Orthodox Christian Birth Story: Heather’s First Home Birth
This is the story of how Miriam June was brought into this world and how the Holy Spirit used her birth to call me home to the Church:
My pre-labor started at 3:00 AM on the dot on March 13, 2022. 2 weeks before my estimated due date. I had cramping that was intense enough to wake me up, but no contractions yet. I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. This went on all day. The following day, my baby woke me up at 3:00 AM on the dot AGAIN, but, this time, there were obvious contractions. Nothing too painful, but I could tell I was definitely in early labor. I was too excited to go back to sleep. Again, this continued on for the rest of the day without progressing. On the third day, I was woken up YET AGAIN at 3:00 AM on the dot. This time the contractions were intense and relatively close together. At this point, I was already tired from not really sleeping the last two nights, but the pain and excitement were too much for me to fall back asleep.
That third day, I stayed up monitoring my contractions while keeping in touch with my midwife. At about 10:00 AM, she finally felt like my labor had progressed enough for her to come to our house. I thought for certain that I must have been mostly dilated, but we were unable to check my progress ourselves. Turns out, I wasn’t very far along despite the intense contractions and back labor (!!!).
Over the course of that day, we figured out that baby was in occiput posterior position, which was stalling our progress, as she wasn’t making her way down the birth canal. We tried curb walking, deep lunges up and down the stairs for hours, inverse position for an hour, every position/exercise we could think of to get her to turn, but baby remained face up. At that point, my water had not broken and my contractions had become extremely painful and intense. My husband was applying the full weight of his body as counter pressure, which provided the smallest amount of relief. I was physically exhausted, but still hopeful. At the time, I did not know the statistics about Sunny Side Up babies and how rare it is for vaginal delivery, so my own ignorance actually worked in my favor, as I still fully believed that a vaginal delivery was not only possible, but the light at the end of a 38-hour tunnel.
Over the next hour, the midwife (who was a back-up, as the midwife I hired and bonded with was on vacation when I went into labor) was becoming impatient and started suggesting “natural” interventions, like ingesting Castor oil, membrane sweeps, and breaking my water—None of which I was comfortable with. Her energy started to bring down my mood and, in a moment of doubt and weakness, I cried to my husband that I didn’t know if it was going to happen for us. He held me and assured me that I was so strong and that he supported whatever I wanted to do. At this point, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I prayed to God for the first time since I was a teenager. Feeling rather defeated, all I wanted to do was lay down and rest, so I did. I now realize that my tears went straight up to Heaven.
We went to our bed and my husband held me while I breathed through the contractions, then went back to applying counter pressure. Minutes later, after I had let go of expectations, surrendered, and let my body take over, my water broke naturally. After that, things escalated VERY FAST. I dilated from a 4 to a 10 in 15 minutes. The pain was so intense that I went into a primal state and literally growled through the contractions until I began to feel the Fetal Ejection Response. At which point I asked when I could get in the birthing pool. The midwife said that I could get in whenever I was ready, so I waited for the current contraction to end, then literally ran to the pool in the other room, as the contractions were right on top of one another.
Once in the birthing pool, my body went into autopilot and I did not get in its way. I fully knew that I was not in control at this point. I got into a deep squat position, then breathed down and out with every contraction until I felt the need to push. On my first push, baby’s head came mostly out just up to her eyes. She was face up. I waited for what felt like forever for the next contraction before pushing again, mindful that I didn’t want to tear. On the next contraction, I pushed and her entire body came out. All and all, I spent a totally of 15 minutes in the birthing pool before baby was born.
As soon as she was born, I was so overwhelmed by what I now recognize as the Holy Spirit and God’s grace that I burst into tears as I held her on my chest. She was born at 6:29 PM on March 16, 2022. I had two very minor tears much to the amazement of the midwife, as she expected severe tearing, which often accompanies vaginal OPP births.
To this day, I am convinced that my daughter would have been born via c-section had I not had the freedom to labor in the comfort of my home for as long as I did. Being home with my husband allowed me to remain stress-free (despite my one small emotional breakdown). My husband was able to feed me nutrient-dense snacks that kept me going during the grueling 40-hour process on little to no sleep. My blood pressure and baby’s heart rate remained steady. Knowing me and my body, I know that would not have been the case had I been in a hospital setting and I would have been bullied into agreeing to a c-section in a moment of weakness. God’s tender mercy is so good.
Everyone doubted me when I told them that I was having an unmedicated homebirth for my first baby, especially at my age, as I was considered a “geriatric” pregnancy and “high risk,” but I knew we could do it. I knew my body was strong and capable. I knew my baby was healthy. I knew it was the birth I needed to have. I have never felt more powerful and in-tune with my body as I did in that moment when it was all over. I held my baby in my arms in my own bed that night with my husband at my side, and it was perfect. I remember looking over at my husband and saying, “I don’t see how anyone can witness a child being born and not believe in God,” and he agreed. That moment changed us forever.
We started looking into churches in our area shortly after, as we both felt called to return to our faith and raise our daughter in the Church. Our previous experience with Christianity was through Catholic and evangelical lenses, but once we found the Orthodox Church, everything just made sense and fell into alignment, as if ordained by God. We are home.
