Kacey has experienced a wide range of births including a planned C-section for a Breech presentation and three VBACs, 1 medicated and 2 unmedicated.
Kacey’s first pregnancy was uneventful until week 32 when they discovered her baby was in the breech position. The next 7 weeks were spent researching ways at home to encourage a breech baby to flip as well as talking to her husband and doctor to weigh their delivery options. She and her husband finally settled on a planned C-section as the best option for them with the hope that any future births would be vaginal if in a better presentation. Her child was safely born into the world on March 15th, 2012 via C-Section. Everything was smoother than he had imagined. She was able to hold her son in the delivery room while she was closed, but she didn’t get a chance to get sick or attempt to nurse until hours later after she spent some time in post-op recovery. Other than that, everything was very smooth and her recovery, although longer than her vaginal delivery, was pretty straight forward and smooth.
Two years after giving birth to her first child, Kacey became pregnant with her first daughter. She is hoping that she can have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). Although she was hopeful, she and her husband didn’t do much preparation for the birth because they took a birthing course at the hospital when they were pregnant with their son and felt it didn’t prepare them more. than they already know about birth. Kacey was expecting an unmedicated VBAC with her daughter. Her daughter was cephalic at their 32 week ultrasound, so the plan was to move forward with a VBAC. She went into labor 2 days before her due date, but due to the high incidence of Braxton’s Hicks contractions, it wasn’t until active labor that night that she was confident she was in labor and she and her husband headed to the hospital. Her water broke in her husband’s truck on the way to the hospital and the contractions got closer and stronger there. She arrived at the hospital at 3 cm and labored for several hours. The contractions alternated between manageable and unmanageable and after checking again and saying she was 4 cm, she opted for the epidural. Looking back on her labor afterward, she realized that although she knew what to expect about the stages of labor, she wasn’t prepared for how to deal with the pain of contractions. He was too afraid of the pain and intensified the contractions again, instead of resting through them and letting his body use the contraction to help his body expand. After her epidural, she was able to relax and quickly dilated up to 10 in an hour or two. Her daughter was born early in the morning on December 11, 2014. Her recovery was smoother and shorter than her C-section delivery and she loved the fact that she had skin-to-skin time afterwards of childbirth that he did not get. went out with his son.
Kacey became pregnant with surprise baby #3 (a girl!) when her son was just over a year old. After the shock wore off, she saw this birth as an opportunity to redeem her attempt at an unmedicated birth and overcome the fear she experienced during her last birth. She and her husband became more serious about preparing for this birth and decided that the only way to successfully have an unmedicated birth was to bring their faith in God into every aspect of their lives, including the delivery room. . They took a faith-based birthing course through First Birth Ministries and hired a Sister-in-Christ, Shelley Williams (The Salty Doula), as their doula. Not only did they learn more about how God perfectly created the female body to bear babies, but they saw how even in pain, pain has a purpose and because of this perfect design there is nothing to fear. Kacey went into labor at about 39 weeks pregnant, and again was in early labor most of the day before realizing it was actually going into labor. On the night of January 10th, 2017, her in-laws came over to help take care of her older two children (as contractions intensified), and her water broke while preparing lunches for the next day in the kitchen. She knew she wanted to work at home as much as possible, but after her husband came home from work she was convinced to head to the hospital because the contractions were intensifying so quickly. The contractions quickly increased in duration and intensity on the way to the hospital and she was confident she was far along when she arrived at the hospital. After adjusting and checking for dilation, she found out she was at 3-4cm and was discouraged based on the intensity level of the contractions. She began to doubt her ability to have the unmedicated birth she wanted. Her husband turned on her worship music playlist and read Bible verses aloud to her from their birth between contractions. With her support and the constant presence of their doula, she was able to relax the contractions and within 30-45 minutes she felt her baby move down the birth canal. Her nurse checked her and realized she was 10 cm. Her doctor was just in the room and set everything up just in time for her baby to be born after a few contractions. She was able to prolong the skin to skin time and her daughter caught on to nursing right away. It was a change from her last birth, and even though it was busy in parts because of how quickly everything was progressing, she was very grateful that she had the unmedicated birth she had always wanted.
Kacey’s last pregnancy came in 2020 after the COVID lockdowns allowed her and her husband to think and determine that perhaps their family was incomplete. After conceiving her last child, she knew what it was like to have a redemptive birth without the fear of childbirth and she knew that this time she wanted the same. Knowing that it would be her last birth, she hoped and prayed that this birth would be a little slower than her fast and furious birth with her daughter so that she could truly soak in the whole experience. After a rough first half of her pregnancy with illness, the second half of her pregnancy went well. On the morning of March 5, 2021, she woke up early with what felt like Braxton Hicks contractions and the urge to use the bathroom. She fell asleep again, and when she woke up in the morning, she felt more continuous Braxton Hicks contractions. She reached out to her doula and went for a walk, drank raspberry leaf tea, and while her daughter took an afternoon nap, she did the Miles Circuit (at her doula’s suggestion because she was having back pain with contractions). On the third round of the circuit, while sitting on top of a birthing ball, she had a very strong contraction and felt her water begin to break. She called her husband at home, informed her doula of the situation and jumped in the shower. By the time her mother arrived to check on their other children, the contractions were every 5 minutes and lasting about a minute. This time they went straight to the hospital because of Kacey’s rapid labor and the fact that this time she tested positive for Strep B and wanted to give as much time as possible in the hospital for IV antibiotics. After settling in at the hospital and letting the nurses know they wouldn’t need an epidural, Kacey and her husband worked together until their doula arrived an hour or two later. The labor was slower this time (just as she had prayed for!), and after alternating between riding the wave of contractions while standing and holding her husband, squatting at the foot of the bed, and leaning against the bed , he felt. the familiar urge to push after a few hours. She lay in bed and continued laboring (she hates laboring on her back!) until her doctor was ready and her baby was about to be born. She was born after several contractions, and she still remembers every moment. It was truly a dream birth and an answer to prayer. She had some retained placenta after birth that required her doctor to manually extract, but other than that, it was a smooth recovery.
Kacey Ratcliff Bio
Kacey is a mother of 4, ages 2-11 years old. She and her husband, Reagan, have been married for 14 years and raised their family together in their hometown south of Houston. Kacey is a stay at home mom while her husband owns his own Optometry business (Twenty20 Vision Center).
Resources
Baby Poem
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