My Home Birth in Costa Rica

Birthing our baby boy in Costa Rica   

This is my story, I know everybody experiences birth differently and there are many options and choices to make as a new parent. So I am not suggesting this is right for everyone but feel it is important we share more positive stories that shine a light on what is possible. After the years of conditioning and fear from over dramatised tv births we have seen, it is our responsibility to change the narrative and know that many women are birthing with minimal intervention, I won't call it a natural birth as all birth is natural whether it's vaginal, c-section, in the car on the way to hospital or howling like a wolf squatting in a river, and yes I have seen an example of this (probably on instagram).

Pre-natal choices

We arrived back in Costa Rica 3 months pregnant from a summer in Michigan with Harls, our dog (you can read more about bringing him to Costa Rica here). We started researching our options for birthing here, I had heard that midwives were some what outlawed, but not impossible to find.  Coming from the UK where midwives are the main attendees of births I found this a little baffling. It seemed that a popular option here especially with the expat families is to book into the private hospital Cima in San Jose and have a doctor or team of medical staff look after you. While we did consider this option it felt a little foreign to me and I had imagined something less medical and more intimate.

I had also considered not having too many pre-natal appointments and ultrasounds but after having a couple of miscarriages over the years I did really appreciate the check ups. We didn’t do a home test, I just knew my body and figured a test wouldn’t tell us if this one was going to stay so just tried to take it easy and not get too excited, easier said than done. A lot of people here have ultrasounds every month at each appointment, we just went with the 12 week and 20 week and then a couple around and after the due date.

I felt pretty good during the first trimester in Michigan, a little nauseous but never actually sick. I continued to practise a little yoga and aerial yoga and ate a balanced diet and googled a lot of foods before eating them, nervous about everything entering my body. I tried not to obsess too much but naturally you try to do all you can to protect your growing baby. I flew at 10 weeks, this was another thing that I was nervous about but found lots of mixed information online, many women said they flew all the time for work and had no problem. I decided to just trust that if this baby was meant to be it would be and a flight wouldn't shake a good apple from the tree.

Double rainbow blessings at the beach

So, our first appointment at around 13 weeks was at the Metropolitan hospital at the Marina in Quepos. The technology was great, we had our first ultrasound and it all became very real. Hearing a heartbeat for the first time just sent me into sheer joy and relief, as much as I tried not to worry there was always that nagging feeling of the memories from the last 2 times I’d been in this position; jelly on my belly, hopeful. 

We decided to look for a different doctor for the rest of our prenatal care, I wasn’t comfortable with the one we saw. He didn’t speak much English (my Spanish is limited) and he advised me to take aspirin everyday, which I obviously ignored and proceeded to ask around for other doctor recommendations. I was looking for someone more in line with our preferences for minimal intervention.

So we visited a highly recommended doctor in Quepos who was more of a GP, he checked all my vitals and told us he could take care of our prenatal controls or he could recommend a specialist doctor, who also recently assisted his wife with the birth of their baby. I was over the moon, this was the doctor I’d heard about from the mamas down the coast around Dominical and Uvita, where we used to live, but I thought he was too far away with his clinic in San Isidro. It turned out he had an office in Quepos that he came to once a week. Ahhh the stars had aligned! If we had to go with a doctor I was glad it could be him. He told us this doctor specialises in water births and home births too so we were very keen to meet him.

I should mention we were considering home birth or his private clinic / hospital or public hospital and also talking to a doula. I had always imagined a birth surrounded by women possibly with a few tambourines and instruments and a strong feminine sisterhood vibe…. The opposite of our actual experience. 

Vibe attracts your tribe... we found the one for us!

So we had our first appointment with our doctor at 20 weeks, just before Christmas. I liked him immediately, he was a lovely man with a kind face and I’d heard lots of great things about him. He was an advocate of delayed cord clamping and was patient, gentle and very mother and baby focused.  Many of his peers may prioritise their own agenda and prefer to go with c-sections for the convenience of a schedule. I was apprehensive about inductions and interventions after a few horror stories from my friends in the UK and asked him what do we do if I go past the “due date” to which he replied, “we wait” I probed a little deeper and he just said, "I wait". This sounded good to me. I’d later find out how true this was, when he spent the 50 hours at our house, napping on the hard sofa next to our dog.

