At my first midwife appointment the first question I was asked was where would you like to give birth… it threw me. There were options? My response was ‘well its my first baby so hospital’.
I didn’t think much more of it but as my pregnancy went on I started to research home birth, and it sounded like a good option. I really dislike hospitals & avoid medical intervention where possible. I was determined that i would have a natural birth and thought it would be more achieveable at home. Of course no one else seemed to agree! My husband was concerned for my saftey & my Mum even more so. Luckily as we attended midwife appointments my husband started to see the benefits & we made the decision to go for it.
I’m not going to lie here, I did worry, course I did. Baby was back to back which added to my worry. But the minute I went into labor & the midwife arrived at our house all worry went out the window – they made me feel safe.
On 22nd December I started to have short infrequent contractions & I wasn’t really sure if this was it. But at 11pm that night they got real. I couldn’t sleep so I had a bath & tried to relax. Because I had never been in labor before I had no idea what to expect so at around 2am I was panicking. I picked up the phone to the midwife. She didn’t hesitate, she was coming out to complete an assessment. She arrived less than an hour later. It became apparent that I was in early labour but Chris said she would stay with me because she felt I needed the support. At this point I thought there was no way I could get through the rest of the labor without pain relief.
I chose not to get examined until the next midwifes came on shift at 8am & we delayed it until around 10am at which point I was 4cm. Established labor here I come! I used my Tens machine to help me through the contractions. I was able to walk around the house, my husband could make me food & drink as I wanted, we chatted, we watched a film. At one point I wanted quiet time so I went up to my bedroom and relaxed alone.
At 2.30pm I was examined again & I couldn’t believe it when she said I was 7cm dilated. But surely i would be in huge amounts of pain if I was that far along? My husband even took a picture of me half naked after being examined with a huge smile on my face. He couldn’t believe that I was smiling!
I got into the pool which I had hired and it was magical. All the pressure was taken away & i just floated there. The contractions were ramping up as the next midwifes came on shift at 5pm. Things were starting to get real but I felt that I could do it. I kept telling myself I had gas & air there if I needed it. The midwifes stuck to my birth plan not even mentioning pain relief. I was really tired by this point but the 2 midwives & my husband kept me going.
I was pushing for quite some time (1hr 25mins to be exact) because my son was still in his sac. This was broken by the midwifes. At 8.10pm my little boy was born into the pool and at that moment in time I was Superwoman. I had achieved my natural birth. I has a beautiful son and all in the privacy of my own home.