State-Journal.com - Oh, baby!

Photo By State Journal/Hilly Schiffer

During her first hours of life, Jamison Elise Bessinger lets out a few sneezes while her mother, Jessie Bessinger, and her father, Sellus Wilder, are captivated by her charm. Jamison was born at Frankfort Regional Hospital on Oct. 22 at 10:08 a.m.

Photo By State Journal/Hilly Schiffer

After several hours of labor and exhaustion, Jessie Bessinger moans during a contraction as her husband Sellus Wilder massages pressure points to relieve pain on her back while in a birthing pool in the living room of their home.

Photo By State Journal/Hilly Schiffer

Sellus Wilder, 27, and Jessie Bessinger, 27, hold their only hours old baby, Jamison Elise Bessinger, after her first try at breast feeding at Frankfort Regional Hospital. The couple hoped to have Jamison in their South Frankfort home but due to a complication during labor, Jamison was born through a cesarean section at the hospital.

Tears fall from Jessie Bessinger's face during a contraction as her husband, Sellus Wilder, holds her in their hot tub at their home. “You are so strong," Wilder whispered into his wife's ear. "You are doing awesome.”

During a prenatal visit, Katie Isaac, a certified nurse midwife and practitioner, measures Jessie Bessinger's pregnant belly. Bessinger said she wanted to be on record with Women's Care of the Bluegrass in case there was a need to be transported to the hospital during labor instead of having the baby at home.

At a time when moms-to-be schedule cesareans weeks in advance, Jessie Bessinger and her husband, Sellus Wilder, are part of a growing group who opt for the old-fashioned way.

They wanted their baby to be organically grown and delivered at home.

On Oct. 20, news about the popular South Frankfort couple spread.

"Jessie's in early labor," Wilder announced to family and close friends. "We've got regular contractions."
Their midwife, Lydia Todd of Lexington, showed up the next day in camo pants, boots and a bright blue fleece " medical kits in tow, ready to attend the natural birth of another "cute little hippie couple."

Bessinger, 27 - unclothed aside from the pendant around her neck and a blanket around her shoulders - waddled from the living room bed to the deck hot tub to the birthing pool in the study of their Murray Street home.

Wilder, 27, never left his wife's side during what would turn out to be more than 48 hours of labor. He held her, rubbed her back, and sometimes whispered, "You are so strong. You are doing awesome."

He fed her chicken broth and spoonfuls of honey.

"She'd never be doing this in a hospital," Todd said. "She would have had a c-section by now."

Bessinger's long, steady moans filled the house and grew louder with her contractions. Fully dilated, she began to push, but the baby would not budge. By this point, most women would have cried for painkillers, but Bessinger remained resolute. At the peak of her worst contractions, she made her small hands into fists and gently hit the blankets beneath her.

At Todd's urging, Bessinger took a break from pushing - the part of her pregnancy she later remembered as the most difficult. And, ultimately, after two days of laboring at home, Todd decided they needed to transfer to the hospital.

At Frankfort Regional Medical Center, an ultrasound revealed the baby had her elbow in front of her face, blocking easy entry into the world.

After waiting through the night in hopes a natural birth was still possible, Bessinger and Wilder heeded the doctor's advice - he said the baby's heart rate was dropping too low; it was time for a c-section.

Originally scheduled for birth at home, Jamison Elise Bessinger let out her first cries in a hospital on Oct. 22 at 10:08 a.m. - three days after her mother's first contractions.

Prepared to catch his daughter as she came out of the womb, Wilder settled with carrying her from the hospital delivery room to the nursery.

Looking forward to holding Jamison immediately after birth, Bessinger watched her go.

Technically - it's illegal

Non-nurse midwives - they estimate their numbers in Kentucky are less than 20 - say they've seen an increase in mothers wanting to give birth at home.

"More people are like, "Wow, I do want to take back my body and the way I have my baby,'" Todd said.

Todd attends about one birth every two weeks (a major increase, she says), and had a few births in the wings the weekend she spent with Bessinger and Wilder.

Candace Robinson, a non-nurse midwife who has practiced in Kentucky for eight years, says she is turning clients away.

"I'm booked, booked, booked," she says. "Clients are calling, because they know they have to get a spot."

Since the surge is recent, according to Melissa Garvey with the American College of Nurse-Midwives in Washington, D.C., it will take a while to see actual data since birth statistics are at least two years behind.

Right now, the trend is only anecdotally reflected.

"The proof we're seeing here is in homebirth midwives having waiting lists up to a year long that were previously only about three or four months long," Garvey said.

Technically, women like Robinson and Todd practice outside the blessing of the medical community.

Kentucky is one of nine states in which non-nurse midwifery is illegal. Essentially, non-nurse midwives can only practice with a license, and the last license issued by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services was in 1986.

However, it is rare for a non-nurse midwife to be taken to court, according to Nathan Goldman, general counsel for the Kentucky Board of Nursing.