The weeks went by, my check ups were always great, I was totally 'low risk'. Blood pressure good, baby position good, heartbeat good, I felt good. I continued teaching yoga up to my third trimester and practising all the way til the birth. Eating well here in the jungle with lots of fresh tropical fruits I felt fantastic, not even that uncomfortable really until towards the end and even then mostly just a little hip ache at night laying on my left side all the time. I was very lucky and so far had no complications. All looked good for a home water birth which we had decided to go for as long as nothing came up. We knew that we had to have back up plans so were clear on our intention but flexible in case it couldn’t go as planned as we’d heard a million times that birth rarely goes as planned. A lot of people were advising us to visit the hospitals, to get to know the place so that if we needed to transfer in an emergency we would be familiar with the place and know where to go. We were considering this and considering meeting with other doctors in the city right up to the due date but my instinct was that I didn't want to even have that vision in my mind, I didn't want to see myself at the hospital. I wanted to keep a strong focus and visualisation of my plan and not let fear cloud that vision. And I figured if it was an emergency transfer it wouldn't matter if I knew the place or not.

Doula or don't ya?

We had one meeting with a doula, who was going to be out of the country around the time of my birth so didn’t want to commit to being with us but gave us some great preparatory advise and guidance. I'd say the 3 key pieces I took from this and found the most useful were to get a hot water bottle for pain relief, make a soothing tea (Rosemary, Calendular, Chamomile) to put in a squirt bottle in the fridge for post partum and the horse lips / bumblebee breathing technique. 

I read a couple of books (The Positive Birth Book, Milli Hill, The Gentle Birth method by Gowri Motha and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth), got a pregnancy meditation app, tried to find some info on hypno birthing and followed some graphic doula accounts on instagram to watch lots of beautiful births. 

Hanging out with Harls

I knew it was important to stay strong in my mind to approach birth without fear and to visualise how I wanted my birth experience to be. I found la leche league breastfeeding group in the area and went to monthly meetings and learnt way more than I could have imagined and in hindsight am so grateful that I went to those meetings as it is really tough those first few weeks and had I been less prepared I’m not sure what I would have done. The knowledge and support of those women as well as my good friend Jo who enlightened me that La leche even existed, was invaluable.

Estimated Arrival Time

I have mostly heard about babies arriving “late” after the expected due date, I have always been sceptical about these so called due dates anyway so tried not to have too much attachment and to just focus more on due month. Our doctor also mentioned that in his experience babies come around the full moon, being an avid follower of moon cycles this made me even more comfortable with our choice of doctor. 

So from the 19th April full moon we were ready, wondering if our baby would arrive early pulled by the power of the moon, but no this wasn’t the case. Then the 6th May, due date came around…. still nothing. It was hard not to get impatient, but we just went for walks and tried to stay calm everyday wondering would it be today. In hindsight the extra time really helped me get into the right head space and after a week or so I felt more "ready".

Here we go..

Then finally at 1 am on Sunday 20th, 2 days after the full moon, I started to feel cramps and light contractions. We stayed in bed and tried to rest breathing through the contractions and timing them with the timer on a pregnancy app. By 4:30 they were about 4 minutes apart so we messaged the doctor, waited until 5:30 for sunrise and then called him to let him know what was going on, he’d told us to call when they were 3 in 10 mins but this being our first time we were eager and unsure how fast it could progress, also taking into account that he lived over an hour away. He said he would come and arrived around 7:30, by then of course the contractions had actually slowed down. 

When he arrived he checked the baby’s heart rate, my blood pressure and started timing the contractions. He was very patient and not at all intrusive, gently coming in and out of the bedroom and giving me privacy and quiet time. He said we needed to wait until I was 5 cm dilated to get in the pool, which we had laid out in the lounge but not filled with air or water yet. After a couple of hours timing contractions he checked my dilation, I’d like to mention here I had read about knowing your options and that you don’t have to have internal examinations to check how dilated you are, this was something I thought I would decline but when it came to it I appreciated the extra insight. The doctor only checked me twice during the entire labour, but he would check the babies heart rate regularly. 

Birthing ball with hot water bottle riding a wave

All day Monday the contractions continued, they slowed down a little at times and then got closer together and more intense, I used a hot water bottle on my tummy or my back and bumblebee breath or horse lips to manage the pain. I moved around the apartment using the birthing ball, sitting out on the balcony overlooking the mango and cacao trees or in the bed. By that night they’d slowed down and I was exhausted so decided to lay down and see if I could sleep a little, the doctor napped on the couch and in the morning he popped out to his office to freshen up and get breakfast, I continued with my breathing and the birth ball. I tried to eat a couple of times but threw up during intense waves. 

Tuesday morning while the doctor was out and Johnny was sleeping it really amped up becoming more intense, closer together and longer some were almost 2 mins long and they were finally 3 in 10 mins. Active labour had begun and I’d made it to 5cm, Johnny and the doctor filled the pool. It turned out to have a little air leak, so every now and then Johnny would fire up the loud electric pump to re inflate the sagging pool. Between contractions!

