#323 | Two Planned Home Births at the Hospital: Emily's Birth Stories

Emily Woodward is a mother of two who planned a home birth for each of her babies. Her first labor began with confidence and joy—and stretched across multiple days, testing her endurance, her trust in her birth team, and her ability to surrender when the path ahead took an unexpected turn. She transferred from home to hospital with a crowning baby. Her second pregnancy was smooth and uneventful—until 31 weeks, when she awoke in the middle of the night to a pool of bright red blood, and everything changed in an instant.

A former nurse and longtime believer in physiologic birth, Emily brought deep conviction to both experiences—but found herself making two very different choices, each for necessary reasons. In this episode, she shares how she navigated fear, advocated for herself, and came to find peace and even beauty in how each of her births unfolded, despite neither being at home. Her story is a moving reminder that sometimes the plan can change—twice—and still be exactly right.

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Transcript

So this was just dark. I felt like alone on a life raft in the middle of the ocean. So anyway, I get up, turn the light off, I get in my bed, and I immediately start praying, and immediately start talking to my baby, and I told my baby, if you need to come earlier than we expected, that's totally fine. We will. We're going to get through this together, but we are not having a cesarean with that woman. Can you just hold on? Can you hold on eight more hours until she is off shift and gone, and if you need to be born after that, then then great, but not tonight. I don't trust her with you.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, my name is Emily Woodward, and I'm going to be telling my birth stories from my sons Wyatt and Reese. So firstly, my first pregnancy with my son, Wyatt, was totally uneventful. I felt fantastic. I loved being pregnant. I was actually due on January 30 of 2023 but I was totally convinced that I was going to be late, because all of the women in my family historically have gone quite late with their babies. My mother was 42 weeks with me. My sister was 41 and two with her son. All of my aunts, I was like, I'm going to have a Valentine's Day baby, so I'm not worrying about much. So in classic Emily fashion, I'm like, Let's do my maternity photo shoot for the 28th of January, because I'm still, like, three weeks out, right? And my wife, wait a minute, was that like your due date? Well, my due date was January 30, but the 28th you know, two days before, I'm like, Saturday, it's great. Let's go hiking. Let's go to this beautiful oasis in Northern California. It'll be wonderful. And then I wake up at two in the morning with some liquid coming out of me. I was like, sounds like, we're not going to get there anyway. So I started to have, like, this slow trickle. And things were fine. I didn't really feel anything. And then maybe about 678, hours later, started to feel some things changing. Something's happening, you know, kind of feeling some discomfort, but nothing crazy. It just things are changing. So I'm like, Okay, I think this is happening. Life is life is going to change here very soon. So this is not, this is Saturday the 28th and things are progressing. It's all good. Saturday night was fine. I was definitely having regular contractions, and then things progressed. On Sunday, definitely more intense. The contractions were definitely getting closer together. And I remember getting, you know, like, six minutes apart, and I'm like, Okay, right? We're really making progress five minutes apart. Awesome, but then, but then my, my patterns sort of started to change. It got a little erratic, and would kind of slide back to, like, every eight minutes, every nine minutes, every 12 minutes. The intensity kept building, and I never actually got to that, like 411, you know, kind of rule of thumb is like, when you're supposed to call your midwife. So it just was kind of strange. And by the way, this was a planned home birth, and