A Birth Story

by Ashley filed under Home Birth, Life, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Sonny

03.28.201603.28.2016

There’s a mason jar that sits on the plywood concrete block shelf Willy built about a year ago that also houses a portion of our record collection, our record player, and a few other knick knacks and books and plants. Within that mason jar are several pieces of paper folded in such a way that the words remain hidden; guesses, if you will, as to when the baby would come, how big it would be, whether it would be a boy or a girl, and how long it would be. Everyone from friends, even one in Florida, to grandparents, great grandparents, and neighbors pitched in on the pot, hopeful to take home a portion of the pot of money. It seemed like a fun idea until it got near the end when, well, truthfully nothing is fun anymore. I unfolded those little bits of paper and staring back at me were dates from weeks before. Even my own guess, made in some sort of hopeful and delusional state, was far gone.

Sonny, the wait was nearly longer than your mama could bear but, as I suppose they say – and as I peek over my shoulder at you so perfectly asleep and content in your bouncer- you were worth it.

Everyone has a story, my dear Sonny, this is yours.

———-

As your induction date grew nearer, I became more obsessed with getting you out before eviction time. I started to get hung up on stupid shit – like whether you’d be an Aires or a Pisces – and even considered changing my induction date because, I’m telling you, I was going crazy. If only hindsight weren’t 20/20. If I could have the peace of mind that I do today, knowing what I know now, I would have waited with more grace, more patience; I would have waited a lifetime. But, alas, the end of my pregnancy with you felt like a lifetime with each day sucking whatever energy I had and whisking it away like a broom sweeping dust off a porch. I read once that cats runaway prior to giving birth; they find somewhere dark and birth their kittens in the loneliness and company of dark shadows. I can relate. I wanted to dig a hole and not come out until I had you in my arms.

I woke up that morning looking forward to my appointment, eager for the doc to give me some crystal ball answer of when I would go into labor; which, truthfully, I knew was a lousy thing to rely on given the fact at the previous appointment he said I’d have you in my arms within the next 5 days. That appointment was over a week prior. I suppose it’s that very lack of control, the uncertainty, that makes pregnancy so troubling at times; so much to worry about and get hung up on.

He did a quick ultrasound and confirmed that my fluid levels were great, your heart beat perfect. He didn’t comment on your size, per his usual less-is-more conversational skills and at-that-point I was glad; I knew deep down you’d be big and going into labor without that seed of fear planted in my head helped to some degree. He stripped my membranes, for at least the third – maybe fourth – time and reminded me, once again, that he’s never put a women into labor by stripping her membranes. I was 4 cm and 80% effaced and though that came as a pleasant surprise, google was quick to remind me that others stayed at these measurements for weeks, some even having to be induced for ‘failure to progress’ beyond those measurements. No such reassurance with this pregnancy gig, I’m tellin’ ya. He hooked us up to the fetal monitor, checked your heart rate against some contractions during a non-stress-test, told me you look “too perfect”, asked that I not go into labor until after midnight – after his sushi date with his wife – and I left his office.

I met up with a friend of a friend later in the afternoon, who agreed to do some acupressure. By this point I had sworn off all natural induction tricks but given the fact she was referred by a friend who referred to her as “the big guns” and offered to help out of the kindness of her heart, it was hard to say no. I met her at her house and she worked on some areas on my feet, shoulders, neck, and back while her son played with legos and their new puppy pissed on the carpet.

I stopped on the way home to get a pedicure, which is something I’ve never gotten in the two years of living here. But, given the fact I’m unable to bend due to my fused spine and now even less able to bend because of, well, your ridiculous size, I figured someone who does not love me ought to trim my nails and scrape the dead skin off my feet. There was a women sitting with her feet in the tub when I got there. She glanced over as I was picking out a color and said, “you look like you deserve a pedicure, when are you due?”. I gave her the I-know-right look and told her my due date had come and gone sometime ago. I climbed up to the massage chair, flipped through some trashy magazines that I only seem to ever pick up while waiting in line at the grocery store or at a doctor’s appointment, and left the nail salon with cherry red toe nails feeling like now would be a good time to go into labor. As would yesterday, but – ya know – ships sail.

