home.
I spent a couple years learning, listening to dozens (honestly probably hundreds) of birth stories, and educating my partner on what true undisturbed birth looked like.
When we conceived our baby, at first I was still totally set on free birth, but then some fears started creeping in and all the "what if's" came to the forefront of my mind. This is part of the intense work of pregnancy, and especially when having a wild pregnancy. I had planned on having no testing or ultrasounds. Working as an L&D nurse in the hospital while pregnant is hard enough, we see traumatic births, death, and emergencies (often caused by unnecessary intervention) all the time and it is hard to keep yourself removed from that, and since I was having a wild pregnancy I felt even more vulnerable to all that comes with that. I decided to try to find an underground midwife in my area, someone who was not licensed by the state and therefore didn't have anyone to answer to but herself and me. I found one who agreed with me on everything related to birthing in the system so I hired her. She never pressured me once on any tests or anything, and wasn't even phased when my blood pressure was high (it was always normal at home) and I was only measuring 34 weeks when I was 39 weeks.
I knew deep down that my baby was totally fine and that my body knew exactly what to do to bring them here safe and sound.
But I am so grateful she never worried me, because that could have changed everything and while I was still planning on freebirthing I decided to have her as a backup for support if I felt I needed it.
My first contraction happened at 4am on the day after my 41st week of pregnancy.
It rocked me. I told myself I wasn’t going to time anything but when the waves were so strong and hard right off the bat I decided to time some. After about an hour of labor they were mostly 3 minutes apart and were so so hard already I couldn’t be still. I woke up my partner at 5 am and we started getting things ready. It was October and I had wanted to labor in front of a fire so my partner built me a fire while I drew a bath. I was pacing around the house trying to get comfortable but nothing was helping. I got in the tub to see if that helped any, I had my partner pour water on my belly during the waves, but it didn’t really offer any relief. I shortly got out of the tub and continued to pace the house, I labored on hands and knees by the fire for all of 5 minutes before I got too hot. Around 7 am I felt like things were really real but was still in denial because I just thought I would have a long labor. I threw up, which I knew was a sign of active labor, so I called my mom to start heading my way. I spent the next couple hours hiding away in my bathroom where it was dark and just braced myself for each wave holding onto the sink. Nothing I could do would help the pain at all.
My labor was so fast and hard but my nurse brain would not shut off and I kept having thoughts like “what if I’m only 2 cm” or “I’m a first time mom there’s no way this is already active labor” and “I truly don’t know if I can do this for 12+ more hours.”
I had called the birth photographer, Hanna and she arrived around 830, I was still in the bathroom while my partner was filling up the birth pool. I’m not a planner and the hose we had didn’t fit onto our sink so my partner spent the majority of my labor filling up the pool with pots of water from the sink,
would it be a home birth story without someone filling the pool with pots of water?
I was working so hard through each wave at this point and definitely was breathing deeply and making sounds. They were mostly 2 minutes apart now.
I remember how in tune with my body I felt during this time, when a wave would come I would instinctively lift my leg up and sort of squat into the contraction, it didn't help the pain but I suppose my body was doing this to help my baby engage and get into an optimal position. I had gone to the bathroom around 9 am and had some bloody show which was the first time I felt like, “ok I really am in labor” it’s so funny how you can be in such denial when you are CLEARLY in active labor! I got into the birth pool shortly after that, and honestly, it barely helped, probably because the water barely reached my belly! But I was there to stay, while my partner continued to add more water to the pool. I was being very vocal through the waves and just had to move my body with each one, I was still mostly laboring on hands and knees.
My mom arrived at 930 and I had my eyes closed when she came in because I was riding a wave and started to really dive deeper into the portal of birth.
She grabbed my hands and I just remember her shaking and crying at the sight of me in so much pain.
She did not know how far along my labor was and I think she was in shock when she got there! She even had called my partner from the road saying she was stopping at the grocery store on the way! With each wave now I NEEDED to hold on to somebody or else I felt like the energy from the wave would literally take me out of my body and off this planet. They were so hard and so strong but I just held onto my partner's hands to ground me through it. Around 10 am at the end of the wave I felt my body pushing on its own towards the end of the wave. Since my nurse brain never shut off I was totally freaking out and saying things like
“I’m a first time mom it’s way too early for me to be pushing right now” because it had only been 6 hours since my first contraction!
