Emily Skye
The fitness influencer has a “new appreciation” for her body after she unexpectedly gave birth to her son Izaac at home in June 2020.
“I didn’t know the body could actually do that,” Skye told PEOPLE of how she pushed out her newborn all on her own, without any medication or assistance.
Izaac was due on July 3 but instead made his grand entrance on June 18 — on his big sister Mia’s play mat.
“I knew by my partner’s face the head was coming out, he had gone white,” Skye said of her partner Declan, who was told by the EMT over the phone at the time to check if he could see baby Izzac’s head. “He told the lady on the phone, ‘Yeah, I can see his head. It’s half out!’ Meanwhile, I’m roaring and my daughter Mia is screaming in horror and ended up running off and hiding because she was terrified,” Skye shared.
The next thing Skye remembers is medical personnel rushing into her home, and that Izaac was already “three quarters out.”
“I delivered him on the ground,” Skye said. “I felt like I wanted to be up on my knees, but they needed me to be on my back and I did a lot of breathing to get me through it.”
After arriving at the hospital, Skye and baby Izaac were “checked out” as Skye had lost a lot of blood during labor. Once she was settled, she remembers having an unforgettable moment that she will cherish forever.
“I went into the bathroom for the first time to have my shower and I saw myself in the mirror. I bursted into tears because I was so happy with what my body had done. I was talking to my body, saying: ‘You’re amazing. Thank you so much for doing this, for birthing my son.’ I just had this new appreciation for my body that I’ve never had before.”
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Bekah Martinez
One week after welcoming son Franklin James, the Bachelor alum shared the story of his home birth on her Chatty Broads podcast.
“I was like, ‘I want this to be a joyful experience,’ It was very exhausting and long with Ruth,” she explained, referring to the birth of her first child with boyfriend Grayston Leonard, 16-month-old daughter Ruth Ray De La Luz. “I was like, ‘I want this to be fun,’ ” Martinez added of the “vibe” she was going for this time around. “I want(ed) to be laughing and joking with people in between contractions.”
When she finally started pushing, she remembers it feeling “so right” and “grinning throughout” as she prepared to meet her son for the first time.
“[He] came fully out in one contraction,” Martinez says. “I felt the ring of fire briefly, but not really. It was just fast. It was all one push and his head was out.”
Martinez also used her platform to call out racial disparities in birth statistics, noting, “The infant mortality rate for babies of Black mothers is double the rate of babies born to white mothers. According to the CDC, Black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women’s health. … Where does this end? When will it stop? Black women deserve compassionate care.”
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Iskra Lawrence
The British model delivered her first child with boyfriend Philip Payne at home on April 16. Lawrence shared the happy news on Instagram, calling her baby a “miracle” as she revealed that a midwife had to resuscitate the newborn during the birth.
The new mom wrote, “A.M.P joined team Payne April 16th at 1.05pm here at home. Our first draft pick, but really we are the ones who are so grateful that you picked us to be your parents.”
She continued to open up about the intensive birth, writing, “After 24 hours of active labour and 2.5 hours of transition our midwife saved your life by resuscitation, you truly are our miracle and I will be grateful every single day for you.”
“Your story is just beginning I can’t even imagine the impact you’ll have in this world and the dreams you will create. This has been the best week of my life getting to know you and fall more in love each day,” she added.
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Eva Amurri
One month after welcoming son Mateo Antoni into the world, the blogger and actress opened up on her site Happily Eva After about the baby’s March 13 arrival.
While her ex-husband Kyle Martino — whom she divorced one month before the baby’s arrival — was not present in the room for the birth, he came in right after. “I could hear how excited he was, too, and that made me so happy,” she wrote.
In addition to her doula, Kelsi, her midwives, Martino and her friends, she had one very special supporter on hand: her oldest child, daughter Marlowe.
“My daughter was there right beside me. My ex-husband, and forever co-parent, was downstairs with our son, waiting for the first cries of the newest member of our family,” says the Saved! actress. “As I screamed and bore down to bring Mateo in to the world, I felt as much fire and fury as I always had during the final moments of birth, but so much hope too.”
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Andy Grammer & Aijia
The “Honey I’m Good” singer’s wife opened up on Instagram about welcoming their newest addition, a baby girl named Israel “Izzy” Blue, via home birth on April 3.
The post noted that new mother-of-two had decided on a home birth after previously having a cesarean section with the couple’s now-2½-year-old daughter, Louisiana “Louie” K.
“I thought maybe I wasn’t capable of doing this 2nd birth without an epidural + a lot of the comforts + reassurance of a hospital,” she wrote. “Our culture sometimes tells women that we aren’t able to give birth easily or safely on our own.”
After trying a number of tips for a “successful home birth,” she proudly declared, “that s— worked!”
“It wasn’t a traumatic event at all, it was beautiful. Easily one of the most powerful things I have ever done in my life. I changed the narrative about myself.”
“I say all this to encourage you that if there is something you believe you’re meant to do, but there is some sort of [deep-seated] thing holding you back, DIG IN,” she concluded. “That’s your work. You must comb through it. And no one else can do it for you.”
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Ashley Graham
The model and first-time mom welcomed her first child, a baby boy named Isaac Menelik Giovanni Ervin, on Jan. 18 via a home birth with no medication.
