The Birth of Aysun

A Story of Miscarriage, Fertility, & a Healing Birth

I’ve known Cait since we were 8 or 9 years old dancing at Nancy Mulford Dance Studio. She had remained my friend via social media forever. When she was pregnant with her first daughter I did her maternity photos and offered to be her doula since I was just starting off in the birth world. Fast forward to 2019, Cait was in a relationship with the love of her life and together they had started a beautiful blended family. But, one thing was missing. A baby of their own.

Cait had reached out to me for some advice & had gotten pregnant in 2019, but unfortunately had a miscarriage, on her birthday, which left them devastated. They were eager to get pregnant, but 6 months had gone by and they hadn’t had much luck so I offered them more fertility support to help them conceive. She had started to grow frustrated & discouraged after a few late periods that did not turn to positive pregnancy tests. After a few months of taking fertility supplements, some dietary changes, and an acupuncture session, she found out she was pregnant again! On her birthday in 2020, exactly a year after her miscarriage! She texted me while she was working & I was so excited for her.

It was an honor when they officially asked me to be their midwife. I am honored every time someone asks me to be apart of their journey, but when it’s someone you’ve known since you were a kid, it makes it just a little more special. As a nurse, Cait knows all about the flaws that our medical system has & she wanted a totally different experience this time around. She wanted to feel more connected to the birth experience so she decided a homebirth would be best. During our prenatal visits all of our kids would play together & they were so excited to meet their new baby brother!

Cait’s birth was so peaceful & beautiful. It was everything she had hoped for. Despite some anxiety & some chaos (such as desperately searching for a house & having it fall through last minute in her 3rd trimester), during her labor she turned inwards and listened to her body & followed her intuition. I wasn’t even there for an hour & their perfect rainbow baby was born into her & Chris’ loving arms, in their bedroom, in the birth tub. A healing birth experience for them both. Everything had unfolded exactly how it needed to.

Thank you Cait & Chris for choosing me to be your midwife! So glad our families can grow alongside eachother.

Here is the birth story written by Cait, “On Saturday 10/17 being 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant I decided I was going to try to evict my baby lol. I took castor oil around 10am, I’ll leave those details out and by 5pm I started having mild contractions.

My contractions were close together from the start, but began mild. I kept remembering our birth class kept saying there’s about 5 min in between each contraction in the beginning stages of labor and I was getting 2-3 min tops and they quickly became stronger. I’m like “where is my break at”

When my midwife got to my house I was 8cm dilated, got in the birth tub and at this point I knew baby was coming.

I am so grateful I had such an amazing birth team, both my doula Mallori and midwife Samantha Magpi Magpi Midwifery and her assistant, that spoke confidence in me and reminded me of my breathing and just offered all around support while still allowing me to be in control. I recommend both of them to anyone y’all are really amazing.

I am so grateful to have such an amazing partner. Chris stayed with me the whole time, and made me feel so supported. I am soooo in love with this man and this experience made me feel even closer to him.

It was incredible being able to reach down and feel Aysun’s hair as he descended, to have Chris be able to catch him and to have our skin to skin and bonding time. It is amazing to be fully immersed in bringing life in to the world. At no point did I feel like I couldn’t do this, because our bodies are made for this and countless women before me have done the same. That being said the experience was intense, and the pain was real, but omg when that baby comes it disappears. Birth is hard but it is so beautiful and raw.

At 8:51pm Aysun was born, caught by daddy, weighing 8lbs and 20.5 in long.

I love you Aysun Grey, and I love your daddy brother and sister. I love this life. So thankful.”