By a South Dakota Dad

My wife had a typical pregnancy, and, as expected, a typical labor, meaning several hours over a couple days under the watchful eye of our midwife in a cabin in a neighboring state. Much prayer and consideration of our limited options went into our decision to have our baby in this setting. We had a great relationship with our midwife and did not feel safe birthing at home without her expertise. Because of South Dakota’s prosecution of midwives, we were not able to find a midwife who would come to our home to help us deliver our baby. Going to our local hospital meant a c-section, as they would not allow my wife to try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean), even though our last birth was a successful VBAC.

So here we were in a rented cabin, making the best of our situation. Progress was slow, despite early water breakage, a first for us. Our midwife advised us that once the water breaks, introducing outside germs through pelvic examinations was a risk

After several hours of labor we decided a pelvic was needed to determine progress. Dilation was slow but sure as we continued our out-of-hospital, but out-of-home experience. As my wife began to feel more and more like the baby was coming, we prepared for the eminent birth.

She had had very long hard labor episodes in the past, so the midwife and I took turns applying back pressure and supporting her abdomen. During that time, my wife began to shudder, a sign, during previous deliveries, of the transition into the birth, but this time, the baby didn’t come.

As she had been doing on a regular basis throughout the labor, our midwife checked the baby’s heart rate – it was elevated and unstable – we recognized there was potential danger to both mother and child. Again, after prayer and consideration, we decided to transport to the hospital.

My wife’s shuddering continued on the way to the emergency room, and after we arrived – both she and the baby had high heart rates as the doctors and nurses prepped for a c-section. Once in the operating room, my wife was put under and our daughter was surgically removed from her mother. I was there, and followed our baby into the next room as she had not yet taken her first breath. The mood became a bit frantic as a doctor and nurse attempted to get her to breathe – her umbilical cord had been immediately cut, and she was without oxygen and without a heartbeat. Then, seven minutes after she was born, a cry, and the purple of her skin was replaced by a lively pink. But she was not yet out of the woods.

My wife was still under anesthesia and was fully unaware of the drama of the first minutes of our daughter’s life until several hours later – at that point, she was in neonatal I-C-U and doctors were trying to figure out why she was having problems with oxygen levels and what type of infection she, and my wife, had. Nothing was pinpointed as the source of the threat to their lives.

Our baby was in intensive care for ten days; she didn’t take food orally for five days; and her siblings didn’t get to meet their new sister for three days. She’s now doing fine.

Three times we have had to make choices about our births that have included trips to the hospital – a potential breech birth that was detected by a trained midwife, a VBAC with full-term twins and in a case where our midwife realized something just wasn’t right with the way a birth was going. She had been there for each of our previous pregnancies and births and was able to identify the abnormality of my wife’s labor.

We would rather each of our births had taken place in our home, but together with our midwife, we recognized the need for higher level medical care during three of the deliveries. It’s not likely we would have caught the problems with those births, had our midwife not been there – we were blessed to have a trained professional assisting us during our children’s births.

We look forward to the day when South Dakota families will not have to cross the border to receive this wonderful care in their own homes. We are thankful that the legislature passed a bill that will allow nurse midwives an avenue to attend home births. We hope next year, they will continue their support for home birth families by licensing Certified Professional Midwives who have excellent outcomes in the out-of-hospital setting. We have had great experiences with both types of midwives and believe families deserve to have all evidence-based options available.