My Home Birth Story: First, Fast, and Freeing

I kept my first home birth close to the chest. Not because I was afraid, ashamed, or nervous, but because I knew most people had very little knowledge about home birth and I didn’t want to absorb their fear, shame, or anxiety. I knew I was going off the beaten path, but I knew that home birth was the best option for me.

In a MANA study covering 16,924 home births in 2004-2009 they found “Almost 94% of the women had spontaneous vaginal births. There was a 5.2% cesarean rate and an 87% VBAC rate” (Lothian 2018). As a reminder the average hospital caesarean rate in the USA is 31.7% (“Cesarean Rates”), with some states like Mississippi as high as 37.9% according to the CDC.

The Beginning of the Journey

I didn’t start off knowing that I wanted a home birth, but I did know that I was not interested in birthing in a hospital if the baby and I were healthy enough to not do so. I started off with a planned birth center birth. During this time, I had received the best medical care that I had received in my life. I was heard, I was taken seriously, I was cared for, and there was true informed consent. I was shocked when I had found out the birth center was closing two months before I was due to give birth. Less than a thirty-day notice from the announcement to the closing date, I was on the search for another care provider again.

I toured the hospital to make sure that I didn’t want to change my mind and go with the path of least resistance. After all, my hospital did have midwives on staff and low intervention rooms. However, after the tour, I was more convinced that the hospital was not the setting I wanted to be in. My next tour would be with the head midwife at The Woman’s Way. They had the options to birth at home or at their clinic located in a house that had been converted into a care center. I knew this far in my journey that I wanted to birth at home. Some of my final prenatal appointments took place in the comfort of my home with the one of the two midwives and sometimes one of their nurses getting the layout of my home, using the fetal heart monitor to check the baby’s heart beat on my couch, and using my own restroom to do the urine tests. I was grateful to have struck gold twice in the realm of amazing medical care.

The Preparation

In the weeks leading up to my birth I had prepared my birth box – complete with towels, sterilized clamps, items for the birth pool, gauze, and other medical supplies. I journaled, saw my chiropractor on a weekly basis, drank red raspberry leaf tea, and ate six dates a day. I could often be found on my birth ball bouncing away with one of my dogs in my lap. My Braxton hicks were starting to increase in frequency, but no pain, no consistency, only a tight belly. I was consuming every podcast, blog, and YouTube video on positive births regardless of home, hospital, or birth center birth. I was feeling ready. I had done lots of work to not fear birth. I was curious about the unknown and a little nervous about having a new experience and a completely new life, but I was not afraid. I studied about the Fear, Tension, Pain cycle and I knew that it was important to reduce any anxiety around birth. I began to become a little protective over my birthing space– my home. I didn’t want many visitors, especially people that I didn’t know well at the house. My husband had an old friend visit because he was afraid that he would never have friend time again! I am usually a great host and want everyone to feel welcome when visiting our home. However, that day, I was not interested. I really didn’t want anyone over, but I didn’t want to deprive my husband of friend time. I made a brief appearance to the kitchen to say hello and the quickly retired to my bed room to binge watch The Golden Girls. Little did I know I would go into labor that night.

The Birth

On April 16th ten minutes before midnight, I started to feel some cramping– much like period cramps. This was different than the Braxton Hicks, practice contractions that I had been getting which were not painful, maybe uncomfortable at most. I had gotten a one off cramp like this in the last week or so, but it was usually two at most and then nothing else. The cramps were starting to pick up, but they were not consistent at all. I was getting half of the signs of prodromal labor (false labor), and half of the signs for true labor. It was quite confusing. I had not seen any signs such as a lost mucus plug or “ bloody show”, so I chopped it up to false labor. After all I knew many first-time moms went into labor closer to 40 weeks or after, and I was 38 weeks and six days. I contacted both my doula and my midwife to keep them in the loop. I assured them I didn’t think it was the real thing, but I also wanted to alert them in case things became more serious. Soon after, I got diarrhea (an unfortunate reality for many mothers). This sign had me questioning my prodromal labor self-diagnosis. I knew that with true labor the body typically would empty out. But I thought to myself, maybe it was something from the food we had eaten that evening.