The rest of that day was spent like the days that preceded it — waiting. I waited all the way through dinner and got in bed that night dreading the passing of another day and feeling much like I did the evenings preceding it — defeated. I got up to the bathroom, noticed some blood tinged mucous, googled “bloody show”, compared pictures others had posted, told Willy it could mean we’d be on our way to the hospital soon OR it could mean several more days of waiting (thanks, again, google for all your wonderfully definitive information), and got in bed with just the slightest glimmer of hope to combat the usual feeling of defeat.

As if you had more respect for our OB than I, just a few minutes after midnight – per his request – I felt the first contraction that caught my attention and briefly made me exhale just a tad longer than usual. Not being the first time I was awoken by a contraction that seemed to be gaining in magnitude, I didn’t get too excited. I did consider timing it to see when the next one would come and sure enough, five minutes later, I had another. I stopped timing them, however, when ten more minutes went by and nothing much happened. Defeat, pouring back in.

Then, around 12:20am (keep track of the time here because it’s an important part of your story), I heard a “pop”. I turned to your Papa and said, “did you hear that?”. He wrote me off entirely, assumed I was dreaming and responded to me the same way you’d respond to a drunk person who you know isn’t in their right mind to be having a serious conversation. He blamed it on my back, “It was probably just your back cracking”. Only it felt very internal. To be honest, I thought you had broke your neck. I spent the next couple of minutes waiting for you to move, to be sure you were okay, and when you responded with some gentle kicks, I got up to go to the bathroom hoping to see some sign of impending labor. Alas, nothing. Defeat, pouring back in.

I climbed back in bed and succumbed to the fact it was going to be another sleepless night, waiting and wondering and anticipating. And then my underwear started to feel wet. My first inclination was to wait, to be sure. My second inclination was to get out of bed and avoid having to deal with a mattress soaked with amniotic fluid. I made my way to the bathroom, again, this time accompanied by a clear puddle of water beneath my feet. I called my doula, told her in a calm voice that my water broke and asked her what I’m supposed to do now. Given the time and lack of sleep, she suggested waiting just a bit and trying to get some more rest. I knew in my heart of hearts I would not be able to take her advice.

I made my way back to the bed and had a contraction that made me grab hold of the bedding for support. Your Papa called the OB. I went over to my desk and consulted the list I had made (I love lists) of tasks to complete in early labor; things like shower, put toiletry bag in backpack, turn off computer, etc, etc. I started moaning in such a way that your Papa said, “How ’bout you stop doing that stuff and we start to head over to the hospital”. I agreed because it was obvious shit was gonna go down. We got in the car about 12:30am.

My contractions seemed to be escalating quickly. It literally went from my water breaking to full-on labor land mode. I tried to watch the clock to time them but each time one came I was swept away in such a way that no thoughts registered, common logic had all but left. I was in survival mode and the drive to the hospital felt like the longest drive of my life. The commute to the hospital is about 20 minutes and your Papa must had been driving 95 mph in addition to running several red lights. I heard your Papa on the phone with the OB, “I’m no OB but I think things are moving pretty quickly…”.

When we got to the hospital your Papa wheeled me into the waiting room of the ER. For the brief second I could open my eyes I could see about 10 to 15 people sitting in chairs, waiting to be seen. I gave them quite the show and I’m sure any one of them would have offered to give up their place in line for the screams of the woman in dire need that just bursted through their doors. Luckily the OB, God bless him, showed up a few minutes later and he was actually the one to wheel me up to the delivery unit. Your Papa went to park the truck.

