Let’s just say that having a home birth was everything I hoped it would be. This was my third pregnancy and had the other two in two different hospitals. My first child I had at a hospital that was not very supportive when it came to wanting a “natural” birth- meaning no drugs, no intervention unless absolutely necessary…
I had a very negative experience there which is why I decided to go with midwives belonging to a different hospital for my 2nd birth. That was a much better experience which left me feeling confident in having a home birth my third time around.
I heard of Mary Anne from a friend of mine. I didn’t really know what to expect except for the fact that I pictured her a little more “hippy” and granola you could say. 😉 She is so very down to earth and I felt like she just became part of our family.
About 7 weeks into my pregnancy I had some heavy bleeding which we found out was due to a very large mass of blood separating the uterus from the placenta. It looked as though I was going to lose the baby. I was devastated because I had just had a miscarriage before this one. My husband and I reached out to our community for prayer. We begged God for a miracle and had to wait for 4 weeks to know if everything was going to be ok or not. I remember feeling very far from God through this wait. I felt like He wasn’t listening to my prayers let alone doing anything about it. I was heavy and sad. About three weeks in I left my house and went to a local coffee shop where I decided to just spend some time with God. I was reading and journaling and came across Isaiah 30
” Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him. ….you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it, He answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore… but your eyes shall see your Teacher.”
Just then a man who I never ended up seeing his face laid a napkin on my table and walked away. On the napkin it read.. Your Heavenly Father is very proud of you.
For the first time in so long I had felt His presence. And I began to hope.
At the next ultrasound the blood had almost completely dried up and the baby was growing healthy and strong. We found out later on that it was another girl and we were thrilled.
June was born on October 7th around 3:45pm. That morning I woke up with light contractions that were very inconsistent. I couldn’t really tell if it was signs of labor or the spicy mexican I ate the night before. I did my normal routine, ate some lunch and decided to go to the chiropractor to maybe help the progress. My sister in law and I left around 1:30pm and drove 25 min to get adjusted. By then my contractions were picking up. After the adjustment I knew I was going to have the baby soon. We drove home, called my husband to start filling up the labor pool and called Mary Anne to come. I immediately got into the pool when I got home and started feeling the urge to push. I distracted myself with a pineapple coconut popsicle (to make me think of being on vacation) and some soft music. Mary Ann got there shortly after and I didn’t give her much time to get her things together. I immediately started pushing. Mary Anne taught me how to breathe through my pushing in such a way that I barely tore! I had never had someone teach my that before… so this was a game changer. She was calm which helped me to be calm. 
My husband carefully took baby June out of the water just moments later. I held her in amazement at how quickly she came… and of course so thankful. Here was my baby girl who I didn’t know whether or not she would live or die….and she was perfectly healthy in my arms. And in my home. I sat there in the water with her feeling relieved and overjoyed. There was no machines I had to be hooked up to… no weird noises… just the people who I cared about most… including my midwife. 😉
We are so glad that we decided to have home birth and we will definitely choose the same route if we ever become pregnant again.
June is now 6 months old and so happy.
