BY DR. NICOLE RANKINS FOREWORD OB- GYN
REAL BIRTH STORIES to Inform, Inspire, and Empower
BRYN HUNTPALMER
HOST OF THE BIRTH HOUR PODCAST
the birth hour
Real Birth Stories to Inform, Inspire, and Empower
BRYN HUNTPALMER
FOREWORD
BY
DR. NICOLE RANKINS, OB-GYN
CAILYN MCDONNELL
NICOLE MOUTRIE
LAUREN RUTH
TIFFANY TOWNSEND SMITH
HARPOLD
JORDAN R. CASTRO
EMELIE THOMPSON
BY JEN MCLELLAN
Foreword
BY DR. NICOLE RANKINS, OB-GYN
I LOVE BIRTH STORIES. They give us a lens into birth from the person who can best tell the story. Every birth story—no matter the setting, outcome, or type of birth—is unique and transformative in its own special way.
As an ob-gyn with over twenty years under my belt, I’ve learned an enormous amount by caring for women during pregnancy and birth. But I’ve learned just as much from women telling their birth stories. This kind of learning is different from what I get through caring for patients. When a woman tells her story, she brings us into the physical feelings, the emotional highs and lows, and the moments of fear, relief, strength, and surrender. It’s deeply meaningful and insightful.
Birth stories let you feel the joy and exhilaration of a birth that unfolded as hoped. They reveal the pride that comes from moving through fear and doing something that was incredibly challenging. They highlight the warmth and safety created by a supportive nurse, midwife, or doctor who showed up with skill and respect.
Birth is just truly beautiful. And yet with all its beauty, birth is also imperfect. Not all stories are joyful. Not every story feels triumphant. Some stories carry
disappointment, anger, or grief. There are stories of not being listened to and birth wishes not being respected. Stories of pain from unrealized expectations for the birth experience. And stories that carry deep, tragic, and soul-crushing loss.
But here’s what I want you to know—every single story, whether exhilarating and warm or sad and painful, has immense value for you and your birth.
One of the most important truths I share with pregnant women is that the only predictable thing about birth is that it’s unpredictable. Indeed, birth cannot be planned. Your doctor or midwife can’t plan it. The person giving birth can’t plan it. The baby makes the plans and they don’t tell us what their plans are. When birth unfolds in a particular way, it’s not because we had complete control over what happened.
This is exactly why birth stories are so incredibly valuable. They help you navigate the reality of birth as it actually is—a complex, amazing, and sometimes wild ride. Birth stories show you what you cannot control, but just as importantly, they show you what you can control. That knowledge allows you to prepare. And preparation is power.
As you read these stories, pay particular attention to the parts that light you up inside and the parts that stir up fear or discomfort. Tapping into those feelings will help you clarify what you desire for your birth. Jot things down and share your hopes and concerns with your midwife or doctor. Too many women don’t talk about what’s important to them during prenatal visits, instead waiting until they arrive at the hospital with a birth plan. While a birth plan is something I encourage everyone to have, it’s not the piece of paper that matters—it’s the conversations around it. Having these discussions early, often, and well before you get to
the hospital will set you up for the best birth experience. These stories will help you do that.
Also, I know it’s tempting to stick with only positive birth stories. I get that. Creating hopeful, positive energy around your birth is a must, and difficult stories are heavy. But I encourage you to be open to learning from all stories. This doesn’t invite negativity into your space. In fact, it makes you more prepared for birth. Knowledge reduces fear. And having a fuller understanding of birth allows you to approach your own birth more informed and reassured.
So take what you need from these stories. Borrow their joy, their strength, and even their pain. Let them inform you, steady you, and remind you that there is no single right way to give birth. Your birth will be your own. And you deserve to walk into it feeling calm, confident, and empowered.
DR. NICOLE RANKINS is a board-certified ob-gyn practicing in the Richmond, Virginia, area and a mom of two. With more than twenty years of experience supporting women through pregnancy and hospital birth, she is known for her compassionate, patient-centered approach to care. Her work focuses on helping women feel informed, heard, and confident as they prepare for birth.
Introduction
IN THE UNITED STATES, over 3.5 million babies are born each year. Despite how common birth is, our cultural narratives around it remain limited and often fail to paint a complete picture. Giving birth is one of the most significant physiological, psychological, and emotional events of a person’s life—yet many of us enter it with more fear and isolation than information and community. This book is a collaborative effort to help change that.
Birth stories have existed for as long as birth itself, passed from one generation to the next—around fires, across kitchen tables, in quiet conversations between sisters, mothers, and midwives. As birth moved into hospital settings and maternal care became increasingly medicalized, these stories became less visible, often replaced by sensationalized portrayals or worst-case scenarios shared as warnings.
In 2015, I started The Birth Hour podcast to share unfiltered birth stories of all types. More than 25 million downloads later, the need for sharing and processing our birth experiences remains clear.
Rather than offering a single narrative about what birth should be, this book is intentionally designed to hold many experiences at once. Stories are grouped by theme rather than outcome, reflecting the reality that birth is shaped as much by context, decisions, and relationships as it is by physiology. I hope that grouping the
stories this way will help you notice patterns and shared emotional threads, and reveal connections across vastly different births.
Reflection questions at the end of each section invite you to notice what surfaces as you read and consider how these stories intersect with your own beliefs, fears, expectations, or experiences around birth. They also offer a great opportunity for discussion with partners, friends, or care providers as you prepare for or process your own birth.
A glossary is included at the end to support your understanding of medical and birth-related terms that appear across different stories. I wanted to provide accessible definitions for review without pulling the focus away from the narratives themselves. This book was created as a companion that you can return to before, during, or after your own birth, or at any point when you need a reminder that your experience exists alongside many others, each shaped by its own context and meaning.