On the way to the elevator, the OB – the one I’ve called some not nice names and debated leaving several times – rubbed my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “you’re doing awesome”. He probably knew he’d be home soon enough. I’m such a cynical bitch (should I apologize to you for that now or later in life?). Before we even made it out of the elevator, I felt the urge to push. I didn’t fight it. Past experience told me that the nothing was coming out of me with any sort of ease, so with each contraction, I bore down.

There was a room full of people waiting for me and next thing I knew they were asking me to get out of the wheelchair and into the bed. I remember the transfer being so difficult. Your Papa came in from the parking lot. I was still in my dress when I got into bed. I heard one nurse mention something about putting an IV in me, the other nurse declaring that there wouldn’t be time. They made an attempt at putting the monitor around my belly, asked me to switch positions a few times, and urged me to breath in the oxygen they were giving me. The OB checked and everyone stopped moving so fast when they declared me to be 6 cm. My heart sunk. It was 1:10am. They inserted the aforementioned IV. I still felt the urge to push and I couldn’t fight it, so I continued to push with each contraction. Not but a few minutes later I heard the OB say, “we’re going to have a baby here within the next 20 seconds”… and the room full of nurses started cheering on my pushing efforts. About four contractions later, at 1:16am, you were on my chest… your fluid-filled ball sac catching my eye during the transfer. A boy! They could have handed me a monkey and in that instant I still would have felt nothing other than complete and utter relief.

Moments later, my mom came in — the look of complete and utter surprise across her face. And moments after her, our doula arrived. Both intended to be at the birth but turns out that while some hurry up and wait, you prefer to wait and hurry up.

You pooped while you were on my chest, in true Jennett fashion (Hooper pooped on the way out too) and we all laughed by just how much poo there was and just how many of us your poo touched (all over my dress, all over your Papa who went to grab you and came out with fingers caked in green meconium, all over the nurses that eventually bathed you, and even on the OB who left soon-thereafter with poo on his jacket).

You latched on and breastfed like a champ, everyone commenting on the perfection of your latch.

We all took guesses at what you would weigh, with the majority of us (and the nurses) guessing in the 8 pound ballpark, sprinkled with a few 9 pound guesses. All of our jaws dropped when the scale read 10 lbs 0 oz. TEN POUNDS? So much for keeping an eye on my weight in hopes of it affecting yours. Should we be blessed with another baby in the future, I will surely take up smoking.

Welcome to the world, our world anyway, hope you enjoy your time here my sweet Sonny.

Born on St. Patricks Day, as only luck would have it.

———-

Post Script

Your Papa and I laugh about the fact you were almost born in the car. It seems only fitting that we have two ‘failed’ home birth attempts under our belts only to plan a hospital birth that nearly misses the hospital all together. There has been construction on the freeways here and given the 20 minute commute to the hospital, had you decided to come in the daytime hours, you would most certainly have been delivered in the car.

One additional token of irony is the ease of which you came out… the biggest babe of mine yet and somehow the easiest to deliver and with the fewest repercussions.

All of it proof, I suppose, that life doesn’t always have to make sense.

The difference between midwives and OBs

by Ashley filed under Home Birth, Pregnancy

11.24.201511.23.2015

I have a lot of conflicted emotions about medical care and for anyone that looks in through a window at my life, I’m sure they would be confused as well.

For starters, I work in the medical field as a registered nurse. I work with doctors, surgeons, case managers, social workers, physical, occupational, and speech therapists, dietitians, radiologists and so on and so forth. I seem to baffle a lot of my co-workers when I divulge the fact my first two children were planned to be born at home, in the care of midwives, given the fact that I should know what “could” happen and all that jazz.

If I’m being honest, I’m happy to be planning a hospital birth this time around. Two failed attempts is enough for me and while I support it wholeheartedly for other women, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not for me. I wish it was.

This is the first pregnancy I’ve been followed by an OB, from the beginning. The OB that delivered Hooper was fantastic, fully knew and supported the midwives I was working with, and did a fantastic job navigating Hooper’s tumultuous birth (though I’m still against induction despite the fact I know it’s necessary at times — I blame much of the decline in Hooper’s birth experience on the pitocin I was given).

