I remember when I called Baby Love for the first time back in the late spring of 2007, at their Fort Myers location. I didn't have health insurance at the time and was trying to get approved for pregnancy medicaid. I had called around that day to different medical centers, trying to find one that would give me a pregnancy test and provide me with the results to give to Medicaid for proof of pregnancy. Everywhere I called, I was turned down because I wasn't seeing a doctor at that time. I was 20 years old and didn't know what to do..was scared out of my wits! My last call was to the Birth Center and they invited me to come by and they would help me.

When I went in, it was a small crowded space, but felt homey and lived in...comfortable, even for the little space. After the test, Sam had asked me if I had a birth plan. I didn't know what she was talking about. When she explained to me what that was, I simply answered, "I have NO idea." She asked if I had heard about water birth, which I had not, and offered for me to come back for a full tour of the center. I came back and got to sit down and find out what it was all about. I have always been uncomfortable at hospitals and seeing doctors, so when she opened up my eyes to water birth at the Birth Center, I was amazed and excited that it was an option out there and had decided right then that it was exactly how I wanted to have my son Wyatt. As time went on, I grew to really appreciate Sam and what she offered for moms to be.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, she was in the process of having her new location in Cape Coral constructed. I was looking forward to it mainly because it was closer to where I lived, but time was cutting close to whether or not it would be ready for when it was time. On November 10, 2007, Wyatt's was the first official birth at the Birth Center in Cape Coral, after they just got their certificate of occupancy. Talk about close call! I was planning on having him in the Garden Room, but the tub wasn't ready. His name is the very first that we signed on the bathroom door of the Angel Room.

I will never forget my first experience there. While I was in labor, I kept thinking, 'Where is Sam?!' expecting her to be at my side for the entire event. Later I realized why and appreciated her distance. She was there when I needed her (resting while I didn't) and that is ALL that mattered.

I have people ask me, "How is it different than a hospital birth? Is it better?" I tell them, first off, I don't know the difference, never had a hospital birth to compare, and I chuckle at myself. What I do know is that I don't have to worry about being hooked up to medical equipment, getting drugged up so I don't even experience the amazing venture of natural birth, or having strangers in and out of the room while I'm at my most vulnerable state. So when I think of it that way, I answer, "yes, it is better" for those who are able to birth naturally (some women may not be able to because of health concerns). Think of it this way, women have been having babies since the existence of man at a time when there were no hospitals. We are born with the ability to reproduce and if we can have our babies the natural way, then we should.

I went back to Baby Love Birth Center for my daughter, Pepper, born January 24, 2011. I felt like a seasoned expert that go-around, lol. I decided to have her in the Angel Room just like I did with Wyatt and so her name is also on that door. With Pepper, I had the pleasure of Ivey's midwifery experience. At first I was upset that Sam couldn't be the one to deliver Pepper as she was who I was used to seeing on my appointments most often and because she delivered Wyatt, but I am glad I had the experience with Ivey because it created a special bond for me. To this day I remember her face as she was telling me to calm down when I started freaking out her calmness was what kept me stable and able to relax as she was entering this world.

Now here I am, 25 weeks along with my third baby (we didn't wait too long for this one lol) and just thinking back to the others and looking forward to the experience to come. We found out we're having a boy this time. I'm sooooo excited to be back at the Birth Center again and hope that I can have him in the Angel Room as well.

The ladies at the Birth Center are awesome! They welcome you as if you are apart of their family. I have recommended Baby Love ever since the beginning and I will continue to spread the word about the experience of water birth and THE place to go to have your baby the natural way :) ? ya'll!!!

Evah is Born!

A lot of friends of mine have been having babies lately. I'm guessing, I'm getting into that age when that tends to happen. One obvious trend I've noticed is they go missing for a while. Right after you see a few photos of the baby on facebook. To be honest, I'm left yearning to hear the full story while respectively allowing the space needed to the expanding family. So as a new father myself, I have tag teamed with my wife and made the time to at least write to you all about our wonderful experience, and to share life in one of its purest forms!

A slight tangent from Pigment occurred during this time which was tough because we just released our first shirt. It so happens, this tangent, worked out for the better as we plan to revisit the BOL design while we continue to develop our other designs. So on to the story…

Late night July 22nd on a Friday my wife, Carolina, began to have very minimal contractions which we kept an eye on as they increased through the night. We were at home having dinner and taking it pretty easy for the most part. A lot of this process we had preplanned having read books, watched videos, attended classes and had talks with our Midwife about what to expect. Early on we had decided to go the natural route. I think the documentary "The Business of Being Born" played a huge part in this decision having watched it long before we had even been married. Finding out we were pregnant sparked an urgency to get ourselves educated on the matter even further and to find a place that would respect our decisions as a couple in what we wanted for our birthing process. We chose to have our baby at the Baby Love Birthing Center over in Cape Coral. Yes about 35 minutes away from our home. Trust me when I say the benefits outweighed the drive and horrible toll bridge, haha.

