Orthodox Home Birth on "A Baby Story"

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What a fantastic episode of “A Baby Story,” featuring the home birth of an Orthodox mom in New York City. WOW! I certainly enjoyed watching this infinitely more than I enjoyed going through it myself 3 weeks ago! What a wonderful family, definite candidates for world’s nicest family. And what a tremendous kiddush Hashem. Mazal tov!
(I’m sending this in the Tisha b’Av newsletter, since Tisha b’Av is the anniversary of the beginning of the birth pangs of this long and excruciating exile. Like the Eisenbergs, may the Jewish people soon finally reach our own joyous birth/redemption as well!)

Meet the Eisenberg Family

Early Labor

Noam Elimelech’s Birth (Get your tissues ready)
(The Eisenbergs, Three Months after)

11 comments

  1. Rishe Deitsch

    Pass the tissues… I always cry at births… this was such a beautiful one!

  2. That’s my doula! The excellent Julie Rosen of Teaneck, NJ. Can’t wait to watch.

  3. Mirele Rosenberger

    Thank you for sharing such an intimate part of your lives with us. It’s moving and inspiring to witness the love and cooperation between your family members that enables you to go through whatever challenges the Creator wants you to deal with.

  4. As a homebirther myself, with two sweet little children, I can relate to the feeling of holiness when that baby is pushed out and the new soul is ‘entrusted to the care of our family’. My husband was a huge support- although from the other room since he can’t watch once there is a bloody show according to Jewish law- but he pounded out the words of Psalms from the hallway, and this soothed me more than anything. Our non-Jewish midwife was moved and impressed from the beauty of our deep connection during those moments. This video could’ve been my own birth, I recognize the moans, the “I don’t remember it being this bad” :), and finally the SHEER joy and relief. Such satisfaction. Thank you for sharing your experience with all of us.

  5. Annonymous

    I feel confused- I am an orthodox homebirther myself and as much as I love watching births something struck me as very wrong in this one. In a family which understands our values of tzinut and passing on our mesorah, I felt like we have breached the boundries of what is appropriate to share. I am surprised you felt this was a kiddush Hashem. I feel so badly for sounding judgemental and I wish the family all the success in the world, but this is really not “our way”. Hatzlacha.

    • Dear Anonymous,
      I am the dad from the video. Please don’t assume I share your values regarding tzniyut. Your opinion is yours however, maybe if you really felt bad for being judgmental you should have listened to your yetzer HaTov and not written a public manner. Also please be careful when you use terms like “our way.” You can choose what you want to share and that is your right but to judge others, my friend, “That is not our way.”

      • by allowing it to be in the public forum surely you are opening this matter up for public comments.

        • Chavelamomela

          Sure, but the questions are always much better received when they’re made in a manner that is friendly, not accusatory. As a wrote in my comment below, some of the questions posed here about our halachic observance imply that there is one halachic standard that applies to everyone in all situations, which we know is not the case. We followed the halacha completely.

  6. what about the laws of Nida?

  7. Chavelamomela

    Hi, this is the mom from the video. I see my husband posted previously in response to Anonymous’s comment, as she made pointed accusations based upon a lot of assumptions:

    1. You assume that everything that was shown in the video is the accurate sequence of how the actual labor took place (as with every television show, there is a lot of editing – those interviews with the midwife and doula took place after labor had already ended). Therefore, you assume that my husband and I were violating halacha when that is not the case.

    2. You assume that the way your Rav paskens halacha is the way the halacha was taught to us by our Rabbonim. This is a huge mistake. Please don’t try to portray Halacha as one-dimensional. As we know, the halachic process means that different rabbonim and different people will get different answers to the same questions, and they are all following halacha correctly, so it is wrong to assume that people behaved inappropriately.

    If you have any further questions about our birth experience, I am happy to answer them, but please don’t assume something just because an anonymous poster on the internet made a lot of (wrong) assumptions.

    Thank you for sharing in our experience.

    • I am only responding because of the disrespectful response from the father to a comment that was made in a very respecful way. I realize that the sequence may be out of order since that is what you said. However, the way that it was shown the baby was crowning. At that time your husbands wa holding your hand (around the doula – which in its own right just feels wrong). At that point in labor one is considered Nidda by all orthodox poskim. If this is the case I feel that it was your responsibility to ensure that the producers madit clear that this was not the case. I worry that this will be maaris ayin for others who may see this and think that its okay to touch at that point in labor. Though birth is beautiful I personally do not feel this is a kiddush Hashem.

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