An Empowering Home Birth Experience
Hi Julie,
Annie here. I gave birth to my beautiful baby Evie on Monday morning, and here’s my birth story.
Woke up Monday morning around 4.30am, with a bit of backache and a bit damp in the downstairs area. Went to the toilet and got back into bed none the wiser. Woke up about an hour later with more back ache, feeling the need to go to the toilet again. I got up and went to the bathroom, knowing that something didn’t feel quite right, mild aches in my back. Karl went to work as I didn’t quite catch him in time.
I went back into the bedroom ready to get into bed and then felt a sudden urge to throw up – that to me signalled the start, as I had been quite sick in my previous labour. With my first lot of sickness, my waters broke and that was it – straight into regular contractions (every 3-4 minutes lasting 45 seconds or so). I phoned Karl to come home, phoned my mum to pick my daughter Paige up, and collect the dog. Then phoned the midwives, having a planned home birth and knowing babies often come quicker the second time I asked them to come straight away.
40 minutes later 2 midwives turned up, I was well into labour by this point. Karl was prepping the birth pool, midwives did all their usual checks, I had been on all fours over the sofa doing an interpretation of bee breath and ocean breath. They asked me to lay on my back while they checked my tummy etc, I obliged briefly but was so uncomfortable I was very eager to get back up and they were accommodating.
My blood pressure was slightly raised but the midwife was eager to not transfer me to hospital straight away and decided to keep a check on it. Within 20 minutes it had stabilised and I was getting a lot of pressure. I was then able to get into the pool and what an amazing feeling it was – the relief was incredible. I then started stage 2 fairly quickly: no forced pushing, just following my body and it knew exactly what to do. The baby quickly descended down the birth canal and within 50 minutes of entering the pool, she was born into the arms of her daddy. I used feather breath when I could feel her head crowning and had no tears or stitches. Karl then got into the pool with us for some skin to skin.
I had a truly amazing experience, my birth couldn’t have gone any better, the midwives were incredible and listened to my wishes (which I also put in my birth plan), I followed my body the whole time and let my breathing and Mother Nature take control. I didn’t need any pain relief and there was no uncomfortable pushing for 2 hours like I had with Paige…a lovely physiological third stage and on the whole, a truly empowering experience.
Please listen to your bodies Ladies. You know best. If you don’t feel ready to push then don’t. You will know when you need to. Just because someone tells you that you’re 10cm dilated doesn’t mean you are ready. I had no VE’s at all and my baby was born perfectly fine. Good luck to you all. X