I was just so excited to give birth at home. It's going to be so great. I remember hearing all of the things, you know, try to sleep, try to nourish, try to hydrate, try whatever position is comfortable. I was so wildly uncomfortable at this point it had been, you know, a couple days of, you know, intense contractions and everything. And the only position my fellow yogis out there will understand this, the only position that brought me any kind of comfort was the biggest, most, deepest Child's Pose, like my butt was all the way up in the air. My legs were all the way in front of me, and I was like propped with pillows that got brought me the most amazing relief. And I just stayed there for as long as I could. And I just worked through the rushes, and I worked through all of that. And anyway, so I was in this very bizarre contorted position for many hours. And anyway, very hard to sleep. Everything was uncomfortable. Monday rolls around, and same kind of thing, the strange, erratic pattern I get close, I get to be about, you know, every six minutes, every five minutes, and then I'd slide back again. And so I'm in conversation with my midwife. I'm like, what's going on? You know, should I be worried the the fluid leaking was very little. It was, it was like a tablespoon here and there, tablespoon here and there every couple hours. So I was still walking, I was still doing my things. I was soaking in a tub, but I was checking my temperature. I felt like I needed the water more than anything, and it wasn't like a massive gush. So I felt comfortable with that, and my midwives were on board as well. So Tuesday comes along. So mind you, I've started labor on Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Now it's Tuesday, and so my midwife comes over and she checks me, and she goes, Oh, you're, you're six centimeters. I thought you were five, you are six centimeters. And I remember feeling so thrilled, because I'm like, Yeah, I'm actually making progress. This is all happening, that something's happening. So that was really exciting. And so I was six centimeters, which was so awesome to hear. I did decide. Had to do the midwives castor oil smoothie situation, and promptly puked it all up. I got nothing. I'm sure I got nothing absorbed, and I ended up feeling very sick afterwards. Contractions continued. Pattern was weird. Intensity was a building I'm trying to nourish, trying to hydrate, all of the things. Nothing is helping my my Doula, at that point, had joined us, and one of the most wonderful moments was her pouring water over me and just, you know, constantly keeping that water coming. And I'll never forget how, how held I felt when I was feeling really uncomfortable. So that was really great. Wednesday morning comes around, still, same thing. So no sleep. Now at this point, several, several days of really no sleep, and I decided to take the cast royal again. I'm like, I didn't I took it on Tuesday, but I threw it all up. I know I didn't get any I feel comfortable doing this. And I kind of did this on my own. I didn't consult the midwife. It was 6am I'm not waking her up with this. So I did it, and then then I really, very quickly, felt contractions start to build even more. So I'm like, Okay, this is great. This is great. Wednesday morning, was feeling just, I was hungry, but I couldn't eat. My husband had made me this beautiful breakfast, and I remember wanting to eat it, but I couldn't, and feeling torn about that. Because I'm like, I know I need to nourish because it's been days, and I just don't want to tuck her out. I don't want to tuck her out. So, okay, Wednesday, I now know retrospectively, this was transition, and in the transition, I, you know, wanted to jump out the window. I was like, I'm not doing this. This baby's just going to have to stay in there. I cannot do this. Five minutes after I had that feeling of jumping out the window, my midwife comes over. She's like, why don't we do a cervical check see where we're at? It's been days. And she goes, Oh, honey, you are 10. You you're at 10. And I was like, No way, really, I'm married. So exciting. It