During my pregnancy with Van, I had to chose a different back-up OB (the previous OB suffered a sudden death heart attack, which hit many in the OB community like a ton of bricks). I met with the new OB one, maybe two times. Because Van’s birth involved an ambulance transfer to the closest hospital, the OB that actually delivered him had never met us before (and to-be-clear by delivered, what I actually mean is pushed on my belly until his 9.8 pound body literally popped out — it was, um, audible). Point being, I’ve had OBs that have had to intervene along the way, but this is my first pregnancy where I will have been seen by the same OB from beginning to end, and more-or-less, only by him (I can’t help but think as I type that how ironic it would be if he couldn’t make my birth for some unforeseen reason and baby #3 ended up being delivered by yet another, new-to-me, OB. Hashtag: funny not funny).

So in a sense, I’m merely jumping through the hoops this go-around. I’ve had more ultrasounds in the first half of this pregnancy than I had combined in my pregnancies with Hooper and Van. I’m taking my first ever glucose screening test (I opted not to with the midwives because I was checking my blood sugars regularly at work and knew that if anything, my sugars were running on the low side of normal — therefore ruling out gestational diabetes).

The one thing I did turn down was the genetic testing and that’s based on nothing other than the fact that finding out the results of the test would have no bearing my decision to go through with the pregnancy.

I had my first ever ‘comprehensive ultrasound / anatomical screening’, which I was surprised to learn is not performed by regular OBs but by perinatologists instead. The very definition of a perinatiologiat, by the way, is “a physician that works in conjunction with a patient’s obstetrician when pregnancy complications develop and is able to provide care for both the mom and unborn baby”. My eyes were already rolling before I even made the appointment because I understand the absurdity in involving a physician who deals with complications being involved in the care of an individual experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy. But, alas, the hoops — I’ve agreed to jump through them (almost entirely for Willy’s sake; as he was rather traumatized from the first two births).

When I arrived at the perinatologists office, the receptionist pointed out where the bottles of water were; they sat on a fancy mirrored tray above the magazines that included none of the trashy stuff I only pick up in doctor’s office and in line at the grocery store, but instead “Travel & Leisure” and other sophisticated crap my burnt out brain cells didn’t feel like picking up. The sofa was oversized and included a large velvety blanket that I presume was there in the event anyone felt like cuddling. Point being, it felt very spa-like. Very pampered. And this experience continued as I was shown to my room, which was dimly lit with a desk at the window like you would find in a hotel room; a desk I’m sure no one has ever sat at with a small cup of pencils I’m sure no one has ever written with. At the sink were special soaps and lotions and a basket of hand towels. I sat back in the large chair, with my feet up, and watched the ultrasound on the big screen tv placed in front of me. I was a bit disappointed the chair didn’t have one of those massage mechanisms like they do at the manicurists. I’m being facetious.

It’s funny because sometimes I want to remind the very patients I care for in the hospital that they are in fact in the hospital, because of medical necessity no less, and not in a hotel. But I found myself on the flip side, wanting to remind the staff that they are indeed in a medical office and not some kind of massage pallor. It made me question further if any of this were necessary as I assume things that are necessary contain less fluff and more, I dunno, latex gloves.

In any event, all checked out fine. I closed my eyes while they checked out the baby’s goods and met with the doc at the end who summarized the findings; “My only concern”, he said, “is the baby’s size. You’re measuring a week ahead of where your dates put you”. He went on to suggest I have an additional test done to rule out gestational diabetes (because gestational diabetes accounts for larger babies). We then had a conversation about the birth weight of the boys (Hooper was 8.15 and Van was 9.8) and how neither of those involved any gestational diabetes. He also confirmed that birth weight has a genetic component (both Willy and I were 8+ at birth). And despite all the exchange of information, and this is the part that makes me hate the medical field, he wrote me script for the additional gestational diabetes testing and said he’d like to see me back, at 32 weeks, to “see how the baby is growing”.

