Category: Meet…

Jan 11

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Sarah S

Hello, everyone!  My name is Sarah and I’m a homeschooling stay-at-home-Mama of four children and I occasionally do data-entry while my youngest naps. My husband of 7 1/2 years, Brian, and I adopted our two oldest children (a sibling group) during our struggle with infertility.  About two months after our children (now 9 & 7) moved in with us, I found out I was pregnant (SURPRISE!) with our daughter Jovie Bryn (now almost 4).

The day after Jovie’s first birthday, we packed up our entire family and moved to the Savannah area, where a month later we found out I was pregnant again, with our daughter Tillie (now 2).  Being new the area, I saw several obstetricians that were recommended and then ended up at The Midwife Group & Birth Center in Savannah. From the very first moment I stepped into their building, I knew delivering there was the right choice for me & my baby.  Two days before her due date, Tillie was birthed naturally and gently into water.

In May of 2011, I suffered a miscarriage and it was the hardest and lowest point of my life.  It was so difficult to go through and heal from, and after talking with my support team (husband, midwives, OB, therapist), I felt the only way to emotionally heal was to try for another baby.  I found out I was pregnant in September 2011 with our new baby and as happy as I was, I was also terrified that something else would happen…until I started feeling this sweet little one fluttering around at about 12 weeks. I am so grateful to be carrying this child and am savoring each kick, each sleepless night and each bout of heartburn!

My due date is May 28, which is almost exactly one year from the day I was in the hospital through the worst of my miscarriage.  God has blessed us!  That first anniversary would have been heartbreaking, but to know that I will perhaps be celebrating my new baby being born that same day is enough to heal any wound.

I have my anatomy ultrasound this week and you know what that means — the opportunity to find out the sex! But we’ve chosen to not find out and be surprised when he/she is born.  Girl or boy, it doesn’t matter to us – we just can’t wait to meet this baby! (But if it’s a boy, he may remain nameless, since we cannot agree on any boy names!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little “Get To Know Me” post and please come back to read the other posts I’ll be writing during the rest of my pregnancy!

You can read more of Sarah’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth… Why Natural?

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Jan 07

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Allison S

My name is Allison and I am a soon-to-be-returning student and wife of a very special Marine.  My husband and I both graduated from college in 2007 and while he began his career and training with the Marine Corps I began exploring a future in science and research.  I worked as a research technician in a cancer immunology research lab at Johns Hopkins University for a year and a half.  We married in October 2008 just before the military moved us to southern California where I continued working as both tech and manager of a viral immunology research lab at the University of California San Diego.  During my time at UCSD I concluded that while I loved science and research, I was really lacking in job satisfaction.  I continued to work and began pursuit of prerequisite courses for continued study in nursing.  After two and a half years in California, we found ourselves in South Carolina with my husband’s next assignment.
We learned we were expecting (our first) just weeks before leaving California.  My husband had returned from his second deployment just a month earlier and discussion of babies (carried over from long deployment emails and a few skype sessions) had been a hot topic from the moment his feet touched California soil.  Somewhere in the midst of the “do we,” “don’t we” deliberation, the decision was made for us.  Feelings were mixed as we were simultaneously in shock and elated but we did our best to begin preparation for the many, many changes coming our way: a move cross country, returning to school, and of course, parenthood!
Now, after a year and a half of nursing prerequisites, I am due to begin my nursing program in early January 2012 and Miss Adelle Paige is expected somewhere around January 30, 2012.  We have a feeling that peculiar timing is going to be a theme with this one.  In the same token, with my mother’s birthday falling January 24, my husband’s January 25, and both my father and brother’s February 13, the whole family is anxious to find out exactly when she’ll decide to join us!

You can read more of Allison’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth… Why Natural?

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Dec 24

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Stephanie R

My name is Stephanie and I’m in the Army Reserves. I come from a huge family and

I always knew that I want to have a family of my own. I was born and raised in the

Chicago suburbs. I was in the middle of my generation and most of my family is around

my age, so there weren’t many babies around when I was growing up, so I don’t have

much experience with tiny babies. I have been a tomboy and an athlete most of my life,

I was even a varsity athlete in high school and the first three years of college.

 

I met my husband in the Army, it was pretty much love at first sight, that is

after he realized that I was a woman. After five months of dating we got married in

December of 2010. We both wanted a big family and this unexpected surprise is how

we are going to start it.

 

I recently quit my job and returned to college as a full time student. I didn’t know

I was pregnant when I made this choice. I was working as a meter reader for the power

company, but they were in the process of phasing out the position, so I decided to go back to

college and get my degree. Because I’m a student that will give me plenty of time to be

home with the baby.

