I’m so excited to share with you the home birth story of our third daughter, Jolene Marie! She was my first home birth and I was able to have my dream water birth in my bath tub, surrounded by twinkly lights. After 14 hours of active labor, she surprised us all by being frank breech! It was definitely my hardest birth with intense back labor, but truly worth it and magical. 

Below is my home birth vlog you can watch, or scroll to read on for the whole birth story written out!

Midwife: My Barefoot Birth

Photographer (photo credit for all professional birth photos in this blog post): Upstate Birth Photographer

 

Backstory

I planned a home birth with my first pregnancy, too! Once we found out it was twins, we continued to plan a home birth after careful consideration. But because I went into preterm labor at 34 weeks, we transferred into the hospital! While my first birth was an overall positive experience (it ended in a vaginal birth for both babies, you can hear my twin birth story by clicking here), it still wasn’t what I had dreamed of for so long and came with many challenges of preemies, like 2 weeks in the NICU. 

After my first birth, I knew I would plan a home birth again next time. When we moved to South Carolina, I immediately began researching midwives and had my amazing midwife, Makayla, picked out before we even got pregnant! 

I was MOST nervous about going into preterm labor again, and also had health issues related to mold toxicity while pregnant. At around 33 weeks, I started feeling very “heavy” and achey, a lot like right before I went into labor with my twins. So I went on bed rest until I reached 37 weeks, to be extra cautious.

 

Early Labor

Alright, now fast forward to me being 37 weeks pregnant! I had made it to the “window” where it was safe to have a home birth, seriously so relieved and like my home birth dream was within reach!! I had a feeling I would go into labor on the earlier side, but now just to wait and see.

On Monday July 22, when I was 37 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I felt extra crampy that day but figured it was gas pains. I definitely felt off that whole evening, but also chalked it up to going out of the house and walking around more that day. We had gone to the park and a coffee shop with our twins.

My last bump pic before labor :)

At 9:20pm, right after Michael went to put the girls to bed, I started having bloody show. I immediately got so excited and told Michael, and also let my midwife & photographer know!! Because my first labor with twins was only 4 hours long, I wanted to make sure I communicated as much as I could with them, in case things were fast again. 

Well, I went to bed and everything was pretty much the same as always, besides feeling crampy and continuing to have bloody show every time I went to the bathroom. I started having what felt like light contractions on Tuesday morning, but they fizzled out after a couple hours and I just felt crampy the rest of the day. It definitely had me second guessing if I was really going into labor or not! 

PHOTOS

 

Active Labor

I went to bed as normal on Tuesday, and starting at around 3am, I had contractions waking me up every 30 minutes. But I could sleep through most of them, so I kept sleeping as much as possible. Starting at around 7am, I couldn’t sleep anymore and they started to get more consistent (anywhere from a few minutes to 10 minutes apart). I started counting them and by 8am, they were consistently 3-4 minutes apart and 30-45 seconds long. 

I was still able to go about my morning pretty normally and eat breakfast, until it got closer to 9-10am. They started to feel more intense and I had to stop during them, and the pain and intensity started to feel very similar to my contractions from my previous labor, so we called and let my midwife & photographer know. I wanted to be checked on and to at least have them nearby, since they were both making a 45 minute & 1 hour drive to get to me. 

They both came for a couple hours while I kept laboring but it wasn’t progressing quickly, which was VERY different from my first birth. Sometime in the early afternoon, they left for a coffee shop while I kept progressing. It started to get more and more intense, and I had REALLY intense back labor that went into my tailbone and butt. Truthfully, it really took me by surprise, because my contractions with my twin birth were all in front and felt a lot less intense. I was unmedicated with my twin labor all the way up until pushing, and even got to that “pushy” feeling – so I was familiar with what it  might be like, contraction wise, but this felt so different! (We would later find out why…) 

One of my favorite parts of my labor was actually after they left, Michael put our twins down for their nap, so I was laboring alone in our bed. I was focused on doing the “rotisserie chicken” where I rotated sides every few contractions. At this point, I was already feeling tired because the contractions were a LOT more than the first time and I had been in what FELT like more active labor for several hours… but as I laid in bed to rotate every few, I was listening to a playlist I had spontaneously put together the day before with some worship music that was SUPER calm and soothing. I almost fell asleep in between some contractions and they even slowed to being 10 minutes apart for an hour or so. It had me wondering if it was fizzling out again (but definitely praying NOT because it had already been so intense) but it was really the break I needed to keep going. 

At this point, I was definitely realizing this labor was going to be a lot more work than the last, and thinking there was something positioning wise that was making it longer (I was about half way through my labor at this point). My thought was she was sunny side up, which would make sense with the back labor. We had every reason to believe she was head down. 

Around ~5pm, we told our midwife and photographer they should probably come back. I got in the bath for the first time to try to relax. But I was in there for maybe an hour before wanting to get back out because I felt like I needed to get in different positions. I couldn’t stay in the same position for more than a couple contractions. And getting OUT of the bath hurt, a LOT because gravity was working with me now… so a good thing, I guess? Haha. 

 

Pushing & Meeting Our Baby

I labored some more mostly around our bed, and around 7:30-8pm, I really felt like I was starting to lose it. I was so tired, my contractions were so intense, and it was really hard for me to relax during them. It’s shocking for me to look back at all the video footage of me at this point because what was going on internally was so different than what it looked externally… all I wanted to do was screech but I knew that would only make it worse. 

