My first son was born by C-section in May 2011 after a failed 27 hour home birth attempt. I found out I was pregnant with my second in June 2013. After considering everything in prayer and reading up on VBACs, I decided that home birth is a good option. From my research it became clear that a hospital VBAC was going to be hard to get, let alone an all natural birth without any interventions. I searched for a midwife. I found Michele, she has a great reputation and she definitely has the experience I was looking for. My pregnancy went well despite an early scare of placenta previa.

March 2, at 2:18 am I woke up with a rather painful contraction, I had a feeling this may be the day. I went to my guest room, pulled up my audio Bible and for the next hour I continued to have strong contractions. Strong enough that shortly after 3 am I woke up my husband and he started timing my contractions. They were roughly 3-5 min apart. Before 4 am I told David (husband) to call Michele because things were intense. Sometime before 5 am Cindy (another midwife) arrived and she checked me, I was 5 cm. From that time on things become a little blurry, I don’t recall what time it was but Sarah (midwife in training) came by, then Michele. My oldest son was with two ladies from church (they were such a blessing that morning) somewhere in the house or backyard. My contractions were very painful so every time one came I would bury my head in the birthing ball. I did scream a bit and told everyone many times how I can’t do this and God help me! By around 7 am they checked me again and I was a full 10 cm. The baby was not engaged and I had no urge to push. It was sometime after this that I told everyone how we could go to the hospital so I can get an epidural and push this baby out….I knew very well in the back of my mind that there was no escape. Michele reminded me it is a bit late for epidural and for a hospital transport. Michele decided it was time to break my water since I was fully dilated and the baby’s head was not engaged, and I had no urge to push. I was not so thrilled about this idea, however the contractions were so painful that I quickly agreed. Once my waters were broken I actually felt a little bit of relief. The next two hours I had to learn how to push my baby out since I had no urge to push. Michele told me I need to push when I feel a contraction, to push harder than the pain of the contraction. This was very difficult at first, my mind was still in a haze. After a full hour of practicing to push, I began to get more strength and I pushed. Cindy kept encouraging me. I had nothing but ‘help me God, I can’t do this’ thoughts in my head. My pushing phase was all in a squatting position, with my husband holding me behind and always one midwife in front encouraging me. At one point, Michele checked the heart beats of the baby and told me I need to push as hard as I can because this baby needs to come out. I believed her, she was serious and I could tell from her tone that the baby could be in trouble if I didn’t push him out right away…so push I did and he came out rather fast. It was 9:10 am. It was unbelievable, I was astounded to see my baby boy. My husband was so amazing…. we were both looking at our new baby boy and told me that I did it! Baby John was perfectly healthy (7 lbs 14 oz) they placed him on my chest while we were waiting for the placenta to come out. I did get a bad tear which took a while to stitch up. What an amazing experience! I am not one to say “I DID IT!” because it really felt like I was given this labor and I just went along for the ride. I still wonder how this birth just happened in spite of my doubts and lack of strength. I thank God it did, because after such intense pain came amazing joy. Joy that did not happen before in my life, no, not with my first birth. I am forever thankful to Christ my Lord who provided for me a wonderful birth team (I highly recommend Michele, she really is as good as it gets), a loving husband and amazing children. For anyone reading this story and considering a VBAC, I say put all fears aside and just go with it, natural birth is like nothing else in life.