 

The day I found out I was pregnant, I was still working with the power company,

and it had been a hot day, about 110 degrees, and I was exhausted. On my way home

from work I stopped at the grocery store to pick up the stuff for deviled eggs, and made

them as soon as I got off work. My husband and his friend were convinced that I was

pregnant. So we got two pregnancy test s, I took the first one right away and it was

positive. I paced the bathroom for about 10-15 minutes trying to comprehend what the

test had just told me. I finally called my husband in to the bathroom and showed the

test to him. He looked at it and didn’t even know what it meant and I had to explain that

the plus means it is positive. We just sat in the bathroom looking at each other smiling

not sure what to think, we planned to start our family after I graduated, I was already a

senior but we didn’t know how long it was going to take me to graduate. Finally he said

that we should wait and take the second test in the morning …. Just to make sure. The

next test was just as positive as the first.

 

My due date is March 20th and we are having a baby boy. The name we have

decided on is Zion. We are pretty sure it will stay Zion but we have changed our minds

before, so you never know.

 

You can read more of Stephanie’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth… Why Natural?

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Dec 18

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Bitty Mama

My name is Bitty Mama and I’m expecting baby number two in December of this year. I was born and raised in the South and have been happily married to my wonderful husband and life partner for three years. We knew we wanted to start a family as soon as we were married, and dreamt of having three to four children and living happily ever after.

C, our first born, is one and a half and is the love of our lives.  I could just sit and watch her play and explore all day long. She’s so smart and such an amazing little person… even at 20 months old. She’s already trying to spell her name, counting to ten, and she’s able to sing several songs such as “the ABC song” and “Rain Rain Go Away!” We’re proud that her personality is made up of bits and pieces of both of us. She was born in a tub in a birth center in South Carolina and we couldn’t have asked for a better first birth experience. Everything went smoothly, my body knew exactly what to do (even when my brain didn’t) and my husband and mother were there to support me through the whole labor and delivery. I can only hope and pray that our second birth goes as naturally as the first.

I have a masters degree in business, and was formerly part of the accounting and finance world. After I gave birth, I was blessed with the option of staying home with her.  I’m currently working out of the home so I can continue to spend my days with her. I now own and run an online cloth diaper store. Running a business is no small feat when you’re also keeping house, being a wife, and chasing after a toddler most of the day. But I’m passionate about cloth diapers and I enjoy what I get to do every day. I’m hoping to continue the business even after our second baby is born.

We knew we wanted our first two children to be close in age, so we stopped using birth control shortly after C turned five months old. We were still trying to get pregnant when she weaned herself from breastfeeding at 14 months old. Not even two months later, we found out we were pregnant! It was the morning of the first annual Great Cloth Diaper Change, a Guinness World Record setting event to promote modern cloth diapers. As co-host of the local event, it was a very big and busy day for our family. Though we’d been trying for a while, my first reaction to the at home pregnancy test was denial. When we found out we were pregnant with C, the pregnancy test didn’t turn positive until 8 days after our missed period and it took several minutes for the PREGNANT to appear on the digital screen. With baby number two, I was only one or two days late and the double pink lines appeared IMMEDIATELY! Our estimated due date is the exact day our firstborn was born, so C may get a little sister for her birthday or for Christmas this year!

We’re still trying to decide on a name for the baby and may end up flipping a coin. We love our top two names so much… maybe we’ll write the names on two pieces of paper and play the pick a hand game (behind your back) to choose the name!

 

You can read more of Bitty Mama’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth… Why Natural?

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Nov 27

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Ashley B

I am a work at home Air Force wife and have been happily married for 2 years with our second child due December 11th. I run a small online boutique as a hobby, but my home and family are my main focus. My husband and I also run a small, foster home based, animal rescue. Between our home and our fosters, we take in about 100 dogs and cats from shelters every year. We also have a son who was born July 4th 2010, so needless to say, I stay busy all the time.

A lot of people think we took off at lightning speed and that we’re a little crazy (or a lot depending on who you ask. haha). I grew up with my husband in a small NC town where everybody knows everybody, but we didn’t start dating until after high school. I’ve always had a crush on him and even kissed him on the playground once in 3rd grade, but being a typical boy he ran away. It was a few years after graduation that we reconnected at his brother’s wedding. We started dating July 2009 and got engaged Oct 1st, 2009. We planned a long engagement, but a drs visit changed all that. We found out that we were expecting our first child on Halloween and got married Nov 9th 2009, so we went from dating to married and pregnant in just a few months. Since my husband is stationed at Charleston AFB, I moved to SC to be with him. We bought a house in Feb and welcomed our son, Toby, home July 4th 2010. I never expected to concieve and carry one baby because I have cystic ovaries, much less thought about having a second child, but when Toby was 6 months old, we decided to try for another baby. On April Fools Day (I know, what’s up with us and holidays?), we found out that we were expecting baby #2.

