Birth Stories

Today you are ten weeks and two days old, and today is the last day of my maternity leave. As I mentally prepare to head back to work – taking care of other people’s sick children – I feel...

November: the beautiful month full of life’s little pleasures. You can watch squirrels so diligently gather and hide acorns for the winter, see wild turkeys majestically strut across the empty fields, and see children’s sweet breath as they run...

I had a fairly uneventful pregnancy the first time. I loved having my one ultrasound and visiting the doctor to know exactly where the baby was positioned inside me so I could soothe it in utero. I worked up...

“You have been pushing for over three hours.  We cannot get this baby out. I think we need to do a C-section.” These are words I always dreaded hearing. It felt like I had been punched in the gut....

Good Morning Iowa City Moms! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Melissa Mabon and I am honored to share my story with all of you...a story that has taken me 4 years, to date, to...

In my birth class, induction and epidural were not popular words. My husband and I attended Saturday afternoon sessions dutifully; practicing breathing techniques, learning about tearing vs episiotomies, and preparing for birth's possibilities. A natural birth experience was definitely...

When I decided I wanted a baby with my husband at age 25, I had no idea what rabbit hole I was heading down.  Here are a few things I didn’t anticipate: The amount of time I’d spend going to...

I never imagined that my first birth story would have landed me in a surgical room when I had my daughter, Anora Lynne. She had been breech for much of the 2nd half of the pregnancy, and for whatever...

As I sit here watching my daughter spin and dance in our living room while watching Rapunzel, I can’t help but ask myself, “What did I do to deserve this little nugget of happiness?” She is so much more...

When you think about the whole experience of motherhood, what comes to mind? From your baby's first cry, to your baby's baby's first cry, that long stretch of life that passes in the blink of an eye is an...