I’m 22 years old and had my first baby, Silas James, at home with Dorothy and her birth team, Violet and Maggie! 

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Before ever getting married or pregnant, I knew I wanted an unmedicated, natural homebirth with as little interventions as possible. My mother had given birth to two sets of twins by c-section, so homebirth wasn’t something I grew up knowing much about. But I loved the fact that we were made by a Creator Who designed our bodies intricately to give birth naturally without interventions! 

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I began my search for a midwife in my area and my close friend and doula recommended a woman named Dorothy—she didn’t know the name of Dorothy’s practice, just her name! I vividly remember googling “Dorothy midwife Michigan,” and up popped Genesis Midwifery! I proceeded to email Dorothy about a consultation; my husband and I met at her house and within minutes I felt the Lord prompting me that this was the woman who would help bring my baby into this world. Dorothy’s calm and kind demeanor, love for the Lord, and years of experience was exactly what we were looking for. 

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After many visits with Dorothy to check on me, the baby, and plan for the birth, my due date began to approach: November 14. Little did I know that I’d end up going two weeks and 5 days over my due date! Those two weeks were pretty agonizing—I’d continually worry about baby’s well-being and grumble about being pregnant for SO long—I remember asking Dorothy if I’d be pregnant forever, and she kindly reassured me that was impossible and I would have this baby! Haha! Dorothy calmed my fear and anxiety with reassuring facts about late term pregnancy and the healthy outcome of baby’s who are born past their due date—I felt so much better after talking with her! 

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On December 1st at midnight my water broke—“woah, this is finally happening” I thought to myself, however, active labor wouldn’t begin until around 9:00pm the next day. More fears raced through my mind about the possibilities of infection from my water breaking and not starting actual labor yet. Again, Dorothy reassured me by sending me some encouraging reading material about membrane rupture and the likelihood of infection; it made me feel confident that baby and I were going to be just fine as long as she monitored us along the way.  She visited me the next morning to check on baby and me, and baby’s heart rate was totally normal, so she instructed me to rest as much as I could and that contractions would most likely start happening that day. I was so excited and nervous!

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Sure enough, contractions did start happening later that day and by the time it was around 11:00pm I was ready for her to come. I always wondered up until that point when I would really know when to call Dorothy—but in the moment, something within you just knows it’s time. 

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Dorothy arrived around midnight (it was a bad snow storm that evening!) with her team, Violet and Maggie. I remember my doula helping me through a lot of the early contractions with swaying beside my bed and practicing good breathing through the bad ones. Dorothy and the team continued checking baby’s heart rate throughout my contractions and making sure I was coping well. This continued for some time and as a way to relieve some of my pain, the team recommended I get in the birth pool for a little while. I agreed, even though I knew I wasn’t close to actually giving birth and I wanted the pool to be my final form of relief—they knew I needed to rest, which was wise because I had a long ways to go yet. The pool was super relaxing compared to hunching over the side of my bed trying to manage contractions simply by breathing through them, but at this point I was tired and wanted to be done…I was becoming frustrated. After a few more hours of contractions and me wishing this all would just be over with, around 7am Dorothy told me that she could do a cervical check to see my progress if I wanted—everyone could tell I was losing focus and beginning to give up on my dreams of a natural homebirth. I agreed to a cervical check but told her I didn’t want to know my progress—I was so afraid that I would be discouraged if I wasn’t as progressed as I hoped. In hindsight, though, I wish I would’ve asked to know because it turned out I was around 8-9cm dilated! My husband went and asked Dorothy what I was so he could know, and she told him, and he immediately was overjoyed—he KNEW I would want to know that information and that it would drastically change my dismal mindset to one of strength and determination! He told me my progress, and sure enough my whole mindset changed—I was going to get this baby out soon…or so I thought, haha! But it was the burst of encouragement I needed for that moment. 

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I continued laboring and suddenly felt a small urge to push. I told Dorothy and she instructed to start gently pushing through contractions if I felt like it. My labor continued to slowly progress and I was getting really discouraged and defeated again. Around 10:00am, Dorothy did another cervical check and said I had a small anterior cervical lip. This was my worst nightmare. Dorothy said that I could keep pushing through it or she could manually reduce the lip…she gave me the choice, and I knew what I had to do, but I’d heard awful stories about cervical lips and how painful manually reducing them was. I told her I wanted it to progress faster, so I agreed to the manual assistance. This was the most painful part of the entire labor and delivery for me! But it did speed things up getting that out of the way, so I was happy about that. 

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After about an hour of that I was so ready to be done. This was the peak of my discouragement and utter frustration.  Everyone was so encouraging and reminding me that I could do this! It wasn’t until I reached down and felt my baby’s head at the peak of a contraction that I really changed my mindset and relied on the Lord to sustain me because I could not endure any more on my own. I don’t remember much after that other than pushing really hard (even though I was encouraged by Dorothy to push gently, haha) and a stinging sensation where the baby’s head was stretching me. I pushed on our bathroom floor for about an hour, leaning on Dorothy while she assisted me, and after a little while sweet, precious baby Silas was born! I vividly remember Dorothy being right in front of me coaching me, and between a contraction asking her “once the head is out, is the rest easy?” and she immediately said “YES!!” and within moments, his head was born—his shoulders and rest of his body were definitely easy compared to his head, all 10lbs 2oz of him! 

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It’s a bit of a blur because I’d labored for so long and was exhausted. Through teary eyes I saw my beautiful boy, Silas, and exclaimed, “it’s a boy, it’s baby Silas!” Nothing can compare to that moment when you have your prize after your long race to the finish line. I couldn’t have imagined it any other way: surrounded by all the people who I’d hand-picked to be by my side for the most important day of my life who loved me and knew all my desires for how my birth would go and supported me 100%. They never once doubted that I could do it, even when I certainly doubted myself! 

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You need to have people surrounding you who will encourage you to run the race to the finish line! You CAN have a homebirth; your body was created with that perfect, natural ability, and I can’t recommend Dorothy and her team enough!

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