Kaitlin's Birth Story

The birth of my son Greyson, despite being one of the greatest days of my life, was also one that I was really unhappy with for a very long time. I was induced at 38 weeks 5 days, labored for 12 hours at an unheard of level of Pitocin, and was asked (whispered to) if I “wanted” a C-section after being “stuck” (these sarcastic quotations are giving me life right now) at 5cm for 5 hours. So naturally, I was like, “sign me up! This is the WORST!”.

The moments/days after my cesarean went something like this (in a nutshell):
-I was sent to recovery with my son in my arms.
-15 family members immediately came into the room to meet and hold our son.
-Greyson was sent to the NICU for what was essentially a booger in his nose, but was kept for 1 week after finding some other things that were wrong.
-I was unable to see Greyson for the entire week. I went home without my family. Why? Because the one time in my adult life that I got the flu shot, I caught the flu in the hospital.
-I got MRSA (a pretty serious and terrible infection) in my incision and was very sick from that as well.
-Breastfeeding was non existent. I had to pump and send my milk to him in the NICU. When we finally got home, I couldn’t get him to latch because HELLO! I don’t know what I’m doing! So I exclusively pumped for 3 months then my milk said, “bye girl!”.
-CUE POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION. YAY.


Fast forward to 2 and a half years later. I’m now a birth doula, loving on pregnant mamas and teaching them that this is not how their birth has to go. I attend births for a living, and each one of those mamas inspires me. It doesn’t matter if she is screaming the entire time, if her birth plan doesn’t go the way she intended, whatever the situation, I leave every birth in awe of the strength I just witnessed.


So when I found out I was pregnant with this little one, our rainbow baby, I immediately knew how I wanted to meet him or her. I knew 2 things: 1. My baby was going to be born at home. 2. My baby was going to come out of my vagina.
This is the birth story of Oliver James Burton.

September 15th, 2016

Greyson was just getting over a terrible 5 day stomach virus that was going around, and by “getting over”, I do in fact mean that he had gone from vomiting 9 times a day to just one. Woohoo. It was total hell, and I was so glad that it was dying down. I was even happier to report that I had not caught this virus. I did NOT want to catch a stomach virus at 40 weeks pregnant and that cause me to go into labor. That would be the worst thing that could happen and I’m SO glad it didn’t.

Except for it did.

The virus had greeted me in the morning…then again an hour later….and so on for the entire day. My mom showed up around 3pm or 4pm to help me take care of Greyson while I was pretty much dead on the couch. I was vomiting every hour. I had a lot of pain in my stomach and then pain started coming to my back. I really tried to keep my eye out for contractions, but it was hard differentiating between the pain of the virus and the pain of contractions, which I didn’t realize had started around 4pm or 5pm. I finally realized around 6pm that I was having contractions, all of which were in my back. I would have flashbacks to Greyson’s birth and how the contractions pretty much felt the same and I would start to freak out. I’d snap myself back to reality and remind myself that this is a different story.

My husband Brandon is a photographer and had a full day of sessions that day. He got home around 7:30. I hadn’t been in contact with him because I was so physically ill I couldn’t move, I really couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t until he got home that he knew I was in labor (Sorry, babe.). I didn’t even see my phone until after I gave birth 2 days from now.

During this time my mom was in touch with our midwives and doulas, keeping them updated with everything. At this point, which is what is supposed to be early labor and totally manageable, my contractions were every 2 minutes lasting 30-45 seconds. They stayed this way for about 24 hours, and were honestly not that much different than my transition contractions. The pain was extremely hard to manage already. My birth team was convinced that this was false labor and that the dehydration from the virus was causing the contractions. Dawn, one of my midwives, came over to check on me and brought me Epsom salts for a bath and a shot of Zofran for my nausea. Everyone was fully convinced my labor was going to stop and that my body would get some much needed rest. Wrong. I did get maybe an hour of sleep, however after that my body was back at it. Contractions still coming every 2-3 minutes lasting 1 minute at this point.

