The Conscious Birth of Madison Rose – Intervention-Free Home Water Birth | PART ONE

(Photo taken by Vairdy Photography 1 week before our birthing time started)

My birth story begins on the morning of Monday June 4, 2012. The moon was full at 4am that morning. I woke up at 8am after a full nights sleep and discovered a mucousy discharge at 8:30am and wondered if I was losing my mucous plug. I was excited that my birthing might be starting that morning because I felt well rested and have always believed that I don’t function well on little sleep (little did I know how many hours I was capable of staying awake for…) I have a few written notes from that day which is helpful to piece it together because I remember very little of it. I noted that I felt menstrual-like cramps but no pressure waves that morning. At 12:30pm pressure waves started (they were undeniably different) and were 1 min long and 5 minutes apart when we timed them. I also had my first sighting of bloody show and knew that we were in the early stages of our birthing time.

We decided to record this message to baby Madison:

My pressure waves continued so we connected with our amazing birth team and discovered that our birth attendant and doula were both with other mamas in their birthing time that day. I had an emotional breakdown and my birthing stopped when I discovered that the team we had so carefully chosen might not be available for our birth…

My good friend Gina from Truly Pure Birth Services came to visit me and we had a good chat. I knew baby Madison was here to teach me a lot about trust and surrender and this was just the beginning. I had to come to a place of trusting that whoever was meant to be at our birth would be there and to surrender to the process (I like to plan and be in control – can anyone relate?) From 5-6pm I had a nap and listened to my Fear Clearing track followed by my Deepening CD to help process and release the uncertainty around who would be attending our birth. We decided it would be a good time to record another message to baby:

At 8pm we decided to take a short walk along the seawall. I remember very little from that day so I’m so glad we have these videos and a few notes that I made with timelines. I do remember heading straight for a big tree when we reached the seawall, placing my hand on it and consciously drawing energy from mother earth, grounding into the trees deep roots and asking for guidance from mother nature as I entered my birthing time. My attention then turned to the ocean and I drew strength from the ease and grace of the tide so effortlessly flowing in and out, wanting to bring that energy into my birth. Mild pressure waves resumed as we continued our walk. I remember using my peace cue and having it melt away any discomfort.

Unfortunately I don’t recall the rest of the evening and whether my pressure waves continued through the night or not. PART TWO will start on the morning of Tuesday June 5, 2012.

Initially we had calculated our birthing time to be 100+ hours and if you include June 4th it was however the childbirth educator and doula in me wants to calculate my birthing time as starting at 4:30am the next morning. At that point my pressure waves continued without more than a 10 minute break in between for 78 hours (the majority of the time they were 4-6 minutes apart.) That is also the length of time I was awake as I couldn’t sleep through any of my waves. Believe it or not, my birth was a lot easier then those stats make it sound!

Hop on over to PART TWO of my birth story.

For those new to my blog, we prepared for our birth with Hypnobabies. You can read more about that here: “10 Reasons We Chose Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis”

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How did your birthing time begin? I’d love to hear from you!