Baby from Gabriel Jeffrey on Vimeo.

Perhaps a baby is the farthest thing from your mind but if you feel so inclined to hear about my journey then I invite you to read on. If not, thank you for stopping by my site. I thought a warning was fair since there’s talk of birthing from the next paragraph on which isn’t necessarily a topic for everyone. That said, here it goes.

I for one, think it’s a joyous thing to share this once in a lifetime experience of having my firstborn, my little man, come into my life. Particularly for other first time moms, because I love hearing others stories. If anything I share is of use to you, fantastic. Otherwise, I have opened up a private part of my life that feels so beautiful and interesting to me simply as a human, that I can’t help but talk about it.

Like my mother before me, I intend to be part of an unbroken line of natural births. My grandmother had eight healthy babies at home, no doctor, no nurses, just some experienced and knowing hands. I’m not saying just anyone should hunker down and have a baby without the proper medical assistance. But at that time, in my moms village, it was how things had always been. In my mom’s village in the Philippines there was a “gifted woman”, what we would consider a midwife, that would come to the house once a woman entered active labor. Until that point, my grandmother had taken it upon herself to go about regular daily activities to keep her mind from going toward fear during contractions. When the gifted lady arrived she prepared the house for my grandmother, with the help of family and other women in the village and attended directly to my grandmothers comfort and the babies progress through herbal remedies and massage during labor. I imagine some of this massage was for relief and some of the massage must have been a type of monitoring, perhaps even positioning of the baby while still in the belly for the easiest passage. My mom told me the women would gather around my grandmother and they would sing. This allowed my grandmother to find her breathing and channel the sensations of labor, it provided a release of strain and helped her to “sing the baby down”. When I was born in the hospital my mom used this technique, but she knew it would seem strange to everyone around her since she had not heard of this practiced in America. Rather than sing out loud, she quietly sang in her heart as she brought me into the world.

Incidentally, I grew up in a church where home birth was common. I remember going to my friends house and being shown which room they were born in. A girlfriend of mine also built her house with a large tub for this purpose. And with the many gifts my baby has already brought me, I began my pregnancy under the care of a hospital midwife staff who support my decision to have my baby at home.

May I introduce the gifted women who will attend to my home birth:

Home care and support provided by this Certified Nurse Midwife duo.
Amy Tinney CPM, LM, RN and
Sarah Shealy RN, MSN, CNM, IBCLC

www.artofnursing.net

Birth training, education and assistance provided by this talented Birth Doula.
Marie-Paul Baxiu C.C.H., C.H.I., R.P., C.R.

www.easybirthing.com

I have received such wonderful attention and insight under the care of these women that I had to let others know. In case there happened to be someone to come across my site, in need of a great midwife or doula! It has been such a blessing to have both the hospital midwife group and these ladies just a phone call away. They have all monitored my development both in terms of health and well being. Not only have I had pregnancy care, nutrition and exercise plans tailored to my body’s specific needs and changes, I have had this network in place to prepare both me and my partner mentally and emotionally to enter parenthood and start a healthy, happy family. I am healthy and have had a low risk pregnancy which made me a candidate for home birth. My midwives have had a 100% success rate for home birth but of course I have my back up plan in place at the hospita;. The biggest question I get is “but it’s gonna hurt. how can you possibly skip the drugs?” That is where Marie-Paul comes in. She had trained me in self hypnosis. I have visualized, memorized and exercised my mind in a similar fashion to that of my mom and grandma using singing as a means to overcome fear and access the awareness and endurance required for a gentle birth. Scientifically speaking, the chemicals released during a state of fear, stress and panic inhibit the hormones our body would otherwise naturally release to safely allow a baby to come with a mom being in a complete state of focus. I was so excited to read Jessica Alba describe her home hypno-birth as “zen”. FIngers crossed I’ll have the same feeling about mine.

Various | Songs for Haiti | CD Baby.