Carpenter | Birth | Mississippi Birth Photographer

Birth is scary. And hard. Everything is unknown. You pray for a healthy baby, a healthy delivery, and have certain ideals about how your birth is going to go. When it comes to my births, I'm very hands-on and take an active role in what physicians want to do. I don't consent to things without really thinking about them.

And this mama was the same way. She planned on a natural birth. Her doctor kept mentioning induction, even though she was adamantly against it. At 40 weeks, his insistence won.

This mama labored UNMEDICATED while on the highest dose of Pitocin. As a mother who has had experience with Pitocin, that's hard. That's the hardest thing to do. Natural contractions typically start slowly so that your body can acclimate to the pain and they also allow a break in between contractions. That break is a God send and makes unmedicated labor doable. Pitcoin contractions are completely different. There's no break in between. The pain is constant. The pain doesn't gradually increase; it starts as high as you can even fathom and then somehow creeps even higher to a level you never knew existed.

The mama nailed her labor. She rocked, she swayed, she walked, she did everything trying to help baby make her way into the world. By 3:00PM, she had made no progress. And was devastated. Still 2cm from the night before.

While she had planned for an unmedicated birth, she knew that baby wasn't coming for a reason, and asked the doctor what his thoughts were. He assumed that baby was positioned wrong for birth and that's why she wasn't opening up and why baby wasn't descending into the birth canal. At that point, after rocking these contractions, they both agreed to a C-section; for mama's health and baby.

Once the decision was made, things moved fast. She was prepped and wheeled into the operating room. Daddy was given his scrubs and baby would be in the world shortly!

Due to the policy at the delivering hospital, I wasn't allowed into the operating room, but stood outside not so patiently with the family, waiting for that sweet newborn cry.

Even though it wasn't my birth, it wasn't my baby, I was emotional. Birth is a big deal, no matter how it happens. And it's beautiful. So beautiful. All the pain, all the waiting; it was worth it. Hearing that sweet cry and seeing that sweet face made it all worth it. Babies are worth it. They are worth everything.

Enjoy the birth story of Miss Ann Tadley.