Today is Sam’s (my second baby) first birthday! This year has gone so fast and his birth was incredibly transformative so I thought I’d share my incredibl story on here.
I had my first baby in 2017 with no preparation or knowledge and felt so overwhelmed after! When it came to having our second, I knew I wanted it to be different, so I did a hypnobirthing course, hired and doula and we planned for a Christmas home birth.
It begins!
On Friday 16th December 2022, I had just got our daughter, Aria to sleep and felt some wet in my pyjamas about 9pm, quickly realising it could be my waters, so popped a pad in and went to lie down for an hour. I rang my parents (who were going to be childcare) and my husband, Duane, who was at work, so he said he would leave straight away , and also messaged our doula, Leanne. While I was on the phone to Duane, I felt a pop in my tummy which was a weird sensation!
When I stood up, more waters leaked and they were clear, so I wasn’t concerned at all. I didn’t want to ring the midwives yet as I didn’t want to be put on a 24 hour until induction clock so went to bed to get some rest and see what happened, but I was feeling a bit shaky - the excitement was here! At 9:55pm, I got what I thought might have been a first contraction, in my lower back. I started getting more every 10-11 minutes. At 11:15pm I decided to tell the midwives so they could drop off the pool.
"But it makes no sense"
A midwife arrived at 12:30am, and I was having to use hypnobirthing to breathe through contractions. Baby was absolutely fine, as was I. She said their guidelines are to book my induction for 24 hours time (I mean, what’s the need, I was in labour!) but she left, saying she would see me later that night. I couldn’t be bothered with arguing against the induction, because I knew it wouldn’t be needed and all they were doing was wasting an appointment and resources. I had a quick snack and went to bed and tried to rest in between contractions, breathing through them until 3am when felt like I needed Leanne here so Duane called her.
Christmas makes the perfect set up
Duane set up the living room downstairs while I was breathing through contractions with a hot water bottle and watching ‘Jane the Virgin’ in bed. The living room was absolutely beautiful, just what I envisioned it to look like. Candles, fairy lights and the Christmas tree lights twinkling. I popped ‘The Holiday’ on to get oxytocin flowing as it’s my favourite Christmas film! Contractions were about 6 minutes apart.
Leanne arrived at 4am mid surge and she rubbed my lower back and started saying positive affirmations to me straight away. She did some counter pressure on the next contraction which felt so relieving. She asked Duane to run me a bath and while he was upstairs for 10 minutes, I had 3 contractions. It’s like as soon as she was there, my body could totally relax, and surrender to labour. Duane had made the bathroom beautiful with my candles. He called the midwives and him and Leanne took it in turns to set up the pool downstairs and start filling it while the other was up with me.
Time for the midwives to come
6am, two midwives arrived and they were lovely, just observing. The pool felt amazing! 6:15am my surges changed and I started feeling very pushy and couldn’t stop myself from pushing, and my breathing turned in to noises too. Aria woke at 7am and Duane went up to her, but she wanted to come down. It was busy downstairs so she only stayed down for a few minutes and just wanted to watch Aladdin upstairs.
Two other midwives (Trina and Helena) arrived at 7am and really respected my space during handover. My mum came not long after and Aria said bye to me. Once she left, I went fully inwards, barely opening my eyes and not speaking unless I was asking for my water or lipsil.
Something stopping things...
I tried going for a wee which wasn’t happening and a few different positions. By 9am, there was no change with seeing baby’s head and pushing was still involuntary so Trina discussed with me the option of a vaginal exam. She was respectful, explaining her reasoning is because it may be helpful to check baby’s position and what’s stopping him from coming out, but she was happy for me to decline. I used the BRAIN tool and made an informed decision to have a VE. She was brilliant through this, stopped when I asked her to and waited for me to tell her to start again. There was a 2cm cervical lip which was stopping baby from coming and swelling his head a little which was probably making things challenging. I accepted gas and air at this point to help me focus on breathing rather than pushing but this only lasted a minute, I didn’t feel it was helpful and just threw it down. We did some forward leaning inversions, side lying release, walking sideways up the stairs and sitting backwards on the toilet. Leanne suggested I try to get some rest with Duane alone in the bedroom to get some more energy and build oxytocin. I had struggled to eat all through labour and they had been attempting to feed me little bits of Kit Kats and crumpets which I couldn’t manage but regularly had spoonfuls of honey. So many times I was saying I couldn’t do it anymore and needed a caesarean (hello long transition). Leanne kept saying I could do it and reminding me of everything I had done until that point.
