My birth experiences could not be any more opposite of each other. After losing my first pregnancy in early miscarriage, we became pregnant with our son, Liam. I found a wonderful midwife, Donnellyn Dominguez, at All About Babies. I had an uneventful pregnancy and delivered him naturally at the birth center at 39 weeks. When he was 16 months, I became pregnant with our daughter, Ainsley. This time around I had an even healthier pregnancy while seeing the same midwife. We had planned a home birth, but at 32 weeks 3 days I went into preterm labor and was in the hospital for 24 hours while they stopped it and gave me 2 steroid shots to help develop her lungs. I was sent home on medication to keep labor from starting again and my midwife put me on bed rest. At 33 weeks 1 day, my water broke. I was having contractions, but the meds I had been on had caused my body to resist labor and therefore I wasn’t progressing. Pitocin was started and I chose to have an epidural due to the intensity of the contractions and to help my body relax. 6 hours later we welcomed our baby girl into the world. She was in the NICU for 5 days, roomed in for one night and then came home at 34 weeks 1 day. She’s our miracle baby and has continued to thrive with no complications or setbacks.

Though Ainsley’s birth so was far opposite of my planned homebirth, I feel having both the natural out of hospital birth and the medicated hospital birth help me relate to moms with all different birth experiences and desires. Every birth is unique and they are all beautiful in their own way. Not only do I want to help you through labor and birth by physically and emotionally supporting you, but I truly hope I can help you fully embrace the beauty of your baby’s birth story.