My Homebirth Story: Part 1
For this child I prayed and the Lord has granted the desires of my heart (1 Samuel 1:27).
My birth story starts long before my birth, or even our sweet little girl’s conception. It starts with my salvation and God’s faithfulness. Three years ago I was living a completely different life. It was a life of selfishness, greed and emptiness. My entire life was centered on being an independent, successful modern day woman with a career in public relations, married to a modern day man who shared the same faithless ideals. Engulfed in a cloud of selfishness, we wanted to travel the world, climb the corporate ladder and control our own destinies.
Children were the last thing on my mind. Based on my own childhood experiences, I swore I’d never want to have kids.
My first lesson from God?
Never say never.
When my younger brother, Ryan, died in December 2020, my entire worldview was flipped upside down. A seed was planted in my soul and I was fully on God’s path. I began exploring spirituality more, meeting and having conversations with Christian women and pondering the idea of Heaven, God and Biblical truths after years of turning my back on religion.
And then, by the grace of God, I met my now husband, Michael, a man of faith and virtue, with the most darling, loving twin boys, Emmett and Noah. Suddenly I was divorced and newly engaged, living in a new state with a ready-made family, going to church, getting baptized, reading the Bible and thinking about having a child of my own. God had opened my eyes to my sin and brought me from my path of unrighteousness to one of redemption and healing. You can watch my testimony here (or also below).
Nicole Rutherford salvation story compiled by Redeemer Church.
I knew God had a plan for me, and as hard as it can be at times, I had to trust in Him to show me what it was in His own time. He took me from a path of darkness to a path of light. He showed me in all of His Glory and Mercy the calling He had chosen for me – motherhood.
And I couldn’t be more grateful for this life He has given me, the family he has blessed me with and the way He opened my heart and eyes to what is good and true.
God’s Miracle
Childbirth is a miracle only God could have gifted to a woman. It makes me sad that culturally we treat it as something fearful, painful and highly medicalized. It’s the exact opposite.
Natural childbirth is wonderful, raw, powerful and transformational. I’ve never felt such intensity overcoming my body before, a power coursing through every fabric of my being that I never knew existed. It was without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done, and ever will do. Not even my lumbar spinal fusion and recovery can compare. And I couldn’t have done it without my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Faith played such a huge part in my pregnancy and birth.
I began preparing for my birth before we even conceived. Within the first month of meeting Michael, I’d boldly stated I wanted a home birth. I started researching and bookmarking the best natural home birth resources, listening to birth stories, and even going so far as to purchase the Mama Natural online natural birth course a year before I even needed it. I made up a due date so I could gain access and then had to pay again later because my access expired! I was all in. I started listening to birth stories on the Happy Homebirth podcast before pregnancy and continued throughout the entire 9 months. I read the Hypnobirthing book. I downloaded and listened to the Christian Hypnobirthing app near-daily, usually at night when I couldn’t sleep.
Yet, as much as I prepared my heart, mind and body for birth, I still had fears of the unknown:
What did a contraction (which I will refer to as a surge here on out) feel like?
How would I actually know when I was in active vs early labor?
What about prodromal labor?
What if something went wrong?
What if my posterior baby didn’t flip and that led to painful back labor and difficulty with my spinal fusion?
Would I need to transfer or have a C-section (the one thing I feared the most my entire pregnancy and absolutely did not want)?
This is normal, mama, especially if it’s your first time! How you deal with those fears is what can make all the difference.
As each fear crept in, I just kept giving it to the Lord over and over and over. Because although I didn’t know, He did. And there was one thing I knew for sure – He would be there with me, guiding me and strengthening me. And he gave me a strong, supportive and loving husband to comfort and encourage me.
Prodromal & Early Labor
Prodromal labor. I pray you never have to experience it. In hindsight, I realized I started having prodromal labor about a week before my body was ready to give birth, I just wasn’t familiar with the sensations.
