My home birth story started when my chiropractor asked me how I wanted my birth to be.
He proceeded to tell me the home birth story of his daughter. He claimed to have this amazing midwife that safely and effortlessly delivered his daughter in breech position. His amazement came because no hospital doctor would have delivered a breech baby. That day he opened my mind to the possibilities of birth and referred me to the free birth classes his midwife and her team offered, called Birth Believers.
To be honest I never really thought about or was asked “How I want my birth to be?” As I pondered my answer, I only had two examples of my sisters.
I recalled one sister who had a strenuous birth in the hospital, laboring in pain within the walls of her hospital room. And another sister, who with my momʻs help, labored at home and reached the hospital with 20 minutes to spare before my niece arrived. I thought for sure I wanted to later. Of course, I’ve heard of home birthing but had no idea how to access this kind of service.
That all changed after I took the Birth Believers class.
I learned that as a woman, there were options for birthing and I had a voice in how I wanted to birth.
And so I chose to birth at home, with the support of Dustin, my partner, of course. I chose to be at home in the comfort of my own space and my own bed with my own music in the positive and relaxing atmosphere that I knew could get me through any pain. I thought about what it’s like when I’m sick and all I want to do is curl up in my comfy bed and sleep.
And so I decided to have a home birth with two Traditional Birth Assistants.
I decided to have dual prenatal care.
Although I was always worried about miscarriages and at times I’d question whether or not this was really happening, pregnancy was bliss! I never had morning sickness or any complications.
I decided to have dual prenatal care with the Traditional Birth Assistant and with an OB/GYN doctor provided through my insurance… so that I was reassured multiple times that “yes” you’re having a baby and “yes” he’s still there.
I found that the care with the Traditional Birth Assistant was holistic and comprehensive. The Traditional Birth Assistant and her assistant were both present during my prenatal visits, along with my boyfriend, where we spent 90 minutes just talking about life. They checked on what I was eating and nutrition, my exercise routine, made sure my boyfriend and I were doing okay as a couple, answered all the questions I had, and of course did the routine prenatal checks on the baby and I.
My doctor spent 20 minutes max with just me; I peed in a cup, took my blood pressure, checked the baby’s heart beat, asked if I had questions, and was sent on my way.
And then it was time…
Labor started on a hike.
During my last prenatal visit with the Traditional Birth Assistant she said “I think you’re ready, when you’re ready for your son to arrive, take a hike up Wilhelmina Rise.” Wilhelmina Rise is the longest uphill straightaway road in Hawaii, about 2 miles round trip from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill and back down.
According to the Traditional Birth Assistant, the steep incline and length of Wilhelmina Rise offers the right angles for the right amount of time to naturally induce labor. So that Saturday, Dustin and I journeyed up Wilhelmina Rise. Saturday was no special date, it was just a weekend, a day Dustin didn’t have to work.
The hike up Wilhelmina Rise was NO JOKE! It was probably the hardest hottest hike I ever did. We started the hike around 10am and finished around 1pm. I’m not a morning person and Wilhelmina Rise is like an hour and a half away from my home, thus the late start.
The only thing that kept me going was the reward of the yummiest lunch at a fancy restaurant Mud Hen Water around the corner.
When we got to the restaurant I ordered EVERYTHING (corn beef and kalo hash with eggs, banana pancakes, donuts, pahole salad, etc), but when the food came I could NOT eat at all….
Looking back now, my body was probably already going into labor. My poor boyfriend had to eat all the food I ordered.
After lunch, we ended up going to Whole Foods to grab a smoothie instead. On the way to Whole Foods, I remember being so uncomfortable that I had to change out my exercise tights into my boyfriend’s extra pair of shorts.
Then, the contractions came.
When we got home, we just relaxed and I took a nap. My boyfriend cooked us steak for dinner. At 9pm, we started our dinner and a movie date night, ironically we decided to watch Mother.
