Dax was born at 3:39 AM 9/30/19. 40 weeks and 6 days. My second natural birth, first baby born in water. I woke up to a contraction at 1:32 AM. I had felt these same contractions for a few weeks and they had woken me up before so I didn't think much of it. I went to the bathroom to pee and had bloody show. Yes! Finally! I thought. Then another contraction. OK, this is it! These contractions felt completely different from my last labor and birth, they weren't nearly as pa

Madelyn N Trumbull was delivered by Stephanie and Amber in the Cottage at the family birth center in New Braunfels on Sep. 23 2015. I entered this experience with midwives because I believed that the rush of modern day delivery at the hospital resulted in an unnecessary Cesarean of my first child which was followed by my OB telling me that I would likely never give birth vaginally. Amber was my primary midwife who saw me for all my prenatal visits. I saw Stephanie a few times

Paisley was due May 5th of 2017. She was eleven days LATE! I was eight days late with Madelyn and I thought that was bad, I was wrong, eleven days late was the worst. The morning before birth I had an ultrasound scheduled to do a full checkup on baby and my placenta. A good report allowed me to wait longer for Paisley to be born. A bad report would have meant we needed baby born a.s.a.p., which wasn’t the case. YAY! “Let the waiting continue” was my thought while leaving the

When people ask how Callie came into the world, all I can respond with is, “perfectly.” I knew, years ago, that I wanted to bring my babies into the world in the comfort of my home. I wanted my baby’s first impression of the world to be cozy, loved, warm, and secure. I didn’t want clinical, I didn’t want what was easiest, I didn’t want someone else to be in control. So when I unexpectedly found out that I was pregnant, shortly after being very, very, sick with nothing that an

Aubrey’s Birth Story My last baby. The birth I yearned for (and didn’t get last time thanks to Hurricane Harvey.) Her “due date” was January 1, 2020, but I was ready 2 weeks before since Tyson was scheduled to leave town for 2 months, just 9 days after her due date. Monday, December 30 I went in for my last prenatal appointment at noon. I had been having a few mild, random contractions that morning, was 2 cm dilated and 20% effaced, but because I wanted to speed the process

In 1980 I was born at home. My father went out to ”find the midwife” (again, 1980), and by the time they both arrived, I was already born. My mother, deep into labor and all alone, had pushed the dresser in front of her bed, so she could look in the mirror and see what was happening to her body and her baby...Fastforward to 2015.... Boy how times have changed! Midwives were not that “crazy” of an idea, and I knew a handful of (smart) people doing them. I intuitively knew I

Evelyn Rose Williams was born at our home in New Braunfels with Stephanie Saunders and my husband, Robert, by my side. Along with my Doula, Myta Smith and multiple others, Amber Reidel and Misty Lux, who attended various parts of my labor journey. It was my first birth and I had an unrelenting water sac that just wouldn't break! It was a long 26 long hours later, but we had a beautiful 7lb baby girl the morning of December 7, 2014. There are so many memories that come floodi

I apologize in advance, this is incredibly long, but then again, so was my labor. I woke up at 2am on Sunday morning, starting to feel more Braxton-Hicks. I had been feeling them on and off for a week or two but knew they were normal. I tried going back to sleep but these ones felt stronger than the ones I was used to feeling. They lasted longer and weren’t going away. I couldn’t ignore them this time. I had a group text going with a few of my girlfriends; two were brand new

I know a lot of people thought we were crazy for wanting a home birth. Some were more outspoken about it than others! But luckily, Luke and I were on the same page about how we wanted things to go...and we had some extremely supportive family and friends...and of course an amazing Midwife and birth team (Amber & Stephanie) who we couldn't have done it without! Besides a very rough 1st trimester with extreme morning sickness (I lost 15 lbs from throwing up many many times a

After weeks of prodromal labor and false alarms, I was not expecting to text the midwife at 6:30 am and deliver a baby less than two hours later. But that was how we began a whirlwind experience that culminated in the HBA2C of our beautiful son. Now looking back, everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to. Labor Begins The night before, we had dinner with some close friends. As we wrapped up the evening around 9:30 PM, I started to notice regular contractions, abo