“I have to say, now that I gave birth and I did it naturally and I felt everything, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do,” she said to husband Justin Ervin on her Pretty Big Deal podcast introducing their little one. “There’s nothing that could come my way where I say, ‘Oh, that’s too hard, I can’t handle that.’ I went through laboring for six hours naturally.”
Graham opted to deliver her son at home in a birthing pool because her “anxiety would’ve been through the roof” at a hospital.
“To go straight from the pool to the bed with our son and just hold him, what a bond,” Ervin mused.
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Bode & Morgan Miller
The Olympic medalist skier helped his wife deliver their identical twin sons at home last year on Nov. 8.
“I’m really just over the moon that it went as smoothly as it did and that they were as big as they were,” Morgan told PEOPLE. “They’re super healthy. The delivery was fast and not necessarily easy but no issues, no problems, and it was honestly a dream for me.”
“I’ve done a home birth for all my kids. Honestly, it’s the only thing I know,” explained the professional beach volleyball player, who’s also mom to sons Easton Vaughn Rek, 16 months, and Edward Nash Skan, 4, plus stepmom to Bode’s son Samuel Nathaniel, 6, and daughter Neesyn Dace, 11. (The couple’s daughter Emeline Grier died after a tragic drowning accident at 19 months old last year.)
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James & Kimberly Van Der Beek
The Dancing With the Stars contestant and his wife welcomed their fifth child together, daughter Gwendolyn, in June 2018. Like their previous three children, she was born at home with a doctor and midwife on hand (Olivia, their first child, was born in a hospital).
“The category is: Home-Birth Realness,” the Pose star captioned a candid Instagram post announcing baby Gwendolyn’s arrival. Going through a checklist, Van Der Beek noted a “messy bed,” a “vomit bag (unused,” an “inflatable birthing tub (also unused),” a “happy, healthy baby,” a “happy, healthy mom in her own shower right after giving birth” and last but not least, “placenta in a mixing bowl.”
The couple, who tied the knot in August 2010, are also parents to daughters Emilia, 3, Annabel Leah, 5, and Olivia, 9, as well as son Joshua, 7.
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Lake Bell
The Bless This Mess actress “felt very empowered” by her first home birth, which “was this amazing primal bonding” experience with daughter Nova, 5.
“When my daughter came out, she had the [umbilical] cord wrapped around her neck, and it was very scary. She was on my chest and she wasn’t breathing. The midwife gave her three lifesaving breaths on my chest and my husband was there. She came to life and we saw it,” Bell told costar Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast.
Unfortunately, her second home birth in 2017 had further complications. It also resulted in the umbilical cord getting wrapped around her son Ozgood’s neck, but unlike his older sister, “he was not coming to.”
“Now you’re in really f—ing life and death. Your child is there and the entire room is trying to resuscitate him and they can’t.” Ultimately, he stayed in the NICU for 11 days, Bell shared: “Children’s Hospital Los Angeles saved his life.”
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Kehlani
“This weekend our angel arrived healthy & perfect in every way in our bathroom at home,” the singer wrote in March 2019 after the arrival of daughter Adeya Nomi. “Unmedicated homebirth was the absolute hardest yet most powerful thing i’ve ever done.”
After facing some backlash from followers, she clarified her comments, tweeting:
“All birth is extremely hard and transformative. Homebirth is a medical decision as is hospital birth, all birth is mind blowing & powerful. Using my experience to shame another’s isnt what i want. Power to anyone who brings life forth, it’s a next level journey whichever way.”
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Hilary Duff
Before welcoming her second child, daughter Banks Violet, in 2018, Duff opened up about her decision to have a drug-free home birth following a hospital birth with her first.
“I just started thinking that I wanted a different experience,” she explained. “I’m older now — I love motherhood more than anything. I never thought it could be this way. I never thought I could be so happy and so fulfilled.”
“And I thought to myself that I want to get the full experience of what it is to bring a baby into the world and how incredible our bodies are,” Duff added. “My body gave me this incredible little boy and now I get to have this little girl and I want to experience it to the fullest.”
With three midwives and an “amazing doula” helping her — plus boyfriend Matthew Koma, sister Haylie Duff and her dogs — Duff got her wish, and months later, shared photos of the emotional first meeting between herself and her daughter.
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Emilie de Ravin
Like Duff, the former Lost actress had a medicated hospital birth with her first, daughter Vera, but wanted something different for her second.
Of delivering son Theo “off the side of the bed” in late 2018, de Ravin said, “It felt like I was pushing for so long … Him coming out was, apart from obvious pain, it was a really cool experience,” she recalled. “It was … the main part of why I didn’t want to ever be medicated if I [could] help it.”
“It was so nice to be able to just feel what your body is doing and what it can do and going through it with him,” de Ravin added. “Just being able to have … the physical and emotional connection at the same time. As opposed to just looking in a mirror, like I was with [Vera].”
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Camille Carson
The wife of Midland guitarist Jess Carson opted to have her third baby at home in March 2019 (perhaps in part because of their son’s super-fast arrival in 2017!).
“Camille is the strongest woman I know,” Jess told PEOPLE. “She wanted to do a home birth and she did it 100 percent natural — I’m still just awestruck by her.”
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