Here’s another beautiful story of why Samaritan Ministries rocks my socks.

A few weeks ago I shared the home birth story of our third daughter, but today I’m going to explain the details of how 100% of our costs were shared by members of Samaritan Ministries.

I’ll also go into detail about what it’s like to be a member, starting with the monthly SHARE (which is comparable to a “premium” in insurance terminology,) to submitting a NEED (similar to a “claim”,) and what it’s like to go through the maternity process with Samaritan Ministries.

Whether I ever put much thought into it or not, I always knew I would try to have natural, unmedicated births. Growing up my mom talked openly and simply about her three natural births as my two sisters and I would probe her about what it was like. She would say something sweepingly underwhelming like:

“Sure, it hurts a lot, but then it’s over and you have a beautiful baby and you forget about the pain!”

So this is the mentality that was passed down to me when it came to pain, birth, and babies and I am incredibly grateful to my mom for raising me to see the big picture and to not fear a natural process.

When I became pregnant with my first daughter in 2009 (while I had cancer but that’s another story you should read about,) I began my search for a doctor who would be encouraging to my wishes to have an unmedicated birth with very little interventions. I didn’t know anything about midwives or midwifery at the time, but through some chance meetings with like-minded new friends, we actually found a midwife practice who would deliver our baby in a hospital setting.

My husband and I researched natural childbirth in a similar fashion to how we approached treating my cancer naturally: with serious intent. We learned the statistics of the cesarean section rates in our area. Most of our local Atlanta hospitals had c-section rates over 30% so we made sure to stay clear of those hospitals and learned that the hospital my midwife was affiliated with was friendlier towards mother-led birth decisions and birth plans.

Similarly to how we viewed the ability of the body to combat cancer when it is brought back to its optimal condition and health through nutrition, detox, and emotional healing, we believed that leaving the laboring mother’s body to move naturally and labor without intervention was the way we were designed to have children and best for mother and baby as long as there weren’t emergency complications.

Our daughter is almost 6 weeks old and I have gotten what seems about 6 minutes of sleep since she was born. <smiles.> I have some hardcore Mommy Brain going on which of course is why (along with having two other children,) I haven’t blogged about my home birth experience yet. And oh yah, it was either write this blog post or shower, so let’s just say I’m thankful for my wonderful coconut oil deodorant.

I know all of the moms reading this will know where I’m coming from. 🙂

I’m excited to share how wonderful our home birth was and contrast it a bit with my previous two natural hospital births. I will also be blogging soon about our experience with our health insurance alternative, Samaritan Ministries and how they financially covered our home birth, maternal care, and newborn care 100%! (Update: Read that post HERE.)