Forrest John's birth story as told by mom and dad, Ainsley & Dan. Welcome, little one! Born 6/20/19

"We knew only a short time after finding out that we were expecting our first child that we wanted to have a home birth. We immediately began looking into what options were available to us. After a very informative and connected phone call with Christine Ghali, we hired Emily as our doula through Mindful Birth Services and enrolled in Birthing From Within classes. During that helpful phone call, Chris highly recommended LifeSong Midwifery as a home birth provider. We proceeded to meet with Kristin Schuchmann and her midwife team at LifeSong and decided to enlist their care for our birth journey.

We took the Birthing From Within class series with Chris and it really helped us so much in preparing for the birth experience and postpartum life. Looking back, the things we learned and practiced during those classes were so vital to us having a successful home birth and a happy, healthy baby.

As we were approaching 42 weeks gestation, we started to get concerned that our hope of a home birth would not be possible. But on the tenth day after our due date and during a relaxing dinner together, Ainsley’s water suddenly broke. There was a sense of relief that labor was finally beginning and our baby would soon be here. We were excited that our dream of a home birth was about to come true.

After Ainsley’s water broke, labor intensified almost immediately. Active labor occurred very quickly. It wasn’t long before we contacted our doula, Emily, and our midwife, Stacia, to arrive. For many hours, we used spinning babies techniques to progress labor. Much of this time was spent in our bathtub with beautiful piano music being played in the background.

To our dismay, the transition stage seemed to be prolonged. Guided by Emily and Stacia, we changed positions many times to progress through this stage as best as possible. And these position changes helped because, before long, the pushing stage finally began!

There was a sense of excitement and relief in the room. With the support of everyone around her, Ainsley continued to push as hard as she possibly could while in the bathtub. Dan started to cry as he caught the first glimpse of his son’s head. We knew we were getting close to having our son in our arms. Dan had been an amazing support for Ainsley during the entire labor process. He was immensely helpful to Ainsley with pain coping, selecting peaceful music, providing emotional strength, and juggling care for our four dogs. One of our dogs, Pluto, was also present the entire labor and stayed steadily by Ainsley’s side, as her loyal support.

With an end to labor in sight, we headed to our bed to finish the pushing stage. With every ounce of effort and strength, Ainsley pushed our baby’s head almost entirely out. We were so close to the end of the birth; our son was just moments away from joining this world. Throughout this entire process, Dan was in awe of Ainsley’s strength, determination, and beauty. With the quick thinking and experience of our midwife and birth assistants, Ainsley was very suddenly flipped around to her hands and knees. Almost immediately after this change of position, our baby finally arrived!

On Thursday, June 20th at 10:51 AM, Forrest John was born. He weighed 9 lbs. 4 oz. and was 20.25 inches long. We could not be more overjoyed with this healthy, happy, big boy. Forrest’s parents and four furry siblings love him very much!" -Ainsley and Dan