Caro's contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart and seem to increase in intensity. We gave our midwife a call letting her know the process was starting and she advised us to relax and wait until the contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart. Caro went about her breathing exercises, took a nice warm bath, and we all went to sleep. About 3 or 4 in the morning, July 23rd, Caro woke me up coming out of the bathroom telling me that I should call the midwife again because the contractions were getting stronger and closer. I had my timer in hand keeping track of each contraction as it occurred to get a good estimate on when we should head to Cape Coral. The contractions were varied some at 2 minutes and 30 seconds others upwards of 5 minutes but I gave her a call anyway and she asked,

" Does she feel ready to come in?" I quickly passed the phone over to Caro for her to make the decision.

At 6:00am we were packed and heading off to the Birthing Center.

Caro is breathing heavy as we drove, and with the presence of each contraction, I would slow down or come to a complete stop with some of the bigger ones. There was no traffic in sight and no problems at all until we arrived at the toll booth and we were about 10 cents short of being allowed through. Mind you, we have taken this road about 8 other times already on prenatal visits and I always had the money ready and in hand. Of course this time, I leave my wallet in a bag in the trunk. I politely tell the man,

"Ok, you're going to have to give me a break my wife is in labor." he doesn't twitch at all so I tell him,

"I'm getting out of the car to get the money out of the trunk then."

I hand him the remaining balance and we make it through checkpoint one!

It's another 10 minutes before we get to the birthing center after we passed the bridge. As we arrive the room is already set up for us. The first feeling you get as you enter the room is just the utter peace and calmness of the atmosphere. With only the sound of melodic music, set at a very low volume, filling the ambiance. It's fairly dark with very minimal lighting for the baby to adjust easier. The walls are blue and decorated with Mermaids. There is a huge bed in the middle taking up most of the space, covered with plenty of pillows and tempur pedic like mattress. We have our own bathroom, a couch, wooden floors, and of course the huge bath tub surrounded by blue and white stones pasted to the wall, where Caro will be delivering through water birth. It's appropriate to point out that the birthing center actually has 3 rooms expectant parents can choose from. A garden theme, angel theme, and the one we chose, an ocean theme. I just finished working with dolphins the year before and my wife and I love the beach so it was an easy pick.

As we settle in, which doesn't take very long, our midwife checks Caro for the first time to reveal to us that she is at 3 cm in dilation. She urges us to get rest because we still had a long way to go. Caro continues to have contractions however this time they return to about 5-6 minutes apart. My mother in law Gloria and I stay up with Caro for a while, but utterly exhausted from the night's events we all eventually fall asleep. I wake up around 12:00pm, Caro's mom laid out on the couch and Caro is still resting. Um, no baby. I'm still expecting the baby in a few hours but then after the midwife checks up on Caro she explains to us that she is still in early labor and it would be best if we just went home and waited for things to pick up. We got a little sad wanting to see our baby already, but it was fine with us and we were packing to head back. Caro is still having her contractions throughout this entire time so she is going in and out of pain fairly often. Caro describes the contractions,

"They were like waves of tremendous pressure upon my pelvis, which would be felt from my back to my lower abdominal area. Even though some of them tended to hurt, the pain was almost completely relieved by deeply breathing in and out, and just staying relaxed. I honestly enjoyed seeing all we learned applied now to my body in a really synchronized and beautiful way… Our baby was really making her way out to our arms, at her own pace and time."

We get close enough that it's time to head back again, now Sunday the 24^th around 7:00 pm. This time Caro is measuring at 7cm and looks a lot more serious. She goes from the tub, to the bed, the bathroom then back to the tub. This continues on for a few hours all the while I spend the time comforting her with words of encouragement, affirmation, cold rags to wipe off the sweat, keeping her hydrated and all around servitude. Something really awesome happens while in the tub that I had seen in a video before but I didn't expect would happen to Caro. After a strong push the amniotic sack comes through in the form of a large pink balloon. My exhausted wife asks the midwife how much longer until the baby comes, and she replies with,

"We should expect to see a baby in the next couple hours." We get very excited!

There was a time when I became concerned for my wife. Caro seemed to be running out of strength and any break she could get was abruptly halted by another stream of heavy contractions. At one point the midwife had Caro lay in bed so she could check on her progress. I remembered this being the hardest part for me since there was a lot of blood and Caro just looked utterly exhausted.

