We're celebrating Labor Day by sharing stories from our own deliveries. From barely making it to the hospital to laboring for four days, from home births to inductions, from two amniotic sacs to secret salads, Kindred Bravely moms get real! As you can imagine, we absolutely love hearing birth stories here at Kindred Bravely, so we hope you’ll share yours too. Please comment below!

Hannah (Customer Care)

With my first, my water broke as I plopped down on the floor to look at some cloth diapers. I thought I had peed myself (again!), but when I stood up, fluid leaked down my leg. I waited excitedly for contractions to start, but several hours later, there was minimal action. Under the supervision of a family midwife, I safely labored at home for the better part of three days. On the fourth day, I finally went to the hospital and had a baby 12 hours later, after a dose of misoprostol. The midwife who attended my birth told me that while my water had broken days earlier, I actually had two sacs of amniotic fluid. My son was safely encased in the inner sac, while the outer one had been the one with the leak!

Alix (Social Media)

I always tell people that my water broke "Hollywood style," meaning in a big gush on my carpet. My husband had me stand in the tub while he ran around collecting things. I wanted an unmedicated birth because I’d read that epidurals sometimes increase the length of labor, a fact I told my husband to continually remind me of. I stuck to that, and after 13 hours of labor and 30 minutes of pushing, my son was born.

KB Mom (Customer Care)

My husband was on a year-long deployment, so my best friend of 20 years flew out to help me for a week. The day before she was set to leave, she said, "We are getting this baby out. I don't care how!" We ate spicy food, and then she rubbed the inside of my ankles. Sure enough, at 3:15 a.m. contractions started! I called another friend who was on standby to bring me to the hospital so my best friend could stay with my 13-month-old.  We got to the hospital, and I was laboring for a while. I told the nurse that I had to push, and she told me that she would be right back. Forty-five minutes later, my friend ran to the nurses’ station and told my nurse to get in the room right away. The nurse came to check me and said, “Oh, who has dark hair?" The baby was crowning, and I was doing everything in my power not to push. The midwife came in, and two pushes later my baby girl was out! She was placed on my chest and peed all over me. About two hours after she was born, my husband called and was able to "meet” her on Skype.

Lauren (Outreach)

I was committed to a medication-free birth with my second baby. I labored at home, felt great driving to the hospital with my husband, and got settled into our hospital room just in time for the contractions to really get intense. Everything felt like the most perfect timing. All of a sudden, when transition hit, I started to freak out and told the nurse and my husband that I needed an epidural right away. Just my luck – the anesthesiologist was in the operating room with another patient and couldn't come to my rescue.

What felt like two seconds later, my nurse told me the doctor was coming, and my son was about to be born. Instead of being relieved or excited, I jumped right to conspiracy theory – I somehow thought she was trying to trick me into staying calm by lying to me that my baby was almost here. I got up on all fours and yelled at my husband, "I don't understand what is happening here!" Turns out she wasn't trying to trick me at all – my doctor did in fact come in, and my son was born a few minutes later. I gave that nurse lots of chocolate after I finally calmed down.

Erin (Project Management)

When I was in labor, they would only let me eat ice chips and Jell-O; it’s supposed to be a safety precaution in case they have to perform a C-section. Somewhere between hour 12 and 24 of my labor, I was ravenous. The hospital staff wasn’t concerned, but thankfully my husband was. He managed to coordinate a stealth delivery of one of my favorite salads when the nurses weren’t looking, and just a few bites of avocado gave me the strength I needed to make it through hour 27.

Shantel (IBCLC)

With my second baby, I was hoping for a water birth at home. After my midwife had broken my water, I climbed into the bathtub, and my contractions became so intense that after one of them, I growled at my husband, “I am NEVER doing this again!” My midwife just looked at me and said, “AFTER you push this baby out, you don't have to do it again if you don't want to.” We laughed about it when she brought it up at one of our postpartum visits.

For my third baby, I had planned a home birth. I transferred to the hospital at 9 cm dilated because my baby was still high. I had been in labor for about 36 hours, so I wanted some pain relief. Wrenna was born ten minutes after I received my epidural.

