If I say “Granola” you know what that means right?

All Natural.

All Organic.

No Preservatives.

You get it?

Courtney Dawn Kern Wissinger = Granola

It’s not a derogatory term. It’s not meant to be degrading. It’s just fact.

She’s proud of her ways and does not waver.

As she traveled through her early adult years, she was quite the gypsy.  She didn’t have a set plan and she wandered through the country and parts of the world. She liked living the way she did and when she returned home in May 2015 she decided she would settle down.

She met Justin and they were married in August 2016 at the old house. It was a great memory for the old house and then came baby news.

Typical conversations would be talked about.

Is it a boy or a girl?

What theme should we decorate the nursery?

What OB will be delivering the baby?

Courtney – “I would really like to have a home birth.”

I thought silently “Of course you would. Probably outside, sitting under a tree, singing kumbaya while waving burning sage”

Home births are for hippie’s right? Those granola folk that are hairy in places that I don’t want to talk about and smell a little. No way. NO WAY. My grandchild will be born in the sterile hospital, under supervised medical care where all the bells and whistles will go off at any given moment alerting the many people just waiting to tend to my child and my soon to be grandchild.

Courtney and Justin meet with a midwife. Crap. I am losing this battle.

Oh Thank GOD! Insurance will not pay for a home birth with the birthing center they visited. Hospital here were come!

So the grandmother I am, I asked everyone I knew to refer OB’s and of course I passed on the information pronto.

The first OB was chosen. The first visit was completed. Notice I said first.

The second OB was chosen. A few visits were completed. Notice I didn’t say finished.

A conversation was started at dinner one evening very far into Courtney’s pregnancy.

Here’s how it goes.

“I have found a birthing center that will accept our insurance and we want to have the baby here, at the old house. Is that ok?”

We might have looked like this.

or this

But we said Yes.  Scared to death……..but Yes.

The first appointment with the midwife is scheduled. I’m going! I am NOT going to like this woman and no one can make me. She is going to have to answer all my questions and she better get them all right. I’m going to sit in my chair with my legs crossed with that serious expression on my face that she’s going to know I mean business.

Who am I kidding? I really wanted to hug her and ask if she really knew what she was doing because MY BABY IS HAVING A BABY and I don’t have a clue about home births.

She did know what she was talking about and I immediately felt at ease.  You know that moment when things just click and you feel at peace? Yep, that’s what I felt.

The second appointment was scheduled and it would be a home visit. Uh Oh. She would be meeting my parents….and Steve. The super skeptical one. If you think I am over protective of my kids, I’m a super slacker next to Steve.

We all survived the home visit and now it was just wait. Wait for labor to come. Wait for women who were practically strangers to come into our home, spend hours and hours taking care of our daughter and delivering our grandson.

That doesn’t sound weird at all………….yes it does. But we are doing it anyways.

Labor Day comes.

3 women come into our home.

They cared for our child as if they loved her. They were kind and sincere. They were professional and wonderful. We spent almost 24 hours together and we are now family whether they like it or not. Dialis, Karin and Heather from the Loving Arms Birth and Wellness Center will forever be remembered and appreciated as they brought the newest member of our family into the fold. The most precious gift of life.

I am a convert.

I am an advocate of home births.

I lived it. I saw it. I believe it.

The old house is 114 years old. I think back to its younger years and how it has probably welcomed many births.

Now it has welcomed Jack.