wasn't like this moment where I felt like, oh yeah, I should push. I just she told me I was at 10, and I was like, All right, cool. And we did start pushing. She was like, why don't we just give it a go, see what happens if you try to bear down, get in a comfortable position. For me, the best position to give birth, evidently, is actually on my back, but kind of in that rolled around my belly with my legs pulled up. I don't know how women without core strength give birth, because every power, every iota of power I gave this birth was from my my core anyway. So a couple hours go by, he's crowning. We can see, you know, the nice, pretty little spot of his head with his little, little hair, and it was so cute, and we didn't know the boy at this point and all that. So, you know, it's just going on and on and on and on and on and on. And so my midwives were like, Okay, it's been three hours. Why don't we rest? Why don't we rest? And I look at them, I'm like, you guys want me to rest right now? You want me to sleep. Are you kidding me? They're like, trust us, you need to rest. So I get all comfortable. My husband's got the hot water bottle, the 10s machine. My doula is putting droppers of like, something in my mouth. I don't remember, gelatin gummies. I got my labor aid, guys, I was set, you're resting while he's crowning. Yeah, he was, he was crowning. I just, I wasn't making any progress. Like, I just, he had been crowning for like hours at that was he going back inside? Like, he come down with a push, and he's just sitting on your perineum repair name stretched open. Yeah, and yeah. Okay, okay, good. Keep going, yeah. By the way, how many days are we on? Though, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, with this is now coming into my fifth day. Yes. Okay, yes. So, okay, so I'm trying to rest, and it just is not happening. I'm like, I cannot believe these people think I'm gonna sleep right now. That's hilarious. I now know why. Because, you know you're trying to build your strength and all the things. So I'm laying there, and my midwife comes in and she's giving me some herbs. I, for the life of me, cannot remember what they were, and she says, and I actually, I had this feeling. I was like, what's wrong? Like, I need you to tell me what's wrong, what's happening here. And I just want to take a moment and just say how much I love the midwives that I chose. They they are. I chose them because they believe in female physiology so much that it made me trust myself even more, which I already had. I already had that I knew I was going to give birth at home. I knew my body could do this, and I believe so much, and that makes me want to cry. Actually. I was like, that's why I picked these women. And so when women. And so when she looks at me and she's like, we're not really making the progress we need to be making your baby's safe. My job is to make sure that he stays safe. So please trust me. And that's when I knew. I was like, felt like I was looking down the highway and like seeing lights coming at me. Kind of visual in my head. I was like, she's seeing down the road. Where I can't think to see down the road, but she can, and this is why I chose her. So anyway, I'm kind of like, in this moment, I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. That's cute. They think they're going somewhere. So anyway, after some rest, they're like, let's try again. So I tried that, you know, squatting position. My husband's behind me. I hated that so much, I jumped right out of it. Felt like a cat getting in water. I was like, I can't beat it in that position. It's horrible. Love being on my back. Okay, so after another hour and a half of pushing, it's not happening. You're like, we really need to transfer. So I cannot tell you what it's like, packing a bag with a baby's head crowning, putting yoga pants on and getting in a Subaru and going to the hospital. I can't tell you like, but, and I totally felt that experience of like. Labor stalling because like, contractions immediately stopped. I stopped feeling anything except this bulging head coming out of me.

