After C-section, Bloomington Couple Opts for Home Birth

After having a traumatic Cesarean section delivery of her first child, Parker, in 2008, 29-year-old Amy Russell of Bloomington, a farm manager at Soy Capital, was in counseling for posttraumatic stress disorder.  She rebounded and got connected with a local chapter of the International Cesarean Awareness Network when expecting baby number two, a girl named Rachel.  Rachel was a successful vaginal birth born in the hospital in 2010.

Amy’s experience of natural childbirth gave her and husband Ben, 31, who works at Country Financial, the confidence to pursue a home birth for their third child, Katie. They were able to secure the services of a certified nurse midwife to assist them at home, and a doctor was on-call ready to receive them at the hospital should anything go wrong.

Amy’s water broke at home.  She and Ben waited for the contractions to come.  Twenty-two hours later they were still waiting and now they were worried that they might have to go to the hospital.  But their midwife suggested using castor oil and other natural techniques.  Amy’s contractions finally began four hours later.  Katie was born in good health in the couple’s tub at home after five-and-a-half hours of labor.

Amy and Ben interview each other, in StoryCorps style, about their experience giving birth at home.