FOIM Friday 1 day late: Robin's birth

Every Friday, we will feature member-submitted stories and photos about their homebirth experiences. Today, we feature images from the birth of my daughter (Lauren Whitehead, FOIM clerk) last February. Labor was 21 hours, start to finish, and I was fortunate to have two doulas, a midwife and midwife's apprentice, and of course my amazing husband, Brian, in attendance. Robin was born in water in our living room around 1 am on Feb 24th. We agree that having a homebirth was the best decision we've ever made for our family. Being in the comfort of my home, without the constraints of a clinically imposed timeline or monitoring, allowed me to completely surrender to my birth experience. Although it took me a loooong time to start dilating, once my water broke labor went very quickly. I think that in a clinical setting there may have been unnecessary concern about "failure to progress" when it was just the normal, slow lead-up to transition and pushing that many first-time mothers experience during an unhindered natural birth. We loved waking up at home with our daughter the very next morning, and eating my Mom's homemade spaghetti sauce as our post-birth first meal, neither of which could have happened in a clinical birth setting. We will definitely have our future babies at home!









And a recent photo of Robin at 8 months old!