Nichole Joy of Tampa, Florida. is one a stubborn momma.
Though she is a pregnancy coach, doula, and childbirth educator, the birth of her third child took her completely by surprise because of her stubbornness.
“If you would have told my ‘pre-Mommy’ self that one day I’d have an unassisted home birth, I would have laughed in your face,” she told Love What Matters.
“Third baby, meaning there were already two? Natural, meaning no drugs? At home with just my husband, meaning no OBs to keep me ‘safe?’ Nope, nope and nope.”
While her unassisted home birth was unplanned, she says it was the most “empowering” experience of her life.
Joy was struggling through her final weeks of pregnancy.
She was in terrible pain since her baby was pressing on her nerves causing shooting pains down her legs and butt.
She was also mentally taxed as so many questions were going through her mind as they do for most pregnant women.
She was internally debating whether or not she should have another Cesarean section or another vaginal birth.
She also was stressed over when the due date would be, what the size would be, being at an advanced maternal age and just waiting around to give birth.
So that may have contributed to her stubbornness.
It reached a head when she was 41 weeks pregnant.
She had met with her OB in a group of mostly midwife providers.
The doctor recommended that Joy induce pregnancy since she was 35-years-old and 41 weeks pregnant.
“I politely turned her down. I also asked not to have my cervix checked. And not to know the estimated size of my baby. I only wanted an ultrasound to confirm that my baby had a healthy amount of fluid and was doing well. She was doing great,” Joy explains.
The doctor was pretty baffled by this considering the fact that Joy walked out of her office hunched over in half since she had such terrible pain in her legs.
She left the office at 11:30 a.m. and her water broke about an hour later.
She called her doula saying she was ready for labor. She planned to guide her husband into supporting her, as a doula would, and wait for her doula to arrive.
While she was waiting she was working through her contractions on a birth ball and tried leaning over a stack of pillows.
She was looking over her birth affirmations and was playing her Hypnobabies tracks in the background.
Massage wasn’t helping but her husband’s guidance and breathing techniques were.
She went to used the bathroom when the intensity of her contractions picked up.
As did her stubbornness.
“It was around this time that my husband began suggesting that we start making our way to the hospital,” Joy said.
“‘No thanks, I’ll wait for my doula to arrive.’ The last thing that I really wanted to do was manage contractions alone in the back of the car on the way to the hospital,”
So, she decided to take a bath.
But this only intensified her contractions.
Her husband was begging her to get dressed and leave for the hospital at this point.
She refused the pants and didn’t want to leave until her doula arrived.
“Back on the toilet (potty #3 – HOLY LABOR!), my husband stepped away frequently to make phone calls (to the midwife and doula) and had our nanny bring me a pair of pants in another attempt to dress me,” Joy recalls.
But at that point, her daughter’s head was coming out as she was sitting on the toilet.
She wanted to give birth in a side-lying position so her husband helped her get on the bedroom floor.
Her doula eventually arrived just before a crew of EMTs did. The EMTs told her to push the baby out with the next contraction.
“My husband and doula agreed with the EMT. ‘Nichole, breathe like you’re blowing out candles,’ she said. With the next contraction, my body took over and did all the work,” Joy recalls
She then yelled at the EMT who tried to help her guide the baby out and told him to, “Get your hands out of my vagina!”
“I knew that my baby and I had made it this far on our own, and we were going to finish this on our terms. Also, he really didn’t need to put his hands in there to ‘help,'” Joy said.
This poor guy is trying to do his job and this woman who is giving birth on a yoga mat because or her own stubbornness is accusing him of not doing his job correctly. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Start to finish, my 3rd birth was under 3 hours. I accidentally had my baby on my bedroom floor. It was just my husband and I until the last few minutes,” Joy said.
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