My hope is that these stories empower readers not by offering a single version of what birth should look like, but by validating the many ways it can unfold.
I’ll go first.
Three Home Births: A Marathon, a Sprint, and a Wildcard
BY BRYN HUNTPALMER
WHEN I BECAME PREGNANT with my first child, I knew I wanted a home birth. We interviewed several midwives before finding the one who felt right—calm, confident, and reassuring. Her steady presence anchored me through the long weeks of pregnancy. My mid-December due date passed, and Christmas came and went. At forty-two weeks, after trying every natural induction method I could, my midwife stripped my membranes. Contractions began but slowed and eventually stalled completely. My baby was posterior, or “sunny-side up,” and the lack of consistent pressure on my cervix made progress slow. We walked the neighborhood, with me squatting and curb walking—trying anything to get her into position. By evening, I was exhausted and still only five centimeters dilated, but my husband and I worked together through the night. With contractions spaced fifteen minutes apart, each time one came, we would both get out of bed, and he would squeeze my hips as I moaned through the pain. We were able to get some
rest between them, and that night—working together—was a really special start to parenthood for us.
Labor stretched into the next day, and my contractions never grew stronger or closer together. My midwife eventually suggested breaking my water—something she typically doesn’t do—and almost instantly, everything changed. Contractions came fast, two minutes apart, leaving me no space to catch my breath. I begged for relief and, in that moment, questioned why I was doing this at home, unmedicated. My midwife met my eyes and encouraged me gently: “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
The birth tub was full, but our water heater couldn’t keep up. Our midwife boiled pot after pot on the stove, trying to make the water at least lukewarm, while my husband applied counterpressure to my lower back. Finally, I lowered myself into the tub and sank into the water, feeling a sense of relief.
My body began bearing down before I realized it. The urge was primal and uncontrollable. A swollen cervical lip stalled things, and my midwife asked me to get out of the tub and move to the birth stool. She moved my cervical lip back with her fingers as I pushed, and slowly, I made progress. After three hours of pushing, my daughter’s head crowned. My midwife urged me to slow down, to breathe her out—but after thirty-four hours of waiting, there was nothing that could have made me slow down. With a roar, her head, then her whole body, shot out so fast that the midwife barely caught her.
At 3:30 a.m., my daughter was born—almost nine pounds, posterior, and perfect. I still had work to do, and as I delivered the placenta, I bled more than my midwife was comfortable with. She worked quickly, giving me a shot of Pitocin and manually clearing my uterus of any remaining placenta and clots. The pain from that eclipsed everything that had come before, but I trusted
her completely, and she managed this variation of normal quickly and expertly.
Despite such a long labor and somewhat dramatic ending, I felt strong. That birth left me raw, but it also left me powerful. It taught me what it meant to endure, and I carried that into postpartum and my role as a new mother.
After that marathon, I hoped my second birth would be quicker. I planned another home birth, this time really wanting to birth my baby in the tub. I had heard how the water could soften the pain of pushing and potentially reduce tearing, and I longed for an easier pushing phase.
I was already ten days overdue when my husband, having just finished law school, had to drive three hours away to take a twoday bar exam. I switched gears, and instead of doing everything I could to get the baby to come, I willed myself not to go into labor until my husband returned. The morning of his final test, my contractions began. At first, I dismissed them as strong Braxton Hicks, but when he made it home around 8 p.m., they picked up, and by midnight, I had awakened to cramps that got me out of bed. Soon, my contractions were only ninety seconds apart.
When we called the midwife, she could hear me moaning in the background and immediately got in the car and called her apprentices to head our way as well. My husband began filling the pool while I worked through contractions in the shower. As soon as there was enough water in the pool, I sank into it, and the relief was instant. My body relaxed, and I rocked back and forth on my hands and knees.
Within minutes, my body bore down. At first, I doubted myself, remembering the cervical lip from my first labor, but the midwife checked and smiled—I was fully dilated. With that confirmation, I felt confident enough to give my pushes everything I had.
The “ring of fire” came, sharp and consuming, then the pain gave way as his head emerged. I reached down and felt my baby’s head. My husband got ready to catch the baby, and the bag of waters burst into his hands underwater. Then, with one final push, my baby’s body slipped free. Less than three hours after labor began, my son was born in the water. My husband lifted him through my legs, and I pulled him onto my chest. His cry was strong, and I was in awe that I had just given birth with so little assistance.
We moved to the bed. The placenta came without issue, and the baby latched immediately, energetically nursing as the midwives made soup in the kitchen. My mom, asleep down the hall, woke to find that the baby had already arrived. A few hours later, my toddler met her baby brother. She kissed his head, tracing his tiny ears with her fingers. Tears flowed at the sight of my two children together as I imagined the friendship to come.
This birth was fast and fierce and left me with the oxytocin high I had heard so much about. With my first, after thirty-four hours of labor, I had felt like a warrior for simply surviving. With my second, after just a little more than two hours, I felt powerful knowing that I had given birth almost entirely on my own.
Four years later, and several years into the production of The Birth Hour podcast, conceiving our third child was nothing like the others. The first time had been immediate, the second a surprise— but this time it took about a year, with the grief of a miscarriage along the way. After sharing many stories of infertility and loss on The Birth Hour, I knew nothing was guaranteed. Each month became a cycle of hope, doubt, grief, and longing. When I finally saw the faintest second line on the test, I was cautiously excited.
Knowing my babies tend to arrive late, I was prepared to go past my due date again. But at forty weeks, I diffused some clary sage essential oil at bedtime and almost immediately felt a small