Surely at 32 weeks the baby will be growing. It isn’t rocket science. It also doesn’t take rocket science to make the prediction that I will be carrying another large baby. The best indicator of the future is to look to the past, after all. I also know that ultrasounds later in pregnancy are less accurate due to the fact the baby is taking up more room. Sometimes they say weight can be plus or minus a pound, which is pretty substantial when you’re talking about a being that is only a handful of pounds anyway. And what’s it matter? It bothers me that women are not trusted to birth babies anymore; that so many are encouraged to go down the planned c-section path or the planned induction path (and while I have no judgements toward woman that chose this path, I do have judgments on practitioners that lead their patients to this path based on some kind of instilled fear). I have no doubt that this baby will be big. I also have no doubt in my ability to work with my doctor to get it out safely.

I could go on and on. I could even jump over to the other side of the coin and defend certain arguments from that side as well but all in all I think the take home message that I want to remind myself is this: Trust your gut. The care you receive is at times reflective of the larger population and fails to take the individual experience into account. Be your own advocate and ask questions that force your practitioner to see you as an individual.

And so, thus far I haven’t had many, if any, questions for my OB. I spend more time waiting for my food at the drive-thru window than I do in his office for an appointment. But when I did ask about the baby’s weight and his confidence level in delivering a big baby, he more or less shrugged off my concerns, boasted about the 9 pound baby he delivered that morning, and before-I-knew-it I was back in my car, on my way home.

I miss the care of midwives. I miss having my belly measured and touched. My OB appointments are exactly the same: pee in cup, stand on scale, check blood pressure, wait a minute for doc, doc comes in and asks “any bleeding, cramping, discharge, headaches?”, performs an ultrasound and listens to the heartbeat for maybe 7 seconds, asks if I have any questions, and I’m dismissed.

I remember listening to Kevin & Bean on the radio talk about that show ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant’, about women who actually go into labor and deliver a baby having never known they were even pregnant. They talked about how surprising it was that a lot of these women birthed healthy babies despite the fact they didn’t receive prenatal care. I’m not so surprised; prenatal care thus far has not impressed me. I feel like a cow being led through a corral.

Would love to hear from any mamas out there that also birthed big babies. I have a friend who birthed a thirteen pound baby at home and I always channel her in my pregnancies. Would also love to hear from any others about their prenatal care / OB experience.

Van’s birth story, from a different perspective

by Ashley filed under Guest Posts & Interviews, Home Birth, Motherhood, Parenting

03.03.2015

A few months ago my sister and I had a conversation about having babies and Van’s (pseudo) home birth story came up. It’s come up before, but as time has passed, I’ve been more open to seeing it through someone else’s eyes. I still have my own opinions on the day, but I do think that should a third be in our future it would not be born at home. That’s partly because Willy has already downright insisted that it cannot be born at home; but it’s also because I partly agree. Been there, tried that. Twice.

Anyway, here’s Van’s big day, as told from the perspective of my sister, who was there to witness it.

My beef with home birth

Before my sister (the writer of this lovely blog, the stork herself) got pregnant with her first, Hooper, I didn’t really think much about home birth. I kind of associated it with yesteryear—women in log cabins on prairies and shit. I mean, why would sane people have babies at home when they can take a car ride to a hospital?

But, my sister explained it to me and, with her nurse background, she was rather convincing. I get it. Women want to be in the comfort of their own home. They want it to be peaceful. They don’t want machines and drugs and interventions pushed on them by a medical team that is concerned only with not getting sued, insurance coverage, and turning beds as fast as possible. Home birth sounds very romantic. That’s all fine and dandy, but keep in mind that I once thought it was romantic to be 23, eating beans out of a can for dinner with my broke-ass boyfriend.

