My Home Birth Story : The Birth That Healed Me

Straight after birth I was on the sofa, snuggled up with my new baby, learning how to breastfeed. Pure bliss!!!

I've written this story down twice before. Once a couple of days after the birth and a second time a few months later as a blog on my old personal profile. I wanted to add some blogs to my BRAND NEW website and I thought where better to start than this story. Although I haven't revisited my original blog post in over 5 years, it's still a story I find myself retelling almost 6 years later. Because it was that transformative!!! I had considered rewording or even retelling the event as I remember it now, but I feel that would take away from the emotions and feelings that were coming up at the time, so for the most part I've left it exactly as I wrote it back in February 2021. Just with the odd tweak here and there.

So I’ve already written up my birth story for the Home Birth Support Group I’m a member of on Facebook but I thought I would write up my experience as a blog with some added extras for anyone to browse should they be interested!!! I want people to see that home birth is not risky, horrific or scary and whilst it might not be a feasible option for some, for others it might be the best decision they’ve ever made.

Literally the only photo I've ever taken of myself whilst pregnant, which makes me sad because I wish I had more, but I've always been so self conscious of my body.

Background

I’m not going to go through each of my previous pregnancy and birth experiences because I’d be here all year but I just wanted to explain the reasons behind my desire for a home birth and the struggle I have been through to achieve this.

I’ve always wanted a home birth, from the moment I found out I was pregnant with Oliver in 2015, because my outlook was “I’ve never needed to go to hospital for anything before, why start now?”. Anyway, I was told that this wasn’t an option for first pregnancies (COMPLETE LIE from the midwife) but due to a condition I developed during pregnancy (ICP) this meant going into hospital for induction of labour at 38 weeks. Cut a long story short, a story for another time, things didn’t go too smoothly and Oliver was born by Cesarean section. This has gone on to impact ALL of my subsequent births but perhaps more so my last. So, because of my previous cesarean, my consultant at the hospital tried to scare the absolute living hell out of me and try to coerce me into coming into hospital to give birth on the labour ward. I had done PLENTY of my own research and I was happy to accept that there was a minimal risk of my scar rupturing during birth and that my home, especially in these crazy COVID times, was the best and safest place for me to give birth. The consultant took this as sign that she needed to ramp up the coercion tactics and she tried to throw every single curveball my way as to why birthing at home is such a terrible idea. “Your BMI is high. Your scar will rupture. You could die. Baby could die. You might develop ICP again. Your baby is measuring big”. I’m happy to say I wasn’t defeated by this constant tirade of doom, however, it really gets my goat that this could potentially really frighten other mothers into submission to ‘be a good little girl and do exactly as I say’ MASSIVE EYE ROLL. Anyway, I finally managed to get her to back off and I had the full support of my community midwife and head of midwifery and it was full steam ahead. Now it was just a waiting game…

The actual birth

I was convinced baby would come early as I was getting quite a few tightenings from 36/37 weeks. I had mixed feelings about the impending arrival, as on the one hand I was quite looking forward to her coming earlier and getting settled as a family before Christmas, but on the other I was terrified as I really didn’t feel prepared at all. We were planning a home water birth and we hadn’t done a trial run or cleared any space or anything. I went out on the morning of 23rd December to do some Christmas shopping and bumped into my dad and said I had a feeling they would be getting a phone call that night to come and collect my other children (I was not wrong). I returned home and carried on about the day as usual, John gave me a lovely massage in the evening and we put the kids to bed. We were sat watching Christmas films together (The Holiday) and making each other laugh being a bit stupid and I felt the cramps starting to pick up a notch and become more regular. I started using my Freya App at 9pm to time the length and frequency of the contractions but I wasn’t convinced whether this was the real deal or not because I’ve never gone into spontaneous labour before, I’ve had 3 inductions!!! John had just started eating his tea (I wasn’t eating because I just didn’t feel like it) when I said to him that I thought it might be time to start blowing up the pool, great timing I know. I thought it would be a major faff as we’d not practiced blowing it up but we used the hot tub pump and it took like 2 seconds. Elliott was still awake and was starting to get excited and wanted to play around in the empty birth pool. It was at this point, after texting my mum, that I contacted the hospital to ask for them to send out a midwife. This was around 10pm. The midwife who answered had said that I would need to come into triage…HERE WE GO!!! I thought…

I had heard peoples previous experiences of the hospitals refusing to send out a midwife so that the mother would feel she had no choice other than to go to hospital to give birth but I wasn’t going to give in. I started to get a bit shirty on the phone asking why she was telling me to go to triage, expecting I’d have to put up a fight. It was that moment that she realised that she’d got confused and thought I was birthing at the birth centre and she confirmed that someone was now on their way to me. The birth pool had turned into a disaster. It was blown up but we couldn’t get the tap adaptors to work on our taps so we couldn’t fill it with water. John was becoming more and more stressed trying to do it so I just asked him to leave it as I needed him to keep calm so I would too. I phoned my mum and dad and they came and collected the kids as Elliott was wide awake and Scarlett had kept waking up crying . The kids were picked up at 11pm and the midwife arrived at the same time.