I managed to get bits of rest while up there for half an hour, continuing with involuntary pushing. During my entire labour, contractions were in my back, just like my first birth. I seem to have back to back babies, so a lot of the involuntary pushing would have been pushing to turn him rather than pushing to birth him. Trina and Leanne came up to explain their guidelines would be to examine again as it’s two hours since the last one. She explained the guidelines would be if there’s no change, to go to hospital for the drip to bring contractions closer together but it was my choice. I really didn’t want the drip or hospital and I didn’t feel it would be necessary for me. She also offered to empty my bladder with a catheter because I still couldn’t wee which I was very happy to accept. I accepted the VE and she said he was further down and some of the lip had moved so it was positive and she asked Helena if she could check too. I accepted it and as she did, she managed to move the lip completely!
Let's do this!
We all headed downstairs (11am) and I got in the pool again after it being emptied a bit and refilled with hot water - it was a very frosty December morning so we kept turning on our electric fire to keep toasty and warm inside. A little later and I could definitely feel him moving down but no head yet. I got out and we discussed one final VE and Trina asked me to push while doing it and she could feel him moving down and suggested I do a supported squat with Duane to get gravity to help.
They started discussing transfer with Leanne (which I didn’t hear, but was told about it after), but in this position, his head started to emerge! It felt like I was finally getting somewhere! It was burning so much (ring of fire!) and they suggested moving on to all 4s and gradually in to running start position. Every change in movement throughout labour felt agonising and so hard to do, even small movements were so challenging. It felt like it took his head forever to come out, even though it was only 10 minutes. With some coaching from Trina explaining what to do, his head came. Trina said that they’d really like me to get the shoulders out as quick as possible as they were a little worried about shoulder dystocia so be ready to possibly go on my back for the McRoberts manoeuvre, which I understood so I gave a massive push (I wasn’t even having a contraction so I was really working against my body - in hindsight, I realise I was impacted by the thought of what had been said and I should have waited the contraction out) and Trina helped him to pull him (because I wasn’t having that pushing urge) out and he was out! Born at 12:40pm on his due date (only 4% of babies born on this day!)
A scary start (for Duane)
He didn’t breathe straight away, although he had a strong pulse and was awake, but a little floppy. So Trina and Helena started rubbing him with a towel to encourage him. I wasn’t as panicked, I knew he just needed time, but Duane was. I’ve seen videos of babies not take their first breath straight away and just need a little time to come to, so I felt calm. All of this happened right next to me and the cord in tact. Only 30 seconds passed and he was absolutely fine, so we got my bra off quickly and he was passed to me for skin to skin. Both me and Duane were in floods of tears. I felt so proud of myself, absolutely elated. I got my home birth!
Time to bond
I took 10 minutes on the floor then managed to get up on to the sofa. I planned to do physiological third stage but birth, I just wanted to be done so said I would have the injection but wait until the cord stopped pulsating, which was taking longer than 10 minutes so I just waited. I started getting some more pressure 20 minutes later and Trina told me to go with it, and with that, the placenta came out! We got two hours of skin to skin and he latched on to the breast himself and had a mammoth feed! I was checked over and was so surprised that I had absolutely no tears at all!
By 7pm, we were showered and in clean pyjamas with the room clean and tidy (by the midwives and Leanne) watching the Strictly final with a chippy and Prosecco. What more could you want?
Transformed my life
This birth has literally changed my life as I’ve now become a hypnobirthing instructor, which is the best job in the world, alongside my day job of an infant feeding support worker within the NHS.
I want everyone to feel empowered like I did by my birth. And it wasn’t because it was a home birth. It was because I’d invested and prepared for my birth and felt totally in control of my birth. That’s what I want for everyone I teach - calm, confidence and in control.
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