Happy Hearts at Home

Births, losses, and the whole of it written down.

Three babies born, every one of them at home, and two that I did not get to keep, with a good deal of learning in between. Karis and Hezekiah were born in our own house. Liberty was born at a birthing house on our midwife’s land, and we stayed the night after. All three were born on a bed. This is where I put all of it, so that another mother reading at two in the morning can find it.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price [is] far above rubies.” Proverbs 31:10

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Flat sea under a sky banded pink and blue.

8 min read

Karis, at dawn

Seventeen hours of labour, thirteen of them with no pain, and a watermelon eaten in the birthing pool.

Low sun over a pasture at sunrise, with a red barn and bare trees on the horizon.

What you will find here

Not advice, and not a course. Five pieces of writing that began as things I told somebody once and then wrote down properly, because I wanted them to be somewhere other women could reach. Our family is about keeping the peace and holding on to what matters, and this is the part of that I can put into words.

  • Loss — a baby at nine weeks and three days, another one three inches long, and the years after both.
  • Faith — a letter, a dream, and what I was told about being afraid.
  • Birth — three home births: two in our own bedroom, one at a birthing house, and a night that turned.
  • Midwife — how I chose one, and what I would ask you to check.
  • Home — homeschooling, the farm, and the trades we teach by living them.

If you are reading this because you have lost a baby, or because you are frightened about the birth coming: start here, and then know that the fear is not a character flaw and the noise around you is not evidence.