It was a Monday afternoon during my toddler’s nap when I rolled out my yoga mat in the living room. I slipped in my earbuds and turned on my usual meditation playlist. As I moved through familiar stretches and poses, I’d practiced for years, I felt the tension begin to leave my body. I’ve learned that when I work the stress out of my body first, it becomes much easier to recenter my soul. For the next thirty minutes, I spent time checking in with God. I laid my fears at His feet and surrendered every anxious thought I had been carrying. By the end of it, an overwhelming sense of peace washed over me. I was reminded that things always work out. That there is nothing to fear. That I would be safe during birth. My toddler would be cared for. I would have time to heal. I repeated a phrase I often tell both myself and my husband: “Things are always worse in our minds.” And for once, I didn’t just think those words, I believed them. Deeply. In both my body and my spirit.
That sense of calm and acceptance must have signaled to my body that I was finally ready because only a few hours later, my water broke. Relief traveled through me, quickly transforming into excitement. I called the midwife, who gave me instructions on what to do while I waited for contractions to begin. It was around 3 p.m., and the two-hour wait that followed felt like an eternity. Fear tried to creep back in. What if my contractions never start on their own like they didn’t the first time? But this time, fear didn’t consume me. I knew that every birth unfolds differently.
Around 5 p.m., the contractions finally arrived. About every fifteen minutes, I felt waves of cramping begin to build. I was amazed to experience labor exactly as so many women had described it. I could still walk around, eat dinner with my family, and participate in our normal evening routine. The best part was that I was able to put my toddler to bed in our usual way.
At 8 p.m., I checked in with the midwife again. Her calm voice reassured me that she would be waiting at the birth center whenever I was ready to come in. She warned me it could be a long night and encouraged me to get some rest. So, I did. The best I could at least. I laid in bed dozing off but then waking up every 15 minutes when I would be panged with another contraction.
By midnight, I found myself breathing heavily through each wave. They were becoming stronger now. I watched the clock obsessively. Was that one twelve minutes apart? Did that last one count? Maybe it wasn’t a real contraction. I sat upright in bed while my husband slept beside me. When the next contraction came, I leaned over the edge of the mattress and breathed through it. I would muster up the effort to tell him that it was time to go downstairs. He immediately got up and called his mother to come stay with our daughter while she slept peacefully upstairs, completely unaware that by morning her world would look entirely different.
We left for the birth center around 2 a.m. Partway through the drive, I found myself leaning out the truck window to throw up, which made our twenty-minute drive take a little longer. Oddly enough, that gave me reassurance. Something significant was happening. This birth was already unfolding much differently than my first. When we arrived around 2:30 a.m., the midwife checked my vitals and examined me. I was already seven centimeters dilated. I later learned that I had entered transition, which explained the nausea and intensity of the contractions. The realization was shocking. Had we left any later, our baby may have been born in the truck.
The next two hours were spent cycling through different positions as I worked with all my might to bring my daughter into the world. I was the only patient in the entire house-turned-birth-center that night. The room was quiet except for the voices of my midwife, one nurse, and my husband. Three people constantly reminding me to stay focused, stay hydrated, and keep going. To my surprise, pushing the baby down became the hardest part of labor. Not the contractions. Not the moment they briefly struggled to find her heartbeat. Not even the ring of fire. It was the relentless effort of pushing for hours. Holding onto the metal bars of the bed until my hands ached. Digging deeper than I thought possible. Exerting so much energy for so long that I became convinced my body would simply give out. Wanting so badly to give up but knowing I did not have that choice. That there was only one way out of this physically demanding moment, and it was through. I had relinquished all of my energy, wondering how I would continue.
And that’s when something shifted. I realized I didn’t need to have enough strength to make it to the end on my own. In that room, it wasn’t just my husband, the nurse, and the midwife surrounding me. I remembered the scriptures I had highlighted in my Bible only days before. Verses that reassured me that “I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). That God “giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength” (Isaiah 40:29-31). And deep within my spirit, I heard the words: “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord is with me wherever I go” (Joshua 1:9). In that moment, I surrendered completely. I stopped focusing on what I was capable of and started trusting what God was capable of. The exhaustion that had consumed me gave way to renewed strength. I went from feeling helpless and depleted, to feeling full of might. I gathered myself for a few more pushes. And then she was here.