Yeah, it was a hard call. It was a hard call, and they knew how much I did not want to go to the hospital. Side quest for a quick moment, I'm a retired nurse. I was not going to have a baby in the hospital, so I had a lot of fear, and I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of big time resistance. I did not want to have babies there. And you know, on your show so often you say a woman should give birth where she feels safe is to give birth. For many women, that is the women, that is the hospital. I was not that woman. My Safe Place was my house. So I was like, I cannot believe I'm doing this. I can't believe it's happening. I roll into L and D. They knew we were coming. They were like, This is hilarious. We can see your baby. Like, what are you doing here? I'm like, I know your guess is as good as mine. I guess I need somebody to so very shortly after I got there, you know, again, lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. And my nurse was the most unbelievable godsend in the world. She had been briefed by my Doula, who came with us, who told her everything, my my birth preferences, my hopes, all of the things. She was an angel sent from heaven. She made me feel so loved and seen. She got on my level. She was soft. She, you know, quieted her voice. The room was like, we know what your birth preferences are. We know we're going to do this and this and this, and you have nothing to worry about. And I'm so happy you're here. You're going to meet your baby really soon. And I'll never forget her, because she actually was at my second baby's, my second baby's birth, which is really cool, too. So it was everything I needed. And I needed her. She wasn't even my real nurse. She was like, the resource nurse who was like, setting the room up. And it was everything I needed in the moment. So anywho it immediately got my my Pitocin, and then within an hour, it was go time. I mean, I was already at 10 but, but I felt the difference, you guys. I felt the difference between my contractions and Pitocin contractions. It was like, night and day. I was like, Oh my gosh, I've got this. Let's just get this show on the road, because I can do this now. And it was so amazing. Honestly, I know I sound like a crazy person, but pushing was so awesome. I felt like I was doing something when it came to birth. I was no longer waiting for something to happen to me. It was happening, and I was part of it. And one of the best parts of this birth was right before he was born, right before his head popped out of me. I left. I left fully. Left my body. I don't know where I went. I went somewhere in the ether that souls hang out before they come to Earth. And I saw, like, this dark, starry sky Galaxy thing. And I was like, I'm coming in to get you. And then he was here, and it was so awesome. And very shortly after his body was out, put total pushing after, after it was go. Time was about 20 minutes. So it's great. He immediately came on my chest. He had a short board, so I couldn't put him like all the way up. He was more like this. And we didn't know we were having a boy. And my husband looks down and he says, Honey, we have a son and all that. Oh my gosh. It was just awesome. So as somebody who was never having her baby at the hospital. It was such an awesome experience, and I'm so grateful. So total days, five days, I ended up, I started labor on the 28th of January. I gave birth on February 2 after midnight. So it was, it was a long time, but it was great. And I look back on it and just think, God, that was awesome. I would. 10 out of 10. Do it again. After all of that, my placenta had not come out. And so they were like, well, we need to remove it. So my the midwife who helped deliver, she tried to no avail. So then the surgeon comes in, and she's like, Hey, so we got to go to the or I can't get this out. And I said to her, I'm not going anywhere. Get it out here. And I remember having that kind of like tense, tenseness in my voice. And she's like, All right, I'll try. And she reached up again and got it out. I had very minimal blood loss. I did tear and they had to re suture me, suture me twice. So that was fun, but having just given birth to a seven pound, two ounce baby, 10 out of 10 would rather do that than have two full grown women's arms reaching up inside my uterus. So anyway, is it? Was it a failure to wait? Was my was my uterus simply so tired it just didn't have anything in it to get the placenta out, which we know is still part of birth. The Pitocin was cranked up as it was, so I really didn't have a lot of options. So looking back, it was fine, but that was the end of our birth. And after all of it, it ended up being such, such a powerful experience. And I always lovingly say, I had my home birth. I just didn't give birth at home. And it really was a fantastic hospital experience, even from somebody who was so not going to the hospital. And I went so far as to say, You know what, I would totally have a baby here again. Which leads me into my second birth story with my son Reese, who was also born at that very same hospital. Okay, so this brings me to the story of my second baby, and this pregnancy was very much like my first. It was very easy, uneventful. I feel like I should mention that this was the second second planned home birth as well. And in my pregnancies, historically, I have just declined that first ultrasound. I just, I knew when I conceived. I knew dates. I didn't feel strongly about it, so we just never did that early ultrasound. And then we also, um, just for preferences, I didn't need the anatomy scan. So we never did a 20 week for either of our sons. And so things are moving along beautifully, feeling great. It was actually the night of April 23 2024 I was 31 weeks and I woke up in a puddle of Frank red blood.

