I love birth stories.
When I was pregnant I couldn’t get enough of them. They were hugely encouraging to me as I prepared myself for a natural birth and I feel like they played a big role in my success. Reading about a variety of births – some short and some lasting days, some with complications and some that couldn’t have gone more smoothly – helped to give me a realistic view of birth and just how different every birth can be. It lowered my expectations, while also raising them. I learned that birth is hard work and things sometimes go wrong, but more often than not birth can be beautiful and it doesn’t have to be the scary and excruciatingly painful experience that is portrayed to be in our media.
My birth story is the most highly trafficked post on this blog. It’s how many readers have found me – likely while they were searching for encouraging birth stories themselves. As such, I’ve wanted to start a birth stories series on this blog for awhile and now that I’m pregnant and will be looking for posts of birth encouragement again myself, I thought it would be the perfect time to start this up.
I’m kicking off this series with one of my closest friends Echo. She is a birth doula and a person who played a big role in my choice to have a natural birth. In fact, if I had stayed at the hospital instead of at the birthing center, I would’ve hired her as my doula. She always encouraged me when the naysayers were abundant and I am so thankful for her and the way that she trusts birth and conveyed that to me.
Echo has two daughter, an older daughter named Alomae who is four and a younger daughter named Poppy who is two. This is the birth story of her youngest daughter Poppy Grey.
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Poppy is just over 48 hours old now and I am sitting on my couch while she lays asleep on my shoulder and Alomae is upstairs asleep. It is incredibly quiet in my house and the perfect time to write down Poppy’s birth story…
What a beautiful story!! The pictures are so great-showing your surprise and awe! I will never cease to be amazed at how God created our bodies to do this!!!
I’m really going to enjoy this series! We’re trying for our first (it feels weird to say that) and I’m fascinated by different birth stories.
And what a wonderful story to start with! Alomae looks like she is trying to charm a snake in the second picture!
This is my first birth story, http://bryceandaub.blogspot.com/2013/11/macys-birth-story.html. I had a c-section b/c she was frank breech. I am due in a couple of days with #2 and I love reading other people’s stories! Thanks!
I just love this. I only ever hear as not hospital births and this is why I’m so excited to hear about yours!
Diana
What a great birth story!!! I love BIRTH so much!
I had a vbac with my last (planned hbac that transferred non-emergent to our vbac ban hospital). It was amazing!
Congrats to Echo & Poppy!
Beautiful story! Water birth is absolutely the best!
I wanted to name my daughter Poppy after my late grandfather, but my husband wasn’t a fan if the name.
For some reason the rest of my comment didn’t post. I love the video from her blog. Watching the family bond with the baby for the first time is soo special and sweet. Love it!