03 Oct The Birth Story of Baby Ellora

I am always so excited when someone shares their labor and birth story with me! I love getting to re-live the birth through their perspective. Mary, the mom below telling her story, is a first time mama, and I was honored to get to know her throughout her pregnancy, and be with her at her birth. At one of her postpartum visits, she described the “pain” of labor. I asked her to share that as well. She says:

“The ‘pain’ of labor is very unique; it took me far past what I thought was the threshold of my tolerance, but it never felt overwhelming or that it was more than I could handle. I think a better word is intensity. Much like having a newborn, it is very intense, but not difficult. There is a purpose to it and I believe that makes all the difference.”

Thanks so much for sharing your birth story Mary! I have so enjoyed getting to know your amazing family, and I already miss our regular visits!

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Marty and I are pleased to announce the arrival of our beautiful baby GIRL Ellora Joy Hewitt! She was born on July 20th at 2:02am. I had been having what I thought were false labor contractions that were very manageable since 7am (which were started off by what got the baby in there in the first place). Active labor started with my water breaking while watching TV after dinner and within a half hour contractions were about 2 minutes apart lasting about 90 seconds. But before things progressed so quickly, we called our midwife Kate and she told us to keep her posted of any changes and give our doula a heads up. We called our doula and while we were on the phone with her things started picking up so much that she told us to call Kate back and said she was on her way over. Our doula arrived, but on the way over had gotten the call that one of her midwifery clients was in active labor, too, and she wasn’t going to be able to stay and she had called our backup doula. From then on people kept arriving, our midwife Kate, her assistant Melanie, her intern Emily, my mom and our backup doula. I remember hearing Kate’s voice come to me through the fog of contractions reminding me of so many helpful things. I got into the tub and labored and started to spontaneously push but was waiting for the ok from Kate. With only 2 checks and after what seemed like not very long she said I was complete. I pushed a bit in the tub and then Kate asked if I wanted to get out and try the birth stool and so I did. About 4 contractions later Ellora was born into her dad’s hands! She was posterior and acynclitic and born after 6 hours of active labor and 1 hour and 10 minutes of pushing. Her umbilical cord was about twice as long as normal and was actually looped around her torso!

We have all been recovering well and Marty was an amazing coach, but an even better support after the birth. I know a big reason things have gone so well is because of how prepared we were by our Bradley class and all of our chats with Kate.

Giving birth at home was such an amazing and empowering experience. I am SO happy with our birth and our decision to have Ellora at home. I truly believe it is the main reason my labor was so quick and (relatively) easy. I would definitely have another homebirth, especially with Kate as my midwife.