I remember the text I got from you that morning, yes, and it's three hours behind in California. So it was like, 4am my time. I'm like, I need to talk to somebody, and we had, we'd had sex earlier that night, went to sleep, all normal things, and then about 1145 that night, I woke up to, yeah, just warm wetness beneath me, and I saw that it was Frank red blood. And we immediately woke up my 14 month old baby, and got in the car, and I had one maternity diaper left over from my previous birth, and I threw it on because the bleeding was so intense. And I just, I remember walking out to our car and thinking, oh my god, we're we're either having a 31 week old baby tonight or I'm losing a 31 week old baby tonight. And I It was the scariest moment of my whole life. I just, I remember picturing like, my baby's dying right now, and I'm not going to have a baby after tonight. Or maybe I pictured, you know, the incubator in a NICU, a 31 week old baby. And I thought like, these are my two options. What? How are we here? How is this happening? How is this happening? And having had such a seamless pregnancy up to that moment, I'm like, I just truly can't believe this is happening. I was so afraid. I was so afraid. I was never really afraid for me. I was afraid for the baby I was I didn't know. I didn't know what to expect. All I had was fear and the gravest fear one can have, really. I so we're in the car, and my husband's holding my hand. He's driving and holding my hand, and he's like, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. You know, reassurance, reassurance. And out of nowhere, I just said, you know, if anything happens to me, like, can you make sure they try to save me and the baby? And I just, I said it like that, and I wasn't trying to be dramatic, but I dramatic, but retired nurse, you got to have these conversations. I didn't know what we were going into, is this surgery? Is this a huge blood loss? Am I going to lose consciousness? I don't know. I don't have anything like that. It's, you know, written. So I just, I felt like I needed to say it. And then he started to get very emotional, and I was very emotional. So it was just a very it was a very long, 12 minute drive to the hospital. Please, please make sure that they know the how bad I want to be here. Anyway, I think I may have carry a lot of sadness from my my ICU nursing days. Anyway, I felt movement right before we got to the parking garage. And you know how your mind kind of plays tricks on you when you really hope something's right or wrong, but when you're in fear mode, you just don't know. I couldn't be certain if it was real or if it was pretend, or if I was making it up, or if it was gas. And anyway, so we get in, and the doctor's like, Have you felt movement? I actually just felt movement, like two minutes ago. She immediately does a cervical exam, and she's like, Well, good news. Not in labor, and I'm like, well, that's great. Why Am I bleeding? Stat ultrasounds mean different things to different people, because my stat ultrasound took two hours, but they had thrown the tachometer on me, and baby had a heart rate. So that was fantastic. Life was good. So finally, when the stat ultrasound gets there, the doctor says, So good news, your placenta is not abrupting. Your baby's alive. Everything looks fine in there. You just have complete placenta, previa. And I remember thinking, Oh, okay, you know, you're not processing. You're just like, my baby's alive. My placenta is good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Then I heard previa, and I'm like, oh, previa, wait a second. And then my brain caught up with like, you know, my my eyes and circumstances, and I'm like, Oh, wow. Okay, so, so this changes everything. And you know, my my blissful dreams of my home birth, which I was so excited about, immediately went out the window, so we had a lot to UN unpack there, but, but I really got the best of possible news, my baby was well and alive, and I was okay, and I wasn't in labor, and baby was not going to be born, and baby was alive, and Well, tonight, I just have previa, and I can look back on that and say I really just had previa. My baby was fine. So