The doc hanging back while I do my thing

I spent most of the day in and out of the pool, the warm water definitely helped ease the pain of contractions, I’d like to call it rushes or surges but it was pain. I had my affirmations on the walls around the apartment that I focused on and they were helping me through. It slowed down a little and I was having trouble finding a comfortable position, the doctor suggested getting on the ball for a while to keep things moving. Johnny was starting to get nervous that it was taking so long but he stayed calm and really supportive feeding me fresh coconut water, to be honest I began having doubts too, I was exhausted and starting to lose sight of what it was all for. But the doctor was calm and encouraging and he said home births are always longer and slower and this was completely normal. 

It must have been around 10pm when it was time to push, I was back in the pool, but my hips and legs had gone a little numb from being in there so long, I couldn’t get comfortable to push in the water and felt like I needed to get out and walk around and get some feeling back in my hips. 

Push It

I continued pushing while standing up holding around Johnny for support and sort of squatting down as I pushed, the doctor advised me to keep breathing deeply and slowly and when I was ready take a deep inhale, then push. This went on for a few hours, apparently. I was pooping all over the apartment, which Johnny was subtly cleaning up between feeding me honey on a spoon for energy and coconut water. I moved over to the kitchen counter where I held on as I pushed with Johnny softly encouraging, coaching me and helping focus and the doctor telling me 2 more pushes, its almost there. “You’re almost there Kerri, don’t lose your mind. Don’t lose” 

Me and baby a few minutes after birth

After an hour or so I really started to question this 2 more pushes theory. The affirmations around the room were no longer helping I thought to myself what a load of bullshit “its not pain its power” This is pain! Who's idea was that! And I had totally lost sight of what it was all for, I just could not visualise my baby at the end of this. I reached that point where I seriously doubted my ability to birth this baby, I felt it was impossible. But there was no going back now, I had to keep pushing. A few times I felt that natural reflex of my body just heaving and involuntarily pushing down. Eventually his head crowned and was far enough through that we moved back over to the sofa where with his head between my legs the doctor used the little nasal bulb to clear his airways, before one last push and his body slipped right out and the doctor pulled him up straight onto my chest. Then it hit me, what it was all for and I had a new surge of energy and adrenaline or endorphins I couldn’t believe it. He was beautiful, he was a little human. He was ours, I grew him. We could not believe what had just happened. 

Those moments after are already a bit of a blur but my baby laid on my chest in my arms and suckled at my breast immediately, he also pooped all over me. I was relieved that he did this after his birth rather than having any complications with the meconium in the womb, this was one of the potential risks that could have led to hospital transfer, especially with him being past the due date apparently.

After birth

We delayed the cord clamping until his cord had turned white and stopped pulsating to be sure that all of his blood had transferred from the placenta to baby (a 3rd of his blood can be circulating through the placenta). We decided to opt out of the vitamin K shot as it seems that Vitamin K deficiency bleeding is so rare and babies blood is thin to enable those important stem cells to reach the brain and around the body.

Johnny cut the cord. He remembers being surprised that the baby sneezed almost as soon as he was born and how incredible the natural instinct to find the breast is.

As we lay on the sofa, the doctor was helping me with birthing the placenta, it was taking a while and I was already closing up, there were a few more contractions and the doctor advised me I needed to push a little to get it out, he actually had to pull on the cord gently teasing it out. It was huge and difficult, it took at least an hour. It felt really strange and seemed bigger than the baby. I decided not to have it encapsulated or to eat it but it is still in the freezer! I haven't quite got around to planting it, I plan to have a small ceremony to give thanks and give it back to the earth. There are lots of things people do with placentas I'll leave it for you to google that one.

Around 50 hours birthing, counting from the first contractions, it didn’t go exactly as I had dreamed with me reaching down into the pool to lift him out of the water but I consider our story to be very empowering and I’m really happy with our experience and with the incredible support of our doctor. It was really intimate and Johnny, baby and I did it together as a family. 

So this is our story, our son Atlas was born at 1:55am Wednesday morning weighing 8lb 2oz he was absolutely perfect and the most beautiful thing we had ever seen. It took us a week to settle on a name. He is now 2 months old as I write this and it has taken me this long to find our groove and make some time to sit down and write while he naps. The first month was survival mode and soon I'll get some notes down about that! Some stuff they don't tell you... because 4th trimester is messy and scary and glorious and beautiful and sometimes really, really hard! Until then, I'd love to hear your positive, empowering birth stories. Get in touch or comment below. 

Morning walks on beach

Buddhaful Ati 7 weeks