Share Your Birth Stories: Iowa City Birth Summit This Weekend

Later this spring, my wife and I will be celebrating the 11th anniversary of having our first child. He'll call it a birthday.

While kids get all the glory of a birthday, many of us parents have powerful memories of birth. I started thinking about the two fairly unique birth stories for my children after speaking with Kristin Bergman, an Iowa City doula, who is the organizer for the sixth annual this weekend.

The focus of the summit is healthy birthing, pregnancy and early parenting, with an emphasis on natural practices, midwives and doulas. The free event is at the from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 4. Check out and a full schedule of speakers and sessions.

My wife and I, in our early 20s at the time and much to the consternation of some around us, chose a home birth shortly after learning she was pregnant.

The practice didn't, and doesn't, necessarily have the blessing of modern medicine. It falls into a legal gray area, and in Iowa attending midwives can find themselves in serious hot water if they are caught. Some are working to change the law.

We felt a home birth was the safest and most natural setting for our child to enter the world, and as it turns out all went smoothly.

I remember being equally quizzed during our regular check ups at our midwife's old home in Kalona, and how she assisted me in catching the baby when I was utterly shell shocked. 

Pregnant again two years later, we wanted a water birth. We set up a special tub in our bedroom. I remember exiting a journalism class taught by the now-late John Bennett to find my wife waiting, in the early stages of labor. We settled in back at our apartment, surrounded by family and my son, as labor progressed. It is a perfect memory.

Maybe it was because we were in our early 20s, we went with our instincts. We believed it was, and it turned out to be, the right choice for us. As it turns out many others, too. A January Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report states that home births increased 29 percent from 2004 to 2009; although, the 29,650 home births in 2009 represent less than 1 percent of all births.

The few moments surrounding child birth are packed with a lifetime of memories. In light of this weekend, please use the comments section below to share your own birth stories, whether a home birth, a hospital birth or some other setting.