The last midwife to be charged for practicing without a license in Kentucky was Mary Ann Watson, of Bourbon County, during the 1990s, Goldman said.

"We do practice illegally," Todd freely admits.

For high-risk births, you want to see a doctor, but for normal births, it's very safe, non-nurse midwives say.

Their position disregards long-standing warnings by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association.

"Choosing to deliver a baby at home is to place the process of giving birth over the goal of having a healthy baby," according to a 2008 statement by the ACOG.

"Unless a woman is in a hospital, an accredited freestanding birthing center, or a birthing center with in a hospital complex, with physicians ready to intervene quickly if necessary, she puts herself and her baby's health and life at unnecessary risk."

The AMA recently joined the ACOG with a resolution supporting the necessity of birth, warning mothers against the popularity of "much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries."

Reasons to stay home

Bessinger, the sewer department's wet-weather coordinator, and Wilder, an independent filmmaker who won a spot on the City Commission Nov. 4, thought a lot about their decision to birth at home.

The first-time parents read several books and articles and concluded that Bessinger's body was well-equipped for what is now considered a "hospital" event.

"It's a pretty natural process," Wilder said. "It's not like we're inadequate to do it or something. It's not the medical emergency that we make it."

Many women who choose homebirths say they're wary of hospital deliveries because hospital protocol often supercedes what mother's want.

"We had to fight to get what we wanted at some points," Wilder said, giving as an example their request to keep Jamison in Bessinger's hospital room rather than the nursery. "A lot of it was just standard procedure and that was hard, but the doctors were great."

Kiersten Moore, 32, who works at the Lexington Children's Theater, floated and relaxed in a birthing pool set up in her Frankfort home during the final hour before she pushed her son, Liam, into the world.

She remembers the absolute joy she felt after her midwife lifted her son from the water into her arms.

"Here I was pushing and then there was a baby in my arms," she said about her 2006 delivery. "I was like "Oh my gosh! It's a baby!'"

She had worried that with a hospital birth she would quickly be separated from her newborn.

"There was no one to say 'Got to take him back for observation; See you in a couple of hours.' It felt so perfect."

So perfect, in fact, that Moore plans to give birth at home again in December - possibly to a girl, but she's not sure.

"I had only the people there that I knew and felt comfortable with," she said. "I didn't have to worry about modesty. I didn't have to worry about strangers coming in, how people would think about how I was reacting."

Mothers and midwives also say they're alarmed by the growing number of cesareans. In Kentucky, 33.9 percent of live births are now cesarean deliveries, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. That's more than a 50 percent increase in the last 10 years.

Under the right circumstances

Homebirth professionals say that in most cases, choosing a home birth is safe. Eighty percent of all births don't have to occur in hospitals or with doctors present, according to the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in Hyden, Ky.

"The evidence is clear that with appropriate screening out-of-hospital birth is very safe," according to Suzan Ulrich, the school's chair of Midwifery and Women's Health. "Countries like Denmark with the lowest infant mortality rates have a huge percentage of births at home. Canada has started pushing homebirth with midwives also because it is a safe place to give birth and is good economically. Also, there is new evidence about the early moments of life and the biochemicals that are released by baby and mom with unmedicated birth that ensure bonding and attachment."

Ulrich added that it's important to have a trained birth attendant like a certified nurse-midwife to assist the mother.

"Some (non-nurse) midwives are not educated via aformal education programor do not take the national exam there is no way to determine if these midwives are safe," she warned.

It's also important to establish a relationship with the hospital in case the homebirth must be abandoned, Ulrich said. Approximately 12 percent of homebirths end with a transfer to a hospital, according to the most comprehensive study of North American homebirths, completed in 2005.

"I know what I can do, and what needs to be done at a hospital," Todd said sitting outside Bessinger's room at Frankfort Regional. "In this case, we needed to be here."

Though Moore successfully birthed at home, she said she is thankful for the physicians at Frankfort Regional Medical Center and made sure she was preregistered for care there in case of a transfer.

"I thinkJamison's birth is a perfect example of how smoothly a transition to hospital and doctor from home and midwife can be when there is a supportive attitude on both sides. I really appreciate the doctors and hospital staff we have here in Frankfort for that reason; it's probably the best in the region from what I've heard."

Physicians at Frankfort Regional declined to comment for this article.

The perfect ending

After a few hours in the nursery - where Wilder would not leave her side - Jamison was reunited with her mother and the three huddled together on the hospital bed.

"We wanted to do it at home, but the hospital is important, especially in cases like this," Bessinger said.
Looking to Wilder who couldn't take his eyes off his daughter, she added, "I'm really glad we got to do all the labor stuff at the house."

"Even if I knew it would end this way, I would have labored at the house."

Then, with a fit of sneezes, Jamison pulled them out of their conversation about home or hospital and demanded their full attention.

She was here. She was safe. She was beautiful.