It started intermittently Sunday, November 26 and continued to become more intense yet sporadic over the next week. The prodromal labor usually occurred between 4-8 pm after my chiropractic appointments. Then they would stop at bedtime or if I laid down. The mental game here was so hard. I can’t begin to tell you how demoralizing it was to have “false labor” on and off for a week as a first time mom who had absolutely no idea what to experience. You know your body and baby are doing the work to get ready for birth, but, the mental and physical exhaustion are real.
I had been doing some things since 37 weeks to encourage cervical ripening like taking the gentle birth tincture, using evening primrose capsules vaginally, intimacy with my husband, acupressure points, and occasional curb walking. I started to more intensely do the miles circuit during the last week.
I also used homeopathics like arnica, pulsatilla, aconite and Kali carb to encourage labor and support my body. If you’re not familiar with homeopathics or able to work with a trained professional, I do not recommend it on your own. Homeopathics, while incredibly effective, can be very intense and require specific education and experience. It seemed each time I used them, my body would experience a huge emotional release. Whether or not this ended up contributing to my overall fatigue and long labor, I’ll never know.
By the time we hit December 1, I was really hopeful labor would be starting soon because the last few weeks from 38-41.5 were incredibly stressful. I felt like I was inadvertently and unfairly put on a time clock to 42 weeks with my midwife who would release care and transfer me to a hospital for birth at that time.
And that was the absolute last thing I’d wanted.
I so desperately wanted a home birth and I prayed God’s will aligned with my own. We had an appointment scheduled for Wednesday December 6 when I reached 41.6 where she would take more drastic measures to induce like castor oil or membrane sweep. Neither sounded appealing, however, if it meant I didn’t have to give birth in a hospital, I was willing to try.
The next few days grew more intense and unpredictable. I spent a lot of this time napping, praying, worshiping, and sitting on the birth ball doing my breathing and acupressure points. As surges came and went, I was able to take my mind off things by watching Christmas movies with my husband. I think we’ve watched every holiday romcom in existence!
Labor is such a vulnerable and delicate time. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to cry as much as I had during my early labor. All my fears kept coming up and I would worship and cry and hand it all over to the Lord. Each release brought about new changes in labor patterns.
It felt like active labor would never start and I'd be pregnant forever (a common feeling). I tried to get my mind right on God, but I couldn’t fully surrender. As we got closer to the December 6 midwife appointment and 42 weeks, the more closed off and tense I became. Throughout surges I kept reminding myself to relax and let go, playing the Christian Hypnobirthing tracks over and over in my mind, but outside of that, I still felt stuck.
A Message of Hope
Anxiousness again crept in and I decided to take a bath while my husband went to the grocery store that morning. Afterward I had a call with a midwife who I’d been trying to connect with for a few days to see if she would take me on as a client if I went past 42 weeks. This was a huge transformation and mental turning point for me. Although she didn’t feel right taking me on, God spoke through her to give me the encouragement and wisdom I’d needed. She prayed for me and told me to put on the song Oceans and leave all of my fears at the foot of the cross. I immediately started tearing up and feeling so grateful for her support. I went into the bedroom, put on my labor and birth worship playlist, praised God, started moving and dancing and had a good, hard cry. Shortly after I began feeling surges again.
Later after my husband returned home, we shared some incredibly spiritual moments simply praying and worshiping the Lord together. I’ll never forget the tender beauty and rawness of that night where the Lord deepened our love for Him and each other. This lasted for a few hours as I sat and cried and hugged my husband in front of my birth affirmation wall, so eager to meet our sweet blessing.
During the last couple of days, my husband was so good about giving me the right herbs and homeopathics to support my body for labor, stress and anxiety. I could not have asked for a better husband, birth partner and support system. He was so in tune with my body and my needs. God is so good in so many ways.
Please make sure you have someone like this in your corner, whether that’s your husband, a doula, family member or friend! I can’t begin to tell you how invaluable it is to have the support of someone you know and trust when you’re in the labor trenches.
We’ll continue with my transition into active labor and the rest of my story in part 2!
