(Before sharing our birth story I wanted to say that we were opting for a home birth supported by two brilliant independent midwives, who we had got to know a little during the antenatal care and who were able to support us in a non-interventional medicalised approach to the birth. Working with independent midwives – alongside the hypnobirthing, doing yoga and generally reading up on things – was key in our feeling very safe and supported in the decision to have a home birth. Although there’s a real cost associated with having an independent midwife I couldn’t recommend it more highly. And the postnatal care has been a MASSIVE support too.)

The labour for our baby Evie took us a little by surprise. Although everything kicked off a day after the due date, we were so sure the baby would come a week or so later, partly as we still had the decorators finishing off works in our house so the baby HAD to be late! Anyhow…

I woke up at 830am on Sunday 28 july and felt something like a slight ‘popping’ sensation in my stomach and just had a hunch that perhaps my waters might be breaking. I stood up and it turned out – after a call to the midwife to check! – that my waters were leaking out slowly over a couple of hours (a hind water leak) and the midwife was expecting things to kick off probably that evening.

We had been doing decoration works on our house and the painters were still at work on Sunday morning but thankfully left the site at Sunday lunchtime, just as my early contractions were gearing up. Talk about a close shave! Our house was still a bit of a mess, baby gear and stuff not yet in place and we hadnt even opened the box with the birthing pool so we had a friend round to help sort things out and set up the birthing pool downstairs.

By about 3pm and having taken trips to the laundromat and supermarket to get last minute supplies, I could tell that the contractions were starting to get a bit stronger and with some sort of regularity. And that’s about the last record I have of any sense of time – I started to get more out of it and was just concentrating on the contractions and ‘focusing inwards’.

We were in a bit of a dither about whether to contact our midwife – not wanting to bother her too early if we still had hours and hours to go but at the same time feeling like we needed the support – and having hopped in the bath and started timing the contractions it was clear that they were coming like clockwork every 3mins45secs and that it would probably be a good idea to get our midwife over.

I then moved into the birthing pool fairly quickly and before the midwife arrived. It felt very calming – not just in terms of the warm water, but also in how it felt like a lovely light, private and calm area in the house for me to be in.

The midwife arrived at about 5pm and (retrospectively told me) I was in established labour half an hour after she got there. As we were working with an independent midwife, there was no plan to do a vaginal examination so – other than regular monitoring of the baby’s heartbeat – I was left to get on with my labour. Given that by this point the ‘sensation’ was really pretty intense and requiring a lot of effort to get through the contractions I was really keen to know ‘how much longer’ but of course the midwife wasn’t able to tell me. And although that felt unsettling and a little disheartening not to know how long I was going to be required to cope with these contractions, it was definately better than the examination approach which I know would have interrupted me out of my state of mind and felt intrusive. And I didn’t want to be getting out of the pool either!

The contractions were heating up and at times felt really shockingly strong. Pain relief wasn’t something that I had as an option in my mind though I did see the gas and air canisters across the room. If things had got just 5% harder though I would have been inhaling the gas and air like it was going out of fashion!

I got out of the pool briefly at one point and struggled through several contractions on land – where i was gripping the midwifes hand for dear life – before then opting to be back in the lovely environment of the pool.

My husband tells me that the hypnobirthing CDs were playing in the background but I don’t remember hearing them. I just remember in fact not wanting music or noise but just silence as it felt more peaceful.  I feel that the hypnobirthing affirmations were most useful in programming my mind in the run up to the birth rather than during the event itself when I think mentally I was needing to focus everything on overcoming the sensation of the contractions and distractions were too much to bear. It was helpful also in the sense that my husband Ru and the midwives were able to remind me to focus on deep and slow breathing, and I had a frame of reference in order to (try) to do this. The other weird thing I remember was – as part of this sensation of timelessness – drifting asleep or in and out of awareness between the contractions.

Sometimes it did all feel to difficult, the theory went out the window and I just needed to moan and cry through each sensation but brilliantly taking each contraction at a time we got to the point where I felt the urge to push, at about 845pm.

I was still ‘out of it’ at this point but I remember being thrilled that I could tell we were on to the next phase and that that phase would result in our baby being born in not too long a time. The end was in sight, things were happening and I had a clearer reference for where we were in the process! A second midwife was also called to help out from that point.

The second stage of labour – where the involuntary urges to push the baby out – felt easier than the height of the first stage where the contractions had really hit their peak. The convulsing action to slowly push the baby down and out felt slightly more manageable than the contractions although they were an extraordinarily intense involuntary sensation in their own right. And that’s when things got noisy too but there was nothing I could do about that – I had no control over my body at this point.  

I was in the pool on all fours throughout this entire process which was about 2hr15 from start to Evie’s birth but could have been 20 mins or 5 hours for all I knew! When we were near the point of her head appearing and crowning it was surprising to realise that the baby slowly appears but then retreats back a little into the body – slightly like two steps forward one step back. I was needing to really focus on the breathing at this point and giving an extra long and hard breath/scream to finally push the head out. There was an intense stinging sensation when the babies head was delivered and I was sure at that point that I must have teared (not that I cared too much by that stage!) but thankfully I hadn’t. And then another 7 or 8 minutes and Evie was born at 11.14 and helped into my arms where I promptly burst into tears, as I knew I would, so overcome by the experience and this new little person and thrilled that we had achieved the non-interventional home birth that we really wanted.

We stayed in the pool until the umbilical cord was cut about 30 mins later, only once it had stopped pulsating. I then handed Evie over to my husband for a cuddle (with me being with the baby in the pool and him outside he hadn’t had a proper look in yet!) while I then waited to deliver the placenta. This took a while in fact (1hr30) but again the midwives brilliantly allowed me all the time I needed for this to happen naturally. The contractions to deliver the placenta were a little stronger than I had anticipated but of course after the birth itself and with a healthy baby delivered did feel like a relative breeze.

After a few checks later and some tea and pizza, we were upstairs in bed by 2am with the midwife helping me work out the very basics of breastfeeding. And by 3am she was off and parenthood began…

On reflection hypnobirthing was a fantastic preparation tool for the birth, in terms of understanding the hormonal and physiological process of birth, for the breathing techniques, doing perineal massage (which maybe did help me not to tear) and above all to help affirm my confidence that I would be able to deliver my baby naturally at home despite all the many people who doubted or couldn’t initially understand my decision for a home birth. Thank you so much Kat for the role that you played in giving us such a positive birth experience!