you had never done an ultrasound? No, I had never done an ultrasound. Yeah, very cool. And basically, is it that the uterus starts where maybe this is for Trisha, but, like, does the uterus just start expanding such that the blood such that the placenta, which is attached now starts to cause some bleeding? Is that Trisha? What probably happened? Yeah, basically, when you have a previa at some point, usually there's bleeding earlier than 31 weeks, spotting early on in pregnancy, some signs of it. But yeah, it could just be her cervix was starting to open a little bit. Or does the uterus was growing, it it detached a little, or just kind of, it causes some bleeding as it spreads it.

It's interesting, because this might be a little TMI for your listeners, but, you know, I mentioned that we had sex earlier that night, which we had had throughout the pregnancy. It wasn't something that was unusual for us, but that that night, the orgasm was particularly intense. I remember feeling very it was very intense, and it was almost like a floodgate. And in that moment, it was because, looking back, I'm like, that was just different. It was different than what I had been used to. And so you turned to your husband and said, You did this. We had that conversation. Like, if we hadn't, maybe things would be different. I'm like, no, no, it might have been a blessing in disguise to know that you had a previa before having a home birth. It was a blessing. It was a blessing in so many ways. So I know your listeners know this, but the complete placenta previa means cesarean because there's literally nowhere for the baby to exit. The path is blocked. The uterus path is blocked. So it was pretty wild to kind of go from, oh, I'm totally giving birth at home. This is It's fine, to No, no, you're having a surgical birth. So I was actually admitted to the antipartum unit, which some women spend long, a long time on. I was there for two plus weeks. Some women are there for 5678, weeks. Some, some women are there for a very long time. So when these doctors are like, Well, you might be here till you give birth, I was like, That's so funny. You think that I have a life, I have a son, I have a husband, I have a I can't I can't stay here all you guys want from me. And so I didn't realize at the time again, my brain was not caught up. I was just like, my baby's alive. Now, what kind of thing? So I was admitted and I was away from my son. It was absolutely horrible. We were just monitoring this bleed, counting pads, all of the things. And I will say that, um, this, this part of my birth story is is sad for me. It's very sad because I, I was that first night, especially, I was very alone. I cannot tell you what it's like to be alone in these drafty hospital rooms, completely alone, strange people coming in and out, turning on lights at all hours of the day, like not like saying words that aren't normal for you to be hearing in regular life, and just casually discussing things like surgery and your your baby being in in scary words like hemorrhage and like your baby being in danger, like it's unsettling. It was, it was really, really unsettling. And I feel like I'm pretty even keeled most the time, and I can really navigate difficult emotions. And I felt like alone on a life raft in the middle of the ocean. It was, it was scary.

Do you ever wonder what that would be like for most women who aren't nurses like you are. I mean, most of us don't ever step foot in a hospital like did you ever spend any time imagining what this is like for all the other women who aren't nurses or not especially but after I it gave me new appreciation for my life as a nurse and how important it is to be that beacon of love and light, even in the dark moments. And I really do think that was my superpower as a nurse. And I don't know, I just I think about the fear your mind does crazy things when you are in fear. And I was so trying not to let my brain go to that place I'm like, and I did a lot. Praying. I did a lot of, you know, trying to come back to my breath in my body, all of that. I tried all of that, and I made a lot of progress, but my brain also was a scary place those first few, first few nights. But there is one moment that I want to highlight, because it was so poignant and just absolutely seared into my memory. And I just, I think it is a valuable piece of our birth story, and just in case it helps another mother who might find herself in a vulnerable position. So the my bleeding had slowed considerably, like barely a drop on my pads. Okay, it was brown. It was clearly old blood. It was slowing, definitely not that bright red, copious blood from a couple days earlier. So from your big orgasm after the big orgasm, watch out, girls.

So I guess we're keeping that in the episode. I love it. If you're fine with it, we're fine. I am absolutely fine with it, yes. So um, this a little bit gross, but I was saving my pads for the doctors to, like, see my trend of my bleeding, and I would date it with my little sharpie and like, oh, from 7am to 12pm and this is what it looked like. And I dated it, and it was great. It was really great. And it was in my bathroom, all lined up, all the things, and it's about 11pm on the second night now, of me being in the hospital, and I had just fallen asleep for the first time in over 24 hours, this doctor comes in, okay? She flips the lights on, she does not introduce herself, which I remember, because I have an insanely good memory, and literally remember every single name of everybody who took care of me during that time, and she did not introduce herself. And I later had to ask who this doctor was, one of my nurses. And just like, again, as a nurse and a healthcare professional, I have a huge problem with that. Like you don't just walk into somebody's room and not introduce yourself and act like you have any kind of authority over that person I don't know. So my guard went immediately up, and I immediately did not trust this doctor. So she walks in my bathroom, looks at my pads, and she says, We need to make you NPO like we we might need to section you tonight. Your bleeding has not stopped. What's NPO? NPO means nothing by mouth, and usually wait, as I said, NPO, it is NPO with NPO like oral intake. That's like just a medical term for oral intake. Po, so NPO would be nothing by mouth. So this doctor, she says, We need to make you NPO, right now, we might need to section you tonight. Your bleeding hasn't stopped, and literally up until that moment, like everything was improving, my baby was perfectly happy in there. I'm strapped to this continuous monitor, so they're watching every single second. I'm not in labor, I'm not having contractions. Nothing was imminent. My present moment in the circumstances like did not match what she was saying. So I asked her, I was like did? Is my baby showing any signs of distress. No, am I? Am I showing signs of labor or contractions? No. And I, like, asked her. I was like, I know my bleeding hasn't has slowed. It's round now. It's not red. It's actually almost been negligible over the last 10 hours. And she's like, well, just in case, we need to be ready for anything, so I'm going to make you NPO, so she leaves. Forgets it, forgets to turn my light off. I was so mad.