September 16, 2016—My Due Date

Honestly, this entire day is a blur for me. I have no idea what I was doing in this 24 hour period other than getting through it one second at a time. The times that I think things happened probably didn’t happen at those times, so I ask that my birth team please disregard the times because they are probably wrong! Lol!


I was laboring in my bathroom, as I did for about 40% of my labor. I kept in my mind throughout my whole labor that I needed to be in productive positions because I needed to bring my baby down. I was constantly squatting, on all fours, or leaning over countertops with my legs bent while swaying my hips. I wanted to make every second count. I had a sort of routine. I’d do maybe 10-15 contractions leaning over my kitchen counter, then I would get on my knees and lean over a chair, then maybe hop in the bath for 30 minutes, lay down for 30 minutes, then get back up. Every time I would have to go to the bathroom I would stay on the toilet for a few contractions because all of us in the birth community know that’s the “dilation station”.

I labored like this until about 5:30am. At this point I wanted Lauren and Cara, my doulas, to come. I was desperate for any kind of help and I didn’t think I could handle it on my own anymore. I should also mention I probably felt this way because Brandon was sleeping (I wanted him to get some good sleep because of the very long day he had, and the very long day he was about to have), my mother in law was sleeping on our couch, and my mom had gone home to take a shower and came back to find me at a total loss for what to do, so I was laboring alone for awhile. That’s when she called Lauren. She also called Brandy because I wanted my cervix to be checked. My husband had woken up at this point and was helping me through each contraction. I had to be holding someone's hand through every single contraction or it was completely unmanageable in my mind. Brandy arrived first; she checked me and found me to be a 3 and only 50% effaced. I was immediately ready to give up. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. At that moment, Brandy told me that I was perfectly capable of having this baby. She told me I was strong and that I am doing everything right. She left me with the words, “today is your day”. I was ready to keep going after that. She gave me the strength I needed to keep going.

Lauren and Cara arrived to check on me after Brandy left. They stayed with me for a while, doing lots of double hip squeezes to help my back labor. Just their presence made me feel better. I knew it was still very early in the process (even though I’d been laboring hard already for almost 13 hours) so I didn’t expect them to stay; I had a long way to go. Lauren suggested I drink a glass of wine and try to get some sleep. My team was worried I was going to get too exhausted, and honestly, I already was. I felt depleted, and so so weak. I drank some wine and slept for about an hour.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it was around 11am when Dawn came and administered some IV fluids to hydrate me. Everyone was hoping and pretty confident that this would stop my contractions. She also gave me Benadryl so that I could hopefully get a sufficient amount of sleep. They were very worried my body would suffer even more from exhaustion if the labor continued and I hadn't rested. However, none of that happened, my body was apparently very ready to have a baby. I didn’t get much of a break from this labor. Our baby wanted to meet us so very badly!

Fast forward to around 7pm. Hour 26 of labor. I was just going through the motions at this point. I wanted to be checked again just to see if anything was happening. My mom called Brandy and she was at my house in 20 minutes. She checked me and I believe I was 4cm and she could stretch me to a 5 so she did that. I think I was 75% effaced at this point? I was distraught, to say the least. To hear that I only progressed 1cm in 13 hours was very hard to grasp, considering how much pain I was in. I started to cry and, yet again, Brandy to the rescue with such sweet, encouraging words. "You CAN do this, your body is apparently ready to have a baby and you WILL have this baby in your arms soon". It was finally at this point that my birth team and I were convinced my labor was not going to be able to be stopped and that in the next day our baby would be here. I labored long and hard with my husband and 2 moms by my side. My dad also came to support me a for a couple hours. My husband was 100% my rock, holding my hand through every. single. contraction. And when he had to pee, it was my mom, my mother in law, or my dad holding my hand. I was so so so blessed to have this support system. I can’t thank them enough for the love they gave me through this experience.

