06| Emily: Positive Birth, Fast First Labour Last Minute Home Birth, Doula
- Brittany Belmontes
- Mar 10, 2020
- 4 min read
Emily is from Vancouver where she lives with her partner Mario and son Leo, she is the founder of her company Rosa Media and she has her podcast Cool Mom 101. They were together about 3.5 years when they decided to "not try and not prevent" leaving in it up to fate and soon after they conceived Leo without any trouble. In the first 3 months of pregnancy Emily was quite sick, she didn't go on any medications for it but she does say she didn't realize until looking back and reflecting how bad it actually was and how much of a toll it took on her; luckily it did end at the 3 month mark and she was back to feeling well. She didn't have a family doctor at the time so she went to the walk in clinic that set her up with blood work and an ultrasound, from there around 10 weeks she went on to get a midwife. At her midwifery clinic they had teams of three, so Emily got to build individual relationships with each midwife and the guarantee is that one of them will be there to deliver baby depending who was on call when she went into labour.
"I love that midwives give you as many options as they can, and they try their best to present the information and give you the power to choose whats best for you, your body and your family."
Her midwives presented her with the option of hospital birth and home birth, Emily felt a bit hesitant to commit to a home birth so her plan was to labour as much as she could at home and head off to hospital just to deliver the baby.
"So I hadn't fully committed or vocalized that a home birth is what I wanted but if I'm honest with you that is what i wanted. I just didn't know anyone who had done it so I wasn't familiar with it but deep down that was what I wanted."
Emily did a private birth course that came highly recommended to her called "Baby Prep' taught by registered nurses that she found really helped familiarize them with how things at the hospital work and to help make moms feel comfortable and gave lost extra knowledge to know what everything was and what would be happening.
Emily had lots of early signs of labour; near the end around 1-2 weeks before she noticed more and more braxton hick contractions that she hadn't had at all throughout her pregnancy, then the day she went into labour she actually lost her mucous plug. She noticed at 6 pm the night before Leo was born that her mucous plug had come out, so she texted her doula just to check in and let her know what was going on and since mucous plugs can regenerate her doula let her know it could mean something, but it could also mean nothing. A few hours later around 11 pm Emily started noticing some early labour contractions but since she had learned that the beginning parts of labour, especially first time moms can last many hours she decided to tuck into bed and get some sleep. Around 1:30 am the contractions started waking Emily up, she noticed they were intensifying and then around 3:30 she decided to wake him up and went into the bath to get some relief. Mario sat with Emily for a bit and close to 4 am she told him it was probably time to start calling their team and getting everyone set to come over so around 4:50 am the midwife and doula showed up just as Emily was getting out of the bath and into her bed. They did a quick check to find she was at 10 cm, knowing Emily's birth plan they asked if she wanted to head to hospital but that's when she decided nope, they were having this baby right there at home. Her doula came right over to Emily to hold her hand, hold space and help support her through breathing.
"People who are doulas are special people, I think, mixed with their experience and desire to see you shine in your birth"
Emily started to feel the urge to push and that was around the time her water broke, after a few of those pushing contractions his head was born, next push his body was born and he was brought right up to her chest for a cuddle. They did delayed cord clamping and Leo wanted to latch on right away for a feed. The placenta delivery was uneventful and Emily needed just a few stitches.
Emily had some issues with breastfeeding and ended up seeing a lactation consultant (who she raves about) when Leo was about 3 weeks because she was really struggling with over supply so she gave Emily a few different ways to try and tackle that and make things go a bit smoother.
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