Are you kidding me? I am not. I'm so mad already that she walked in and turned it on. I I treat sleep like it's sacred. Oh, I to make any sound or noise, and to make any noise or like light around someone, the fact that she turned it on when you were asleep, but now she left the room with the light on. I'm so mad right now. And and also, hospitals have a bunch of lights. They've got the big overhead light, they've got the little light by the door. They've got the bathroom light that you can close it. There are ways to make this not awful. Okay, there are ways. Again, I was so mad at her, so she so I was mad. I begrudgingly, like, get up, turn my light off, and I did something that was extremely healing for me, and I use it to this day whenever I get that funny feeling. So anyway, I get up, turn the light off, I get in my bed, and I immediately start praying, and immediately start talking to my baby, and I told my baby, if you need to come earlier than we expected, that's totally fine. We will. We're going to get through this together, but we are not having a cesarean with that woman. Can you just hold on? Can you hold on eight more hours until she is off shift and gone, and if you need to be born after that? Then? Then great, but not tonight. I don't trust her with you. And then, then, this is a really fun part. Then I pictured the most beautiful, warm, glowing, pulsating, protective, golden light surrounding my baby, surrounding my uterus, then this bigger, golden light surrounding me and the two of us, we were just held together in this bubble of golden healing, precious light. And I stayed in that space for the rest of the night, holding this image of us being protected together. And as I got through that night, I did not give birth, I did not stop eating and drinking, even though the order was in I did not care, partly out of anger, but also I knew I wasn't having this baby. But I also it doesn't matter, even if you were having the baby exactly, eating out of anger, gone exactly.

I was like, I'm gonna eat this burger right now. She I said I was not letting her anywhere near me and not doing it. And so fast forward. I'm in antepartum for. Other two weeks away from my husband and my baby just counting, pads, praying, and I go into labor watching Pitch Perfect and Modern Family reruns, and I and you logged into the postpartum group and joined us on Tuesday mornings and cried and cried many a time during that time. And that was really, that was really hard. Just your our group just is so tender, and I felt so held and just I was so sad. It was such a sad time. And so anyway, it was a lot of reconciling, and it was a lot of just finding peace between my reality and my my hopes and they were so it was all about acceptance and surrender as I look back. And so also, the doctors did not believe my conception date, because my baby was measuring more like 34 weeks instead of like 32 weeks. Even though I knew the exact date that he was conceived, they also thought I was gestationally diabetic because he was measuring big, and I had declined the gestational screening like, you know, whenever you do it, 28 weeks or something, and and even though I was an inpatient, and they were checking my blood sugars every four hours. My blood sugars were pristine. They were still convinced. They were like, you're probably gestationally diabetic, even though your blood sugars are perfect and you've gained a very normal amount of weight for your pregnancy, even though, even though, even though your baby's big, well, I thank God knew I didn't have 40 weeks to cook my baby, because he came out of beautiful weight. And I don't know, it just was kind of funny. I just, I kind of, um, I kind of appease them. I said, oh, let's keep doing the blood sugars. I'm not interested in doing the the gestational screen at this point. You also gave me beta method zone that's going to skew things. I just, I wasn't crazy about it. And so that felt kind of nice to have a little, you know, autonomy. And I just, I knew I wasn't gestationally diabetic. I knew I wasn't. They just needed a reason for why my baby was measuring big.