September 17th, 2016—Birth Day

**A HUGE thank you to Lauren for my birth notes or else I wouldn’t have any idea what happened on this day. The times are actually correct!**

My labor had finally progressed to the point where I knew it was time to call my birth team. It was 2:30am and I needed my doulas. I needed their help, knowledge, and simply their presence. They arrived around 3am and commenced the constant double hip squeezes to help my back. Brandy arrived around 3:30 am and checked me around 4am. I was 6cm and 100% effaced. Another pep talk. Thanks, Brandy. I’m so annoying. Stephanie, my birth photographer, arrived at 3:45am and all I could think was, “Thank God Brandon remembered to call her, I don’t know what I would have done”.

At 4:30am, my team began to set up my birth pool in the living room. At this point I was doing standing lunges through contractions with Brandon to try to move some cervix out of the way. I thought I was dying through these, but I knew that Lauren told me to do these for a reason and I knew how effective it was so I got through it and was VERY happy when it was over.

It’s now 6am and Dawn arrives. I am clearly in transition (AKA the toughest part of labor). I got into the birth pool around 6:30am and labored in the pool until 7:15am when I stood up and swayed with my husband through a few contractions. My water broke at 7:30am. I then got back into the pool and was desperate for this to end. I didn’t think the pain could get any worse, and then of course since my water broke I was reminded that it could get worse. Lauren suggested sitting with one leg up in a lunge position through my contractions to help bring baby down. It was awful, but I did it. I actually got to the point where I was doing that on my own because I was so desperate to hold my baby. At 8am, Lauren suggested I labor on the toilet for a while. I think I did 5 contractions there and then got back into the pool. Brandy checked me at 8:45am and found I was 9cm and baby was very low. I then began pushing around this time during my contractions. It felt both great and horrible to push. I loved that it was something different, but the pain in my back was at it’s peak for sure.

I pushed from this point on until 10:21am when our sweet baby boy, Oliver James Burton, was born. Brandy placed him into my hands and it took me a good minute to even realize what just happened. Brandon was crying. I was crying. Actually, most of the people in the room were crying. I couldn’t believe that this just happened; I just experienced an actual dream come true. I kept repeating, “I can’t believe I did it,” over and over. And just like that, the pain was gone completely. I was looking into the eyes of the sweetest boy in the world. I was in complete awe of how beautiful he looked in my arms, with his skin against mine; Something I wished I had with Greyson's birth so very badly. Everyone deserves this, I thought. It was the best feeling in the world.

20 minutes later we were still in the pool and I got him to latch on the first time I tried. More crying happening here. I got out of the pool around 11:20am and made my way to the bed, where Brandon and little Ollie were doing skin to skin. I climbed in bed with my little family and I was the happiest girl in the world. After Oliver was born, my dad started making a huge breakfast for everyone that I’m sure they were all super ready and thankful for. I know I was. I was soooooo ready to eat. Everyone hung out and ate while we got to know our little boy.

Brandy did Ollie’s newborn exam at 12:30pm. I believe the weight portion went a little something like this:

Brandy looking at the scale: “No fucking way. It says 10 pounds 10 ounces”.

Dawn: “Use the other one!”

Brandy confirms that I did in fact just birth a 10 pound 10 ounce, 22 ¾ inch long baby. We are all in total disbelief. It was awesome.

So that’s it. That’s how our little Ollie James came into this world. I have to say, it did NOT go as planned. Obviously. But let me tell you something, it was the absolute best experience of my life. I feel so healed with this birth. I feel like a different woman, doula, and person. It changed me and I feel like I can do anything. I had my baby at home, where the people surrounding me never once made me feel like a patient, only a person and a mother. Thank you to my birth team and my family who held me in love the entire time. You all are the reason I was able to do this. This day is forever cherished. Welcome to the world, Oliver. You were surrounded by so much love the day we met you, and even more now.