After I had our twin boys, I thought, "Wow, that was crazy. Good thing I’ll probably never have twins again." And then at five months postpartum, we conceived twins again. We lost one twin extremely early in pregnancy. However, I was shocked that it had happened again, and it unlocked a big fear for me. Twin pregnancy is incredibly difficult for my body and mental state, so moving forward, I begged God to let a chalice like that to please pass over me for any “next time.” Dur

This fourth pregnancy and birth was a culminating step in a transformation that had been unfolding in my life for the past several years toward a more holistic and intuitive understanding of health and wellness. Once I began to see the body in this new light—the light of God’s design, discernible through human understanding and intuition—it was impossible for my view of birth to remain unchanged. I’d previously had three hospital births without an epidural, and by the third o

Leading up to Wilhelmina’s birth, we prayed every night in our family Rosary for a peaceful labor. Our first birth had been a terrifying and traumatic event. Our planned birth center birth had been transferred to the hospital where I was diagnosed with preeclampsia, and after three excruciating days of labor my daughter was rushed to the NICU. This experience prompted us to choose a home birth for our second pregnancy. The care we received from our home birth doctor was night

Our official due date was Christmas day. I fully expected he’d arrive a 1-2 weeks early or within 1-2 days before or after Christmas, as that was my previous pattern. Baby one came two days after her due date, baby two came one day before his due date, and baby three came two weeks before. So I truly expected this baby to come somewhere around 38 weeks through just a couple days past Christmas. When we made it through Christmas, I was actually relieved. We still had parties t

Prior to the birth of my sixth child, I had five hospital births. Three were unmedicated, two were medicated (rupture of membranes, pitocin, epidural), all vaginal deliveries with no complications. I've always loved and appreciated physiological labor and birth, so I had considered using a birth center before, but for some reason or another it never worked out. One thing I never really considered was a home birth. I think when you get into the groove with one kind of birth, y

THE BIRTH OF MY FIRST BABY: My first pregnancy was labeled “high-risk,” and for good medical reason. Around 35 weeks my blood pressure began climbing, and by 37 weeks I had all the classic signs of preeclampsia: severe swelling, rapid weight gain from fluid retention, protein in my urine, and hypertension. At the same time, my husband had just accepted a new job and we were moving three hours away at the last minute - without a new provider or birth plan in place in our new c