I gave my midwife a call around 3:30am to let her know things were getting more intense, but still very inconsistent. I had a contraction during our phone call. I didn’t want to seem dramatic so I held it together probably more than I should have. She told me to give her a call when I met the 5-1-1 rule: every five minutes, one contraction, that lasts one minute. My contractions were all over the place, not really following in coherent pattern. I would go ten plus minutes without a contraction, and then have a couple within the span of a few minutes. Around 4:48am, I threw up. I was pleased that it did leave a sour stomach, as I loathe throwing up and typically do everything in my power to prevent those occurrences. I had decided to stay in my bathroom, because I felt more comfortable laboring on the floor there, than I did in the bed. I actually could not labor in the bed at all. I was very uncomfortable in the bed. At this point, my husband was regularly assisting me with counterpressure, which really took the edge off of the contractions. I had made two birth playlist titled “Birth Playlist Chill” and “Birth Playlist Hype”. I listened to one or two songs on my chill playlist, but quickly turned it off because I was still convinced I was in early labor. I wanted to save my music for when I would really need to cope. I had tried the shower, but got out after a short period of time, because I surprisingly hated being in there. My body temperature was going from hot to cold. When I got trapped during a contraction, during what felt like a hot flash, with hot water, I quickly wanted out and did so as soon as that contraction let up. I decided to grab a comb and squeeze that to help manage during the contractions. My contractions were still a bit all over the place, but I did get a couple that were only three minutes apart and I called my midwife around 6am. She was on the way. This was definitely not prodromal labor, but I still suspected I was in early labor. I also let my doula know that I could use her assistance.

Everyone arrived around 7:30am including my in laws to pick up our two dogs. When my midwife, Cindy, came in, she told me that she needed to check my cervix to see how far along I was. I intended to minimize cervical checks, but I was curious about where I was and also there was another mother in labor at the same time as me. It was possible that I would have to go into their birth center so the team could attend to both of the mothers at the same time. Cindy came down to the floor where I was to check me, and to everyone’s shock, I was ten centimeters dilated! I remember my doula’s direct quote: “Dang girl!”

At this point, we were definitely not going anywhere and we were about to have a home birth. My body gave me a short rest as my contractions were changing. They were morphing into pushing contractions and the beginning of the fetal ejection reflex. My water finally broke minutes later. As the fetal ejection reflex was picking up intensity, I could tell that it didn’t feel like they were moving my baby down at all. So I asked my doula if I should change positions to help my contractions become more effective. She agreed that I should probably move to the Kaia stool (birth stool). I didn’t want to move, but I mustered the strength and courage to move between contractions. I could definitely feel the difference the birth stool made. Soon after I wanted to move off of the stool and into a lunge position over my birth ball. This is the position I finished laboring and birthed in, alternating between which leg I had forward.

Toward the end, my midwife was trying to slow me down as I was crowning, but I truly had no control over the reflex. My son’s head emerged all at once. It took a few contractions more for me to birth the rest of his body as my doula explained my uterus needed to catch up to that quick emergence. A couple of contractions later, the rest of my son’s body was born and he was placed in my arms. I studied his face relieved I was finished with labor and processing the fact that I was officially a mother.

The Postpartum Period

My birth team helped me transition to my bed as I enjoyed my golden hour of skin to skin contact with my newborn. I was given time for my placenta to come on its own, but after 45 minutes of so, I started to receive some abdominal presses to my uterus to encourage the placenta to come out. I did not enjoy that, but after being directed to cough, my placenta was born soon after. I had minimal tearing, thankfully even after how I birthed his head – a couple of minor lacerations and a second-degree tear that didn’t require any stitching because of where it was located and how it was holding up. My team assisted me with latching my son to nurse, made sure that I was stable, and cleaned up the birthing areas. My husband, son, and I enjoyed our first day together on April 17, 2023. I also gladly enjoyed a full plate of sushi that I had not been able to have for 9 months as my push present. It was a transformative day.

To hear both of my birth stories, check out Episode 12 on the My Black Homebirth Podcast: https://youtu.be/L4nDpcDhBOo?si=bZlTit7hYGpQ6T_M

References:

“Cesarean Deliveries.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/births/cesareans.html. Accessed 21 May 2026.

“Cesarean Rates.” Cesarean Rates, www.cesareanrates.org/. Accessed 21 May 2026.

Lothian, Judith A. “Research Review: Outcomes of Care for 16,924 Planned Home Births in the United States.” Lamaze International, Lamaze International, 20 Dec. 2018, lamaze.org/Connecting-the-Dots/research-review-outcomes-of-care-for-16924-planned-home-births-in-the-united-states.