With each one my body was pushing more and more, I wasn’t fighting it but it was scaring me. I had my husband call a friend who suggested I have the midwife check me. She didn’t know I didn’t have a midwife there, we hung up and called my nurse friend who did know I was planning a free birth. She answered the phone during a wave and just heard me roaring. She got there maybe 10 minutes later.
I was definitely transitioning because I was freaking out
and asking her to check me even though I didn’t really want her to and she knew that. She suggested I check myself, I hadn’t done that yet because I was still scared I would only be 5 cm! I reached inside and immediately felt a bulging bag (what we call it in the nurse world) and her head right behind it! I felt so much more calm after that and was much more able to just follow my body’s lead. My partner also reached in and felt her head, it was so beautiful. With each wave now I was totally in tune with my body and my baby, we were working together to bring them earth side. At one point my baby was almost crowning, but I felt them totally move back up the birth canal, rotate and come back down, it was the wildest feeling but I had complete trust in them to know what they needed to do to come out safely. After that only a few more waves passed and their head was out! I don’t remember any pain with that at all, the body's ability to numb pain is truly amazing. The bag of water was still intact and I was just feeling their head and telling them I trusted them and I was following their lead. I felt an ear through the bag of water and was just blown away! The head was out for almost 2 whole minutes, which in a hospital birth would be considered an emergency, but I had the deepest sense of knowing that the baby was going to be perfectly ok, and I knew with the next contraction they would be out. With the next wave I pushed a little bit and sort of pulled them out, the body slipped out and I fumbled to get the sac off their face and out of the water, being the first one to touch my baby was extremely important to me and I'm so glad it happened that way. They cried right away and had perfect tone and it was the most amazing moment of my life!! I felt so fucking strong.
I waited a few minutes to check the sex, the baby looked absolutely nothing like I had expected, although I didn’t really know what I expected. When I finally looked and found out it was a girl I was OVERJOYED! I had really wanted a girl and was so happy my baby Maple had arrived completely safe and healthy on her own terms. Without any tests or ultrasounds my baby was 100% healthy and perfect.
My family and I spent the next few minutes just soaking up the moment and staring at this perfect little life we had created, just completely blown away by what I had just done. I started to get shaky and cold and could feel some after pains coming on so I decided to get out of the birth pool and go to the bed. Maple, Cord and I got into the bed and I pretty quickly started experiencing really intense cramps. I hadn't really expected that because they say the afterpains with your first baby aren't really bad but I honestly was in a lot of pain. I don't really remember how long I layed there for before I decided it was time to get the placenta out to stop the pains. I got up, still holding Maple and squatted over a bowl on the floor and the placenta just fell right out and I immediately felt better. I didn't seem to be bleeding very much at all but the nurse in me knew it was important to empty my bladder so I tried to pee but was unable. I wasn't worried at all because I felt better than ever, physically and emotionally. I got back in the bed and tried to work on latching Maple (I had probably tried to latch her 3 other times by now with no success). I never once did any fundal massages or tinctures to "manage" bleeding, I just had complete trust in the birth process and my body and knew that since I had a peaceful spontaneous birth I would be ok.
I ate some food and drank lots of water and decided we could cut the cord now. I had a sterile cord clamp in the home birth kit I bought online that we used and Cord just boiled some kitchen scissors in hot water and then he cut the cord. I inspected the placenta to make sure all the parts were there, it was a huge placenta with some calcifications and it was all intact. I was able to pee shortly after with no pain at all. I was in shock that I had literally zero pain in my yoni, even after all the adrenaline wore off I never once had any pain even days later. I never checked for tears because frankly I didn't care and since I had no pain I figured there wasn't anything major going in.
Our birth was beyond perfect, but our breastfeeding journey was a different story. I had tried to latch Maple many times on that first day with little success. When we did get a latch it was very painful and there was a ton of clicking. To make a very long story short, we saw 4 different lactation consultants. went to the chiropractor 3 times a week, saw a craniosacral therapist, a pediatric dentist and were exclusively pumping for the first 6.5 weeks. But in the end we finally got it figured out and are still breastfeeding almost 1 year later. Just like planning for an unassisted birth, learning to breastfeed took a ton of education, practice, and most of all dedication. It is a natural thing but it doesn't always come naturally.