Born at 41 weeks 6 days, only 1 hour and 24 minutes of active labor, no pain, no pushing, no tearing… half delivered by dad and our 2 year old on the bathroom floor before our speedy midwife arrived!

Short version: Broke my water, few hours later crawled in bathtub, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, baby.

Long version: My blood pressure had been climbing for the last few weeks of my pregnancy and to avoid “risking out” out of the birth center we decided it was better to get baby out sooner, rather than later…

We started looking into midwives as soon as we started ‘trying’ again. As amazing as my first birth was, it wasn’t what I envisioned. I attempted all natural, but was induced and one intervention lead to another and I ended up in stirrups with an epidural. After my first meeting at the birth center I fell in love.

Throughout the pregnancy the appointments would rotate though each of the 3 midwives. The appointments weren’t near as ‘medical’, they would ask about you as a whole person, not just about the baby. Recommendations were for total health, foods, exercises, stretches, etc., all to prepare your body for rest of the pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Plus, my older kiddo came to every one of my appointments... they let him hold the doppler and didn’t mind that he was literally climbing on me most of the time.

Around 10:30am on the day of the birth, I lost my mucus plug, but was not having contractions. I called my husband around 11 to let him know, but told him I was going on a walk with the kids and he didn't need to come home yet.

Boy was I WRONG!

We had had two healthy and beautiful baby boys. We wanted to grow our family and had just moved to St. Peters, Missouri. Right on schedule, we conceived yet again. Hurray!

I had enjoyed great pregnancies and felt confident about giving birth. However, both of my first two babies had come 8 days past the due date and “big” - 9# 13 oz and 10# 10 1/2 oz. I did not want to be treated as if there was something wrong with me and face another hospital induction with Pitocin and the requisite epidural.

I woke up around 5am on my daughters due date, January 26th, to a strong stomach ache but I was able to fall back asleep for another hour. At 6am I woke up from a dream about having contractions to actually being in the middle of a strong contraction that I had to focus on breathing through. I stayed in bed through a few more contractions trying to decide if I was actually in labor.

Dear Sweet Allison,

It’s time for me to tell you about your birth. One day the memories and details will be fuzzy in my mind. I know that as the weeks go by and you grow bigger the feelings and emotions are already getting further away. Birth is funny like that. A mother forgets all the hard, all the grit, all the intensity as she stares everyday into the beautiful face of the child she created. I don’t want to forget it because one day I want you to know how generations before you did the most feminine thing in the world, bringing life from within them to the outside. Maybe one day you’ll need to hear this story as encouragement for your own birthing.

For as long as I can remember, I knew I wanted to have an unmedicated natural birth. For some reason, at an early age I knew my mom did not have pain medication with either of her births, nor did her mom. I considered myself tough and did not want to break the chain of natural births running in my family!

I woke up at 4 am to steady contractions, about 6-7 minutes apart. I knew it was going to happen today. THE ONE DAY MY MIDWIFE COULDN’T DELIVER HIM, it was destined to happen lol! I crept out of the bed without waking Bill or Cambria and got into the bath. I was hoping the water would stall my contractions, but no such luck. I labored quietly and calmly in the tub for about an hour until Bill woke up for work, breathing through the contractions and resting in between. The first labor contractions are so comforting. They are so bearable, yet enough to know that you will be meeting your baby SO soon!

I researched and read countless articles about birthing a breech baby. I surrounded myself with only the best and most highly educated midwives. With the support of Beau, I decided to

•Trust in God

•Trust my body and

•Trust my baby

Anyone who knows Emma, knows she desperately wanted to have a natural birth with our first, but she was robbed of that opportunity by her previous OB when she had an unnecessary induction & then c-section.

She learned to be an advocate for herself and her body and to put her trust in Jesus when she became pregnant the second time. She hired a doula and made sure to find a care provider (midwives) who truly supported a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean).

Working as a pediatric and prenatal chiropractor, I knew the importance of caring for my body before, during, and after pregnancy to give my future child the best health!

When I started wanting to try to get pregnant, I first made an appointment with a great functional medicine doctor. She helped walk me through blood and genetic results, in conjunction with my health history. We formulated a plan to improve my diet, use the best supplements, and improve my overall health, prior to conception.

On February 26 at 12:00 am on the dot, I woke up needing to use bathroom. I was 41 weeks and 1 day exactly to the minute! Before I was able to roll over to get out of the bed, I felt a trickle down my leg. This couldn’t be my waters leaking could it? It was too subtle. But surely I wasn’t peeing myself!

My induction began around 10am on 4/22/21, and I was already 2cm dilated when I arrived. I had very tolerable, consistent contractions all day long. (I had been having contractions since about 16 weeks, which was stressful and terrifying. I was on anti-contraction meds most of my pregnancy).

On the morning of the 13th, I woke up to a contraction. I vaguely remember a few waking me up throughout my sleep - but I wasn’t convinced because I may have been dreaming. Throughout the day, they were super sporadic. Over an hour apart most times but they were painful. I thought to myself, “Great. Prodromal labor, just like with the boys.” 🤦🏼‍♀️

About 5 minutes later she came back to where I was and informed me that I now had protein in my urine and that it appears my preeclampsia was silently sneaking back in. We decided an induction THAT DAY was needed. We finished the NST, and decided to do a cervix check to see where I would be starting at during this induction and checked my blood pressure once again

It was 4am on December 30th, 2015. I was woken up by a mild cramp in my uterus. Weird, but I was almost 40 weeks, so it wasn’t super surprising. I had been having TONS of Braxton hicks from about 30 weeks until now. This one, however was a little different. It was low. Almost like a menstrual cramp. Different from The Braxton hicks I had always felt in my entire uterus. I went back to sleep. I was awoken again at 5am with the same feeling. I tried to go to the bathroom—nothing.

Being a chiropractor myself, I knew the importance of having my baby evaluated for tongue and lip ties by a highly trained lactation consultant. Just as I suspected, my baby needed ties revised. We did babylase/oralase with a cool laser to make sure her muscles and fascia were ready for a release, I adjusted her a few times, and we had her ties revised with a laser. It made all the difference and nursing was so much better!

To tell the story of my natural births we need to start with my first labor and delivery with an epidural. To be honest as far as first time labor and deliveries go I can’t complain. I was at the hospital for about 8 hours total before I gave birth to my first son. The epidural did it’s job during labor, I did pee myself because I did not know they took out my cath because I still didn’t have full feeling back, haha! It was a good laugh though. The issue for me was how I felt for the weeks to come. I had terrible headaches and other side effects I felt were from the epidural.

On Sunday March 24th 2019 my water broke a little before midnight after having a slow leak all day (which I realized was happening while working at church that Sunday morning. I was 39 weeks. At midnight on Sunday night I was laying in bed, thankfully on a waterproof puppy pee pad LOL, and my water broke. I yelled to Jared who was working at the kitchen table and he said something along the lines of “are you serious?! Ok I better get this work done”.