Written on December 22, 2025. Eleven months ago today, I experienced the most transformative day of my life.
The birth of Goldie and Teva wasn't the orgasmic home water birth I had visualized for months. It wasn't the redemptive story I wanted to tell. And while I can't leave the story in 2025, I can release it.
Tuesday Evening
My water broke while eating eggplant parm. Within minutes came a contraction that made me scream — not a "oh, I think that might be a contraction" kind of scream. A full-body wave of intensity that completely stole my breath.
Within 15 minutes, contractions were 3 minutes apart. No warm-up. No early labor. Just 0 to 100.
I labored at home for 6 hours in my birthing tub, in my beautiful bedroom, surrounded by crystals, flowers, my dog, Joel, my mom, and my carefully selected birth team. My doula coached me through each wave.
But my blood pressure kept climbing.
The Pivot
When my midwife said, "Your body is trying to tell us something, and I think we should listen," my heart shattered. And I felt she was right.
So many people had called me crazy for planning a home birth with mono-di twins. They laughed at me.
Instead, at midnight, I found myself in the back of our car with my mom, laboring through black ice and 25-degree temperatures on the coldest night I'd experienced in Austin.
What Came Next
The cascade of interventions I'd worked so hard to avoid came anyway: blood pressure medication, magnesium drip, catheter. After another 5 hours of laboring, the girls were born — one of them unable to breathe on her own, whisked away before I could hold her.
I couldn't see one of my babies until her second day of life.
What I Know Now
My body knew what it needed. My midwife listened. The medical team was extraordinary. And my girls are here — perfect, thriving, hilarious, mine.
The birth I got was not the birth I planned. It was the birth my daughters needed. And somewhere in the reckoning with that — in the grief and the gratitude and the overwhelming love — I found something I didn't expect: peace.