I had done it. I couldn’t believe it. My baby was safe without any complications. And I would be cleared to leave 4 hours later. From the moment of conception to the moment you hold your baby in your arms, so much can happen. The fact that any of us exist at all is miraculous. To walk away healthy with a healthy baby felt like a gift in itself. To have the unmedicated birth I had hoped for without interventions felt almost unbelievable. But I know I cannot take all the credit.
I firmly believe the people who care for you during birth can dramatically shape your experience. I had never met the midwife or nurse who were on call that night, yet what mattered wasn’t familiarity. What mattered was their compassion, encouragement, and unwavering belief in me. Every woman deserves that kind of support. And then there was my husband. Once again, he proved himself better than any doula I could have hired. From the very beginning, he trusted my decision to pursue a birth center, even when it may have seemed unconventional or “too crunchy”. He never questioned me. He simply stood beside me.
But more than anything, I don’t know how I would have endured without my faith. Even now, as I write this while navigating life with a newborn and a toddler, this experience serves as a reminder that when I feel weak and overwhelmed, I don’t have to rely solely on my own strength. I can lean on God’s. He has carried me before, and He will carry me again. I don’t believe His plan is merely for me to survive this season of life. I believe His desire is for me to thrive within it.
I don’t share this story to compare my two birth experiences. As I’ve written before, I am deeply grateful for how my first birth unfolded. But I do share it because I’ve come to realize that I never would have had this experience without the lessons I learned from the first.
As I reflect on this birth experience, I don’t think the greatest gift was the unmedicated labor, the birth center, or even the fact that everything unfolded so differently than it did the first time. The greatest gift was what God taught me through it. For so much of my life, I’ve believed that peace comes when circumstances finally fall into place. When the outcome is certain. When the waiting is over. When the fears don’t come true. But this birth taught me something different. Peace wasn’t found when labor started. It wasn’t found when I finally held my baby in my arms. It wasn’t found when I learned that everything had turned out okay. Peace came before any of those things.
It came on a Monday afternoon when I sat on a yoga mat and surrendered my fears to God. It came when I stopped trying to predict every possible outcome and trusted that whatever happened, He would be with me in it. Because the truth is, there were no guarantees. There was no guarantee that labor would go smoothly. No guarantee that my baby would arrive safely. No guarantee that our move, my recovery, or the transition to becoming a family of four would be easy. Yet for the first time, I felt truly free from the need to know how everything would unfold. I simply trusted the One who did. Looking back, I can see how much my first birth prepared me for this one. The fear, uncertainty, and challenges of becoming a first-time mother weren’t wasted. They were building something in me that I couldn’t yet see. Confidence. Perspective. Faith.
The things that once felt like obstacles became steppingstones. And maybe that’s true for so many parts of life. Sometimes God doesn’t remove the difficult experiences from our story. Sometimes He uses them to prepare us for what comes next. My second daughter entered the world at 4:24 a.m. My first daughter was born on 4/24/2024. When I realized the connection, I smiled through tears. It felt like a gentle reminder from God that He had been present in both stories all along. In the birth that tested me. In the birth that healed me. In the fears that kept me awake at night. And in the peace that finally quieted them.
If there’s anything I hope another mother takes away from my story, it’s this: your previous experience does not determine your future one. A difficult birth does not mean the next will be difficult. A season marked by fear does not mean the next cannot be filled with joy. And wherever you find yourself today whether in the waiting, in the uncertainty or in the middle of a prayer that feels unanswered, you are not alone. God is already there. Not just in the outcome you’re hoping for, but in the journey itself. And sometimes, when we loosen our grip on how we think things should go, we make room to experience something even more beautiful than we imagined.
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