With Hooper, my sister ended up in the hospital, against her wishes. She was overdue and they had to induce her. Then she couldn’t get the baby out, so they wheeled her to the OR. Using every stubborn ounce of strength in her body, she had the baby naturally in the OR room. The whole thing was rather touch-and-go, as they say. Willy couldn’t talk about it for weeks.

The second time, I was there. I didn’t think I would be. Her due date passed and my husband and I left on a 7-day backpacking trip in the Sierras, planned months in advance. We didn’t have cell coverage. I thought for sure we’d come back to hear she’d had the baby, but no. She was overdue again. The morning after we got back—I like to think Van was waiting for us—we got a very calm call saying she was in labor. They were deploying the big tub at home, the midwife was on her way. I was in tears driving up through Los Angeles traffic. I was convinced I’d miss the delivery because of all those a-holes on their way to work. Little did I know that births aren’t as fast and simple as they look on TV.

When I got there, she was just starting to push. She was in and out of the tub. She was on the floor. She was moaning, screaming.

My dad and I tried our best to distract Hooper, who was obviously worried. He insisted on wearing his toy stethoscope.

After what seemed like hours, the midwife started whispering to her assistant and we all started to wonder what was happening. Once again, my sister was having trouble getting the baby out. In hindsight, the difficulty probably had something to do with the crazy curve in her spine, which shifted all of her insides. She’d mentioned the scoliosis to her midwife, but didn’t really stress the severity of it (after all, she’d lived with it for years—was it that big of a deal? Um, yes, probably). I was terrified that she would get the head out and the body would be stuck. I’d heard horror stories. Willy was terrified that his wife was going to die. Sure, he thinks in extremes, but I understood his fear.

The midwife made the decision to call the ambulance. A couple guys showed up, put her on a stretcher, and she was gone. We followed behind in a car—my mom, Willy, and me (my dad stayed back at the house with Hooper). The three of us were shaking, terrified.

When we got to the hospital, we rushed to her room. The screaming was intense. I had a moment of feeling bad for any other moms delivering. It sounded like a horror movie in there. Willy was by her side, my mom and I in the hallway. We were crying at that point—scared for my sister and scared for the baby. I told my mom to try to smile, for Ashley. It was my job to document the day.

We heard a big POP—the doctor pushing on my sister’s belly—and then the baby wailing. We started crying more tears, of the relieved variety. We rushed in and saw the baby—he was a big 9-pounder—and quickly understood that things were okay. Willy asked the nurse how scary it was, on a scale from 1 to 10. She looked at us, with almost as much shock in her face as was in ours, and said, “That was a 9.”

My sister hates when people pose for the camera. She likes real emotion. But I think we were all afraid to show the real emotion in our faces that day. We wanted to be strong for her. So we smiled. After all, things turned out okay (even though I thought Van looked like Golem from Lord of the Rings).

My sister wants a third. I’ve told her that if they decide to have that baby, it better be in a hospital. I don’t care if her spine is fixed now. I don’t care that she would love to have the home birth she always wanted. She can go drug-free in a hospital, around professionals who can help her if anything goes awry. My good friend is married to an OBGYN and he says, “Look, most births go totally great. But when something goes wrong, it goes really wrong.” I’m sure lots of mothers have beautiful stories of their births, but for me, as a loved one, my sister’s births were scary. When I got home the day Van was born, I climbed in bed with my husband and I sobbed. I didn’t feel back to normal for days.

I wouldn’t say I’d discourage anyone from doing a home birth. I think it depends on your medical history and all that. I would say to know the risks, and consider the emotional impact on the people around you on that special day. And, make sure to educate those people about what to expect. My sister didn’t seem disturbed by what was going on and that was probably because she had watched lots of gory videos and had talks with her midwife and knew what the hell was happening. I wasn’t prepared, period. I was very fooled by the easy births you see in movies. Even in real life, most women have epidurals and drugs so there is no screaming (seriously, the screaming was the worst part). I watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians occasionally (#sorrynotsorry) and there was an episode when Kourtney Kardashian gives birth. The room was, like, silent. Her family was in there chatting with her. Chatting. She may as well have been getting a pedicure. So, yeah, maybe don’t go into a birth scenario with the Kardashians as your reference point. And if you have romantic notions about home birth, just think it through. Consider all the things you previously thought were romantic that really aren’t—like eating beans out of cans with your broke-ass boyfriend.

