Introvert by nature, I tend not to share deeply personal things in this space, but as I mentioned when I shared my son’s birth story, my hope is that in sharing this, I can help empower other women, educate them on birth choice, and keep them and their babies safer.

A woman’s birth experience is incredibly important and life changing, something that she will always remember. My grandmother still talks about all five of her births to this day, one of which involved a vacuum and her son losing some of his scalp. It is a transformative experience that can be either beautiful and empowering or devastating, traumatic and one that scars her literally and figuratively. Before I became pregnant I was fortunate enough to learn about birth choice. My mom had two out of the four of us at home with a midwife, and all four of us without any drugs. My little sister was born upstairs in my parent’s bedroom while I played with my siblings downstairs. We all piled in bed to meet her when she was just minutes old. My oldest sister had used a group of midwives for both of her daughters, one in a hospital, one at home in the water. Not all women have the privilege of knowing women who talk about their birth experience and birth choice. For me, it was incredibly empowering to know these women and also read every birth story I came across, including all the stories in Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (which is a must read for any woman who is or wants to become pregnant). The United States has the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world and has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized countries. There is no reason for this, and we need to change these statistics. I am a very private person by nature, but I have decided to share my birth stories here in hopes that it will empower other women, educate them on birth choice, and keep them and their babies safer.