With Toby, I had as natural a delivery that’s possible in a hospital and we didn’t find out the gender until he was born. I loved how quickly I recovered from delivery and we really enjoyed the suprise and anticipation of waiting to find out the gender until birth, so that made us decide to do the same with this baby. Waiting so long is hard, but it made us look forward to Toby’s birth even more so. I didn’t want to ruin the suprise by finding out the gender and having a 4d ultrasound done because then there’d be nothing left to guess at during those last weeks of pregnancy. As we get closer with this one, my husband is dead set that the baby is a girl. I’m still unsure, but he was right with Toby, so I should probably agree with him. haha. Not knowing the gender hasn’t made it hard to pick names, dispite what many people think. We picked names before the baby was even concieved. For the girl name, we kept the same name choice that we had with Toby. If its a girl her name will be Joselynn Albany Bean. Joselynn is a combination of my husband’s name, Joseph, and my middle name, Lynn. We picked the name because we both liked it and then discovered the cool part about it being half of our names when we were deciding how to spell it. Albany is a town in NY near where my mom’s family is from. I’ve always loved the town names in NY and Albany is the one that most attracted my husband, so it stuck. Since we had a boy last time, we had to pick another boy name. If we’re having another boy, his name will be Brennan Alexander Bean. Brennan came from one of my favorite shows, Bones. It took a little convincing for my husband to agree to it, but he eventually liked the idea. Alexander is my husband’s middle name and he really wanted to pass along his name some how since I didn’t want him to name Toby as his Jr. Alexander just went perfectly with Brennan, so that was how he decided to pass on his name. Now we just need to wait until the baby gets here to see which name gets used.

You can read more of Ashley’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth… Why Natural?

 

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Oct 16

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Michelle F

My name is Michelle and I’m a physical therapist and work full time.  To this day I’m still trying to find that work/life balance – it has to be out there, right?! : ) My daughter never ceases to amaze me with the things she says, the concepts she comes up with, and the never-ending loves and hugs I get from her.  My husband and I have been married for 7 years now and our relationship just keeps getting stronger.

My natural birth journey began when our first daughter had just turned 2 and we found out we were expecting another.  My LMP was actually her 2nd birthday!

After a difficult experience with postpartum depression with my first, I wasn’t sure that I wanted another, but as time passed, I decided the long term benefits of raising another child would outweigh the short term possibility of PPD.  We got pregnant the first month we tried and I was scared and excited to be doing it all again.  This one would be due in early June (instead of my first being due at the END of the summer) and we lived now in Portland, OR instead of Las Vegas, NV, so I was excited to not have such a hot 3rd trimester!  Plus, we were closer to all of our family so we have support nearby.  Finally, Portland has so many different options for hospitals/birth centers/home birth/doulas, so I was excited to pursue something new that I hadn’t been able to with my first.

You can read more of Michelle’s Birth Journey by…

 …reading the next page, why she decided to have a natural birth…Why Natural?

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Sep 22

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Sabrina S

My name is Sabrina S and I am expecting baby number three! I am a busy stay at home mom to two beautiful little girls and they are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their little brother; and so is my husband for that matter. I have been married to my solider for just over 11 years!

I have had a taste of both natural and medicated birth. My first birth in 2005 was in a hospital in Richmond VA, I was induced at 39 weeks-not for any real reason-so I had pitocin and an epidural. I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink and all the other normal hospital rules. I got the pitocin started at 9pm, epidural at 1am baby was born at 12pm. There was one scare with her heartbeat dropping and it was hard to push not being able to feel anything but luckily we were both healthy and it was a relatively uneventful birth.

My second birth was at a stand-alone birth center attended by a midwife and nurse. It was wonderful, all natural, I could eat, drink, walk etc and it was very intimate. I labored at home for several hours and was only at the birth center 3 hours before the baby was born in the tub (water birth). We went home that night.

When my husband and I found out we were expecting we were happy but a bit in shock. We had just had a miscarriage a month prior so we were hesitant to get too excited. Thank goodness all has gone well with this baby so far. We are ‘due’ October 17th and we plan to name him David Ray.

I am excited for this birth experience. Since my last birth I have taken the steps towards becoming a Doula. I am sure all the training that I have had will help with the labor. I have basically finished the work for my certification and hope to get my application in the mail before this baby arrives!

You can read more of Sabrina’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth…Why Natural?

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Sep 14

Natural Birth Stories | Birth Center Birth | Meet Amanda D

My name is Amanda and I am a photographing, entrepreneurial wife to a sailor. I have always had a love of photography so January 2010 I started up my own photography business. I can’t explain how happy I am doing what I love. My husband and I met back in May 2007. We dated long distance for 1 year before moving in with one another. The crazy thing about that is he and I had spent a total of 28 days together before me moved in. I guess when you know, you know!

We got married June 2010 in Savannah Georgia. About 2 months later we found out we were expecting our first baby! We had just started trying in July and we got lucky on the first try; truly a blessing. My reaction was a little disbelief. I was under the assumption that it could take a couple tries… ironically so was my husband! Excitement set in very quick and we called our parents right away.

We are ‘due’ April 19th. I try not to dwell on that date and just tell everyone ‘sometime in April’. I have already accepted that most first time moms go over their due date so I am hoping it helps with the obsession that looms over the ‘due date’. We are having a boy and my husband and I had a named picked out before we knew he was a ‘he’; Michael Adam-James (AJ will be his middle name). We have gotten a lot of opinions on having two middle names but to us, it is unique and we love the idea of representing all of his grandfathers.

You can read more Amanda’s Birth Journey by…

…reading the next page, which outlines why she chose a natural birth…Why Natural?

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