I'm just, I have a little skit going in my head where you're sitting there saying to them, okay, so what evidence is there that I have gestational diabetes and their responses? Well, because we said, so there's your evidence, because you didn't do the test. That's what they think of. Every mother who doesn't do the test and has a big baby, has no gestational diabetes, correct? That's exactly what it was. And they love to find and they love tests and answers. They love things that explain other things. And I just in case we forget later. Emily, what did he weigh at births? Five pounds, 15 ounces. At 34 and five weeks?

Wow. Okay, that's a really great weight. Okay, so tell us what happened. So finally, a doctor accepts me, which is hilarious. I'm in this hospital for however long. And finally, somebody accepts me because I was a home birth. They're like, well, we don't know who's going to take you. This doctor comes in and she's like, your baby's going to be born on May 31 and in my head, in the moment, I was like, I am not giving birth that day. That's not his birthday. Interesting. And I don't know why at the moment, I felt that, but I actually ended up being discharged and started having some fluid leakage and some movement changes. He stopped moving, and I knew something was wrong, and my fluid was leaking, just a little slow leak, like I did with my first son. And I knew something was wrong. He wasn't moving. He didn't respond to cold water, honey, orange juice. Me laying absolutely still, nothing. So I went in, and they were like, you know, you have no fluid. Your biophysical profile test is two out of 10. There's no fluid. He needs to come out. Now, the conditions have changed, and it was interesting, because he was always so happy in there, and so to feel him not move, I was really concerned. What did I miss the part where you went home for a bit? I did. I did go home after the bleeding stopped. I had been in the hospital about two weeks, and I was home for about another week before my fluid started to leak. Okay, yeah. So I was home with my family, and then, yeah, I had a slow leak. He stopped moving. We immediately went to L and D. They did a biophysical. We failed. He was two out of 10, and they were like, it's not emergent, but it needs to happen today. And so that was May 22 actually, his birthday is tomorrow. And as somebody who was never having a hospital birth and definitely never having a surgical birth, I've had now had both. And it was such a wonderful cesarean. It was a wonderful cesarean. My team was fantastic. They explained everything to me, they played the music I wanted to listen to. They they knew that I wanted to be involved in everything, every incision, every time she got to a new layer, every time she every time something happened, she told me, and it was a really, really wonderful experience. When I look back, I'm I have nothing but grace and gratitude for how he was born. Like I know that that experience like being away from my other child, and being so in fear and having to surrender and accept, and I know that it's helping me mother this child the way that he needs to be mothered in life. And I'm it's it's really healing when I look back on it. It was so hard, but I'm so good. I really carry I have a lot of reverence for my surgical birth, even though it was so not what I wanted. I would never have picked that for myself. It was really positive 10 out of 10, but have another baby there.

It's a beautiful example of how a woman's made to feel in birth. Birth influences her perception of her birth experience. You can have a terrible home birth. You can have a traumatic, difficult home birth when a home birth midwife makes you feel disempowered or makes you feel shamed, or makes you feel bad about yourself in some way, or your birth, or you did something wrong, or something like that. And then you can have a completely beautiful, empowering, safe, respected, dignified C section because of how she treated you. It isn't the birth itself. It is how you are made to feel absolutely birth that matters, absolutely every person, every part. The anesthesiologist who did my spinal, he was amazing. He the nurse who I mentioned my with my first son. She was like, I saw your name, I knew I knew your name, so I switched the assignment. I wanted to be here for you. I just, it was so great. It was so great. And I just feel like this, this was so healing on so many ways, on so many levels. And I just look at him now, and I think, man, like this was how it was always going to be. There's so little that we can actually control in life, so little, so little, and that has been a lesson that I'm I'm found has just carried through motherhood. It's wonderful, and I'm so thankful that I live in a time where I could safely have my baby despite a complete placenta previa blocking my cervix, and I feel like the lessons in birth are so wide and reaching and just I am thankful every moment.

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