The midwife, Siobhan, was lovely. She read my birth plan thoroughly and really cared about respecting all my wishes. She offered to examine me when she arrived and I said I’d like to wait for a while. I was stood up in just a t-shirt and bikini bottoms swaying to my birth playlist. She had informed me that the second midwife was on her way and she would be bringing the gas and air with her as she needed to collect it from the hospital. However, contractions were really starting to ramp up after 20/30 mins of her arriving and we were still waiting for the second midwife to arrive. I was starting to struggle with talking through each contraction and I felt the best place was to get onto the couch and lean over the arm on my knees. The midwife was so calm and reassuring and asked me if I’d like to be examined to see where I was at because she could see that things were getting more intense. I said I didn’t want an examination because I think I just knew that my body was almost ready. John started asking me questions during contractions like “Shall I take your glasses off?” and “What do you want me to do with this birth pool?” I shouted at him to “SHUT UP JOHN!!!” and then when it has eased off I returned to my normal self and said it would be a good idea to move it into the kitchen. I was starting to struggle coping with contractions, they were really intense and I felt like I’d really like some gas and air but I knew that I was very close to the end and the second midwife still wasn’t here, she had phoned to say that nobody in the hospital could find the gas and air canisters she was supposed to be taking. No matter what position I got in on the sofa it didn’t feel right and I decided I needed something more sturdy so I just shot up bolt upright and went on all fours on the shower curtain on the floor. John was kneeling in front of me and was about to take some photos of me and I just felt a sudden wave of fear wash over me. In my head I thought “SHIT. This is it. The baby is coming out and I’m going to have to do it without pain relief…brace yourself”.

Here she is, in all her glory, my beautiful Nova entered the world at 23:55 on 23rd December.

I started mooing and making some really primal noises and I shouted out the midwife “I THINK I NEED TO PUSH!!!” She was a little bit shocked as it was only 50 minutes after she had arrived and she had only just finished her coffee and was now sat behind me on the shower curtain. I pushed. POP went my waters and I let out an almighty roar. “Yep, you’re right. Baby’s coming”. The midwife asked if it was ok to try and take my bikini bottoms off so she could see what was happening and she shouted John to come and watch the baby being born. The midwife and John were struggling to get my bottoms off because I couldn’t physically lift my knee up and then they realised that they untied at the side. I gave an almighty push and her head was out. For some reason I started panicking to myself thinking that it was taking ages and that the baby was going to slip back up or get stuck and I’d have to transfer to hospital so I made myself push the rest of her out and out she came. I was in complete shock. I couldn’t believe it had happened so quickly.The midwife was trying to pass me the baby through my legs as I’d requested in my birth plan but I was a bit too shocked to hold her for long. She asked if we had seen the sex of the baby and I was like “Is it a little boy?” because I’d just seen the cord in between her legs and she said to have another look and we saw that we’d had a baby girl. John was in tears. Radio Gaga by Queen was playing as I’d forgot to change my birth playlist to the more relaxing music!!! She was born at 23:55. The second midwife arrived bang on midnight with the gas and air and John answered the door and said “It’s a girl!!” She was gutted that she’d missed the birth. It was just amazing. Baby went to daddy for a while so that I could just try and relax. The midwives checked me over whilst I delivered the placenta, which was fine after a couple of coughs, and I just had a small graze. The midwives were keen to get the baby back to me as I’d put that I wanted at least an hour of skin to skin after she was born so I got onto the sofa and I had baby on my chest with a towel on top of us and that’s where we stayed until they left. Grace, the second midwife helped me to get started with breastfeeding her which was so lovely as I had written in my plan that I’d like some support with this. She was lovely.

It was just the best birth experience I could have wished for. So calm, so relaxed. Two midwives that were really friendly and respectful of all of our wishes. We were having such a laugh with each other after the baby was born and it was just a lovely atmosphere. The midwives left at around 2am although they said they were happy to stay if we needed them. John stayed up for about 10 minutes and made me some toast and a drink and then said he was going to bed because he was tired. HA (I’ve just had a baby mate). And I stayed up until about 11am just cuddling my gorgeous little girly on the sofa. It was just perfect. I couldn’t have slept if I wanted to I just felt so elated. And so this was our story. I know that not all births go to plan and home birth might not be for everyone…but for me, it’s the best place to be. It’s not ‘being brave’. It’s not horrifically messy. It’s not risky or terrifying. It’s beautiful. It’s calm. For me it was perfect.