It got to the point where I know I started crying and said things like “I don’t know what else to do” and having a hard time not thinking “I can’t do this anymore…” I started shaking uncontrollably (hormones) and it made me so unable to relax in between contractions, let alone during. It felt so intense. And again, the contraction pain wrapping around my back and down to my butt too, so much more than my twin’s contractions. I started to feel “pushy” but when I tried to push with it a couple times, it hurt way more so I didn’t try again. 

My midwife suggested I get back in the water and that sounded soooo nice, so I did. And I remember telling myself, “While you’re in here, focus on ONLY breathing through contractions, don’t give into moaning or making noises.” It was one of the hardest things to do, but I did and that with the combo of not shaking anymore allowed me to TRULY relax into my contractions. I don’t think I could have truly calmed my body down without the warm water. 

About 30 minutes into being back in the bathtub, my water broke. From there, things went FAST!! My goal with pushing wasn’t to forcefully push for hours, but to listen to my body and push only when I couldn’t NOT push any longer… Pushing was such a crazy sensation, that was very new to me because the epidural kicked in as I was pushing in my first birth!

I had the feeling that I must ABSOLUTELY push and I had no other option… 

Most of my labor I was pretty quiet… but when I tell you I roared, screaming during pushing… I’ve never screamed that loud in my life! But it was like in a good way where it also felt very relieving to push and a different kind of pain than I had felt for hours that felt more manageable, the sensation of my body telling me “you MUST push now” was just insane!! 

I remember my midwife telling me I could reach down and feel her, and I quickly shook my head no because I was gearing up for another contraction… but after that I did reach down and felt a butthole. It didn’t quite register though, I just thought hmmm that’s weird, but it wasn’t until after the next contraction I realized she was BREECH! She was frank breech! 

I had originally planned to catch my baby myself but I remember thinking something like “Uhhh I’m gonna need a little more help!” because the pushing felt so intense and I was so concentrated on that vs. trying to catch her. I don’t know what I said but my midwife was right there to help me which I am so grateful for. 

Pushing lasted 5 minutes and she was out in a few contractions! My twin daughters were there to witness it and were truly in awe… one of them keeps telling everyone “Baby come out of momma’s body”, haha! 

The feeling of getting to hold my baby immediately after birth and immediately start bonding was something I didn’t get to experience with my twins, and I remember just truly soaking that in and I couldn’t believe I had just done that. Let alone a frank breech baby. 

 

Reflecting On The Birth

I am so grateful for my midwife for helping create a space where I felt supported in how I wanted for my home birth, baby came so smoothly and healthy and I look back in awe that I actually DID THAT. 

Truthfully, right after birth, I didn’t feel the same “high” of wanting to immediately do it again like I did the first time… this labor was VERY intense for me and it took me a few days to process just how hard it was. I’m up for a challenge but wow, that was more than I expected. However, even with how challenging it was, there is truly no other way I would do it. I’d do it all over again the same way and I am SO proud of myself, and truly amazed my body knew what to do to birth a frank breech baby!! 

The labor was truly more like a “first time mom labor.” Even though I had given birth before, it was premature, which means it was faster and with smaller babies… so my body was pushing out a full term baby this time, and one that was folded in half, no less!!

Recovery and postpartum so far has been wildly different than with my twins, in the most dreamy way possible. Because our home birth happened mostly between 7am – 9pm, I went into it with a full night’s sleep then went to bed at 1am that night, which made a HUGE difference starting off that way. With my twins, I labored & gave birth at night (they were born right before 4am) and I was awake for 30+ hours before sleeping again.

With my twins, I saw them for maybe a minute each after birth before they were whisked away to the NICU and I didn’t see them until 3-4 hours later… I also was on my feet going back and forth to the NICU for two weeks following their birth, and barely getting 1-2 hours of sleep at a time… 

With Jolene’s birth, I was with my baby the whole time. I changed, got into my own bed, and got to snuggle my baby. That means so much to me and something I deeply treasure because I didn’t get that the first time around.

 

My Early Postpartum Experience

Jolene has also truly been a dreamy angel baby who is so easy going, it has been so special to get to focus on ONE baby and give her so much attention. I truly don’t feel the same level of sleep deprivation or “barely keeping up” like I did with my twins. And some of that is being a second time mom, some of that is how smoothly things like breastfeeding have been going for us, some of that is Michael is now home full time and not working a 9-5.

Michael has been able to focus on wrangling our twin toddlers and running our household so I can stay in bed and rest, which I am so grateful for. I only had two first degree tears, which is wild because I had a second degree tear with my twins! He is truly an amazing teammate. With our twins, he only had 3 weeks off before he started working again. Makes me so grateful for this business and how it allowed him to quit his job so we could make it happen and have such a different new baby experience together.

We truly are SO in love with our third baby and it makes us want so many more! The girls are absolutely *obsessed* and can’t get enough of her, they truly love having a “baby sissy” and call her “Jojo.” I am so grateful we haven’t had to navigate a lot of jealousy or tension between me and the babies/twins – I think because Michael has been the main “person” for the girls for awhile (mostly with my bed rest), they would talk/hug/kiss the baby in my tummy a lot, and with twins neither one was used to have 100% of our attention to begin with – those things made the transition easier, which I am so thankful for!

Birth Questions?

Thank you for reading my story! If you have any questions, leave them below for a Q&A video to come on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe for future video updates from my personal life!