Back in the tub Caro continues to breathe out the baby, a technique where you visualize your baby moving down the birthing canal while pushing, not yelling, but breathing deep and slow while staying as relaxed as possible. The warm water also played a role in having a more relaxed birth. We are coming up to that two hour mark and then it happens. Caro reaches down into the water and can feel our baby's hairy head! I know the baby is coming soon so I change into my bathing suit and hop in after setting up the camera. Feeling the pressure of the baby crowning, Carolina begins to push in communion with the surges of contractions and out arrives our baby without any assistance into the water, which we quickly pull her up out of and onto Caro's chest! The baby doesn't cry, eyes wide open, and coughing mucous out the nose and mouth, without that intrusive bulb suction thingy. All the while we are holding her and she is not taken away from us.

Caro describes this last stage,

"When I was breathing out our baby I did not feel any pain at all, but a large amount of pressure. The breathing technique helped a lot. Chris helped me focus every second because I was beyond exhausted. But as I felt our baby moving down I sensed that my strength was renewed in a powerful way to help with the last push. As the head comes out I felt a huge burning sensation, but it's relieved as soon as I'm able to see the head. I was super exited and already talking to our baby while touching the little head. Soon the rest of the body makes its way out gently. I grab our baby from the water and I completely forget how tired I am to joyfully welcome our beautiful blessing."

We become very emotional at the site of such a wonderful, oh wait, we even forgot to check what the baby's sex is. Struggling to move the umbilical cord out of the way we come to the realization that we now are parents to a beautiful baby girl!

We name her Evah. As uncommon as it may sound we decided to hold off on knowing the sex of the baby during the pregnancy only because we wanted it to be that much more of a surprise. So we accepted many gifts in the form of neutral colors. Our baby room became a jungle theme with baby monkeys and we had two names in mind. Nicolas, or Nico, if a boy, and Evah for our girl. We both loved the name Eva and just added an "h" to the end so it wasn't as common. Evah, which is just a variant of "Eva" means, "Breath of Life" or "Giver of Life" in Hebrew.

We are all still in the tub bonding and in awe of Evah as we wait for the umbilical cord to stop pulsing before I get to cut it. Believe it or not it takes about 10 to 20 minutes for it to stop and when it finally does I cut my baby's cord! With two more pushes Caro delivers the placenta and then gets out of the tub to be cared for by the midwife while baby is being checked by the birth assistant. Evah measures in at 20 inches long and weighs 7lbs 4ounces. Which by the way, is a huge relief to us both, even more so Caro than I, since I was born naturally at 11lbs 2 ounces to my mother, hehe.

We rested for about 10 hours after our Evah was born there in the ocean room. When we woke we received guidance and instruction from the birthing assistant and then got ready to head home with our beautiful baby girl.

After one month Evah and Carolina are doing great. It was really hard at the beginning with the sleepless nights and really not knowing what to do in some situations. There was a lot of crying from not just Evah, but Caro and I. Had it not been for the much needed assistance from Leslie, one of the nurses from the Birthing center, driving over to our house to help us on tips with how to take care of Evah, we'd probably be crying a lot more right now. Mommy's recovery has been super fast with no medications pre nor post-partum. Evah is growing up way too fast, every day getting more and more gorgeous.

This entire journey, from learning that Caro was pregnant, to Evah's natural birth, and even continuing till now has left us in amazement. There hasn't been a time quite like this one where we've had to utterly trust in God and his will. That how He created women and the process of child birth is so perfect, spiritually, emotionally and dare I say physically. The way God created women for this very act of life, should be an event experienced with empowerment, and not fear. We are thankful we didn't let fear, other traumatic birth stories, or discouraging comments, define what we wanted for our pregnancy, labor and delivery, and above all, our baby. It's a thing of beauty to be able to share, that it was worth the waiting, the reading and education we had to embrace, to joyfully bring this story and say it's possible and really rewarding to give birth naturally!

We are so grateful for our midwife Ivy for the gentle care and encouraging words throughout my whole pregnancy. We are greatly thankful as well with our midwife Samantha and birth assistant Alexis for helping us throughout our labor and delivery and to the rest of the Baby Love Birth Center staff for aiding us in bringing our baby Evah to our arms.

Carolina and I have been reassured to say now, more than ever, that we are wonderfully and fearfully made by an awesome God. It required us to be still, and at times a little eagerness in anticipation, to understand Him through what He beautifully creates, allowing the birthing process to run its course as it has naturally done for thousands of years.

He was faithful to grant us the desires of our hearts and to Him be the glory.

Written by: Chris

P.S. I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to visit our website and actually reading the story. All the kind words I have received about the writing and photography has really meant a lot to me. We'll have more designs coming out soon so look out for Pigment and I thank everyone for their patience on that as well.