Support a woman's right to chose.

by Ashley filed under Home Birth

09.18.2013

Image by Mexico Rosel

Today I have a beautifully written post from Ama. I don’t even have anything to add because homegirl took the words right out of my mouth. So with no further adieu…

My name is Ama, I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I had my son, Lane, a year ago at a birth center in South Carolina.

We had to cross the border, which sounds kind of exotic, because our options for birthing outside of a hospital in N.C. are extremely limited. Home births are illegal here, and there is ONE birth center in the state that’s too far from my city.

My reasons for choosing natural birth aren’t all that important to this story. I am basically a stress case and my dating ultrasound at my OB sent me into a frenzy of worry when there wasn’t a heartbeat at 8 weeks (only to see one at 12 weeks after I’d googled so much my fingers were bleeding). I knew that if I continued there, getting blood work, counting heart chambers, pregnancy would be a crazy uncertain time where I was constantly on edge.

So I toured the closest birth center I could find and chose my midwife at Carolina Community Maternity Center based on credentials alone, but the relationship soon became much more personal.

She calmed me.

For every prenatal appointment, I would work myself into a frenzy with a thousand first-time-mom questions and every appointment my midwife sat there with a beautiful understanding smile and listened to my concerns and hung out with me for an hour putting them all to rest. When we left the birth center each time, we were reminded why we were choosing natural birth, and we felt prepared to face a world that wasn’t sure what to make of our choice.

If you feel like delving into the specifics of our birth story, you can do so here.

My midwife was also there after the birth when I got mastitis at 2am and thought I was going to die and didn’t know what to do. I called her. Like a friend. She gave me a crazy off-the-wall remedy, something like drinking salt water and taking lecithin, but really she just told me I could beat it and assured me I wasn’t going to die.

Almost a year after Lane was born, we went back to the center and took him to his “place of origin” that had since been turned into a lactation room. My husband held Lane over the spot he was born and said, “Soak up the energy!” in this hippy dippy way and I smiled at them, thinking that if we had to have him in a hospital, we would never be able to do this….to go to the very spot he was born and pretend it could give him super powers.

I’m sharing this because that center needs help right now, and I feel like it’s the least I can do, after the beautiful experience I had, to try to help it.

Exactly a year after my son was born in a bedroom style room with only my husband and midwife present on a day where it was sunny and raining at the same time, the South Carolina DHEC suspended the birth center’s license.

The reason, taken from our local paper, the Charlotte Observer:

“The center claimed the state was enforcing a regulation that had never been previously enforced on any S.C. birthing center – that a physician be on call and available to provide medical assistance at the birthing center at all times.”

During pregnancy and childbirth, when everything is distorted and new and strange, a woman should have the right to choose what calms her.

For some of us, it’s the OB. It’s the blood work, the ultrasounds, the backup doctors and the hospital sanitation and the IVs and pain medications, and for those people there is no skepticism, no difficulty to follow that path. The US medical system supports that path.

But for some of us, we need the woman sitting there telling us we can do this when we aren’t sure if we can…telling us that we are powerful, and she will be there to help. For this path there seems to always be a fight – whether it’s with your parents who look at you like you’re crazy, or with the state who is narrowing your options.

My support group has put together a donation website for the center, to help them “pay the rent and bills” while the suspension is in place. Anything that isn’t used towards the reopening of the birth center will be donated to the South Carolina birth coalition.

You can donate towards our birth center here.

You can tour their website

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March 2026

The Stork and the Beanstalk

A Mother's Journal