KB Mom (Marketing)

That whole day, I could tell something was brewing. Since it was my first baby, I had the luxury of being able to do nothing that evening except watch loads of TV, which was rare then and unthinkable now! It wasn’t so bad until late that night. As a runner, I have a really high pain threshold, but I was blown away by how strong my contractions were, and I couldn’t believe anyone could handle them without an epidural! When I got to the hospital, the midwife reported that the anesthesiologist was with other patients. When she came back a bit later, I said, “Can you please get him to come here next?” She knew desperation when she saw it. He came in, put in the epidural, and I proceeded to watch hours of Project Runway while my partner slept. There was one very scary moment, and I had absolutely no control of my legs (which felt like massive, immovable hams while I pushed), but I felt so lucky that I was in such good hands (especially the hands of my wonderful nurse and partner as they held up my ham legs).

Sydney (Events) 

They say modesty goes out the window when you’re in labor, and that was absolutely true for me. Since the hospital I delivered at didn’t have a tub, I ended up lying on the tile floor in the bathroom completely naked while my husband used the showerhead to spray water on me. I thought it was only for a few minutes, but they told me later I’d been there for more than an hour. The hospital staff kept saying they’d never seen anything like it. But I didn’t care. It helped!

Sophia (Outreach) 

I didn’t expect to be induced, so I never researched everything that might happen. I knew it would be different from going into labor on my own. But I had no idea that my water might not break by itself, which meant the doctor had to use a stick with a little hook on the end to pop the bag of water himself. I was completely terrified, and I just kept thinking, “Thank goodness I already asked for the epidural!”

Maggie (Marketing)

Since I had to be induced for both deliveries, I knew I’d have lots of “free” time with my second labor, so we came prepared with snacks and plenty of things to do. Everything ended up taking even longer since there were several other moms who needed more urgent attention: an emergency C-section, a twin delivery, and a mom who was almost crowning when she arrived! The hospital staff kept stopping by to apologize for the delay, and we laughed it off every time. “Hey, we’re just glad to be watching something that’s not PBS Kids!” I loved having a little extra “just us two” time before our family of three became four. We wrote silly things on the whiteboard, talked about everything and nothing, and got lunch from our favorite restaurant; my husband even performed an impromptu concert for some of the nurses.

Jan (Customer Care)

When I was near due with my first child, I gave a huge dinner party to celebrate Christmas and my wedding anniversary. I knocked myself out with all the work to pull it off and ended up with a backache the next day, which wasn’t all that unusual as I had a lot of backaches. But at my OB check-up, the doctor took a quick look and suggested I run across the street to the hospital because I was 9 cm and about ready to pop. I barely made it. 

Stephanie (Marketing)

At 39 weeks, I was awakened by some sharp pains in my back. They passed quickly, so I didn’t think much of it and went back to sleep. The next morning, I started feeling the pain again, so I called my best friend Lindsay, a mom of three, who said that what I was experiencing sounded like contractions.

Fast forward to 3 a.m. Sunday morning. I hadn’t slept as the only thing I could focus on was timing my contractions via a handy-dandy contraction app. The app told me that it was time to go to the hospital, so I woke my hubby up and off we went. At the hospital, the doctor told me I was 4 cm, but my contractions were pretty irregular, so I probably still had some time. She did a membrane sweep and asked me to walk around the floor for a bit to see if it would help things progress. After an hour of walking did nothing, they gave me some Tylenol and sent me home.

Sunday was a very long day consisting of lying on the couch in the fetal position (or as close as I could get with my big belly) feeling contractions all day! That evening, I decided that the pain was too much, and we were going back to the hospital. This time I was 5 cm, but they felt like I wasn’t progressing enough, so they sent me home again.

When we got home, my hubby got me all set up in bed. He barely made it downstairs before I yelled to him that my water had broken and we needed to go back to the hospital! (For those of you wondering, I could definitely tell that it happened. It felt like a small water balloon burst between my legs.)

They immediately admitted me this time, so I knew it was really happening. For the next 3-4 hours, I pushed, but the doctor said that while Wyatt’s head was in the birth canal, something was stopping him from delivering vaginally, and a C-section was the best course of action. In less than 30 minutes, I was happily holding my new bundle of joy!

Deeanne (CEO, Co-Founder)

I’d heard that second babies tend to come faster, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how much faster! With both boys, I labored at home for a while before heading to the hospital, but with my first-born, we had a few hours between getting to the delivery room and his actual birth. When my second son was born, we barely made it to the hospital. I’m pretty sure there’s a security guard somewhere who thought I was going to deliver right there in the lobby! I can’t imagine how funny I must have looked kneeling backward in a wheelchair as my husband and our doula rushed me through the hospital to find an empty room in the maternity ward.

Do you have a funny or unexpected story from your labor? Share it below! If you’re expecting, check out our award-winning labor and delivery gown!