Massive thanks to Chi for such an open, honest and frank account of birthing her first child at home earlier this month…. I’m reminded again of the gratitude I feel to you all for sharing your experiences, it’s truly an honour to be able to share.

Our due date was 29th August, but by September, our baby girl still hadn’t arrived. I don’t really believe in due dates anyway, but I was becoming increasingly (and quietly) frustrated because I couldn’t wait to meet her. After attempting some sex in the morning on September 6th, we had to stop because it became uncomfortable for me. So, unfulfilled, we carried on with our day, living out what we anticipated as our last days we would spend together (this had been happening since mid-August!).

We planned a homebirth, so our midwife paid us a visit after breakfast and offered me a sweep (for the second time) and I declined, believing the baby will come when she is ready. I’d been having mild contractions all morning, but put it down to the poking around in the morning, so Pascale from the homebirth team waved me goodbye and wished me many more contractions. In my head I thought people usually have days of contractions and labours that last days too.

Over the previous weekend I had been taken by a sudden urge to fill the flat with flowers, and also (on everyone’s advice) go to the cinema. So we went to watch Captain Fantastic and I loved every second of it, I even had a coke and nachos (unheard of). I woke up that morning wanting to walk around in nature, and planned on venturing to the closest place to us – Hackney Marshes. But what with the contractions, I didn’t think it was wise to venture too far. So we went out to get provisions for lunch and I had to walk very slowly and stop to take deep breaths for each contraction I had. They were not close enough to warrant timing at this point.

After lunch, Alex asked if I’d like him to set the pool up. I thought there would be no harm in doing so, even though in my head we could be staring at an inflatable piece of ‘furniture’ in our 1 bedroom flat for days before it being put to use. At least I would familiarise myself with the idea of it in my usual environment. So we occupied ourselves setting the pool up, timing the contractions (they were lasting around 50 seconds and 7-10mins apart) and watching some trashy programmes on the computer, all the while I breathed through my contractions and texted my doula (Liliana Lammers) to let her know what was happening, but that I didn’t require her to come over.

At around 4pm, my acupuncturist came round to ours, as I planned to see her but didn’t feel comfortable getting on the bus. As usual, she performed acupuncture, reflexology and moxa on me, preparing me for birth (rather than inducing).  My contractions became stronger and I had to concentrate on breathing through them.

After my acupuncturist left, my contractions were around 5-6 mins apart and lasting just over 1 min. Instead of cooking dinner as planned, we ordered Vietnamese. I really fancied chicken wings all of a sudden. The takeaway came about 8pm, we sat down to eat next to our pool and I had to take breaks from dinner to breathe through contractions, sometimes on the ball, and sometimes on all fours – at this point there were pillows and other soft furnishings next to the pool. At some point, I pushed away the dinner (chicken wings and pho noodles) and told Alex that I thought perhaps I’d left it too late to call anyone and he should call Liliana and ask her to come over. He dimmed the lights, lit candles, burnt some palo santo, put the blinds down and put on the music I had been relaxing to during pregnancy –  Catherine Marie Charlton, the background music to the hypnobirth tracks.

As I knelt on all fours in-between the pool and our dining table (a small space), Alex would use his thumbs to press into the small of my back to ease each contraction. I also used the ball for support. Liliana arrived and I told Alex to call the homebirth team again. At this point, I felt the baby bear down on me quite heavily, and I quietly panicked inside that I’d left it too late to get the midwives in. Liliana stayed out of the living room, and rested in our bedroom.  After a while, Alex came into the living room and told me that Pascale was at another birth and couldn’t make it to us for at least another 2 hours. I wasn’t sure I would last 2 hours, at least I hoped I was close because I wasn’t sure how I’d cope if