As soon as we started the movie and I sat down to eat, I felt a gush of water flow down my legs. My boyfriend, who had spent the evening cooking, didn’t get a bite to eat. I remember thinking in astonishment and excitement, “Is this IT?!?!”
We texted our Traditional Birth Assistant to let her know what was happening, and her response was to try and get some rest. So I laid down and tried to sleep. But the contractions were already coming in. Two hours later, my contractions were intense.
The next few hours were a blur.
I’m not too sure when our Traditional Birth Assistants arrived. Her notes say that she arrived around 4:30 am.
At 5:30 am, I went for a walk with my boyfriend in the parking lot of the church across the street from my house and threw up all over the place. Luckily it was super early in the morning and I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me or needing to clean up.
I labored all over the house; on the toilet, in the shower, in the birth pool. I did ‘hula hips’ and ‘twerking’ around the house to help labor progress. My birth photographer arrived around 8 am and captured all my cool birth moves.
My boyfriend was my HERO that day because at every contraction he massaged my lower back and did the ‘pelvic squeeze.’ We also had a Hypervolt massage gun and FasciaBlaster massage stick to massage my lower back.
The Traditional Birth Assistants continually checked my blood pressure and baby’s heartbeat as well as fed me yogurt and grapes.
My labor stalled.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my labor stalled while I was at 7 cm. All I remember was being in the birth pool and falling in and out of sleep.
If I were at a hospital the doctors would have probably given me medication or performed a medical procedure to hurry labor along.
Since I was laboring at home, the Traditional Birth Assistant let me and Dustin rest in the pool.
A few hours later, the Traditional Birth Assistant said “okay, no more relaxing. Time to get going.” She got me out of the pool and had me try pee on the toilet to get the baby moving again. We did more ‘hula hips’ and did some intense ‘twerking’ meaning I had one leg up on the headrest of the couch and during the contraction I twerked and shook my a$$.
Twerking worked!
All that shaking worked, because only an hour later I had begun the ‘active pushing’ on my couch. I remember screaming at every contraction and wondering if the people walking to church could hear me!
I heard the Traditional Birth Assistant's words...
That’s when the lightbulb went off in my head and I figured out how to push that baby out! I had to channel the energy into pushing.
My beautiful son was born 7lbs that Sunday at 5:39pm. He had a bit of a cone head because he got stuck in the birth canal for a while. The Traditional Birth Assistant advised me to rub a little arnica oil on his head and it went down within a day.
The afterbirth
The placenta was delivered 20 minutes later. I started to bleed a little heavier than normal. Our Traditional Birth Assistant gave me a piece of the placenta to swallow and applied pressure, which stopped the bleeding.
Later on, the Traditional Birth Assistant encapsulated my remaining placenta, which I took to help me heal and give me energy during postpartum.
My home birth was the most sacred and special moment of my entire life.
There’s nothing that compares and no other way I’d want to give birth.
As of this week, I’m 28 weeks pregnant with baby #2.
My boyfriend, son, and I go to prenatal visits with our Traditional Birth Assistants from my first birth, and I can’t wait to have that sacred, special moment with our new baby girl.
The Homebirth Series was designed to demystify homebirth for BIPOC parents and to share stories of BIPOC homebirths. Please continue the story here:
Jaymee D
Aloha mai Kākou! (Hello to all of you!) Iʻm Jaymee Nanasi Davis. I was born and raised on the island of Oʻahu, living most of my life on the Koʻolau or East side of the island. I live with my boyfriend and the love of my life Dustin Nakayama and our son Mason Nakayama. As a ʻohana (family), we like to engage in Hawaiian cultural activities such as going to the loʻi kalo or taro patches. Weʻre expecting our daughter to arrive around the end of August. To get me through my third trimester during this HOT summer, youʻll find me eating Mango and Lychee, going to the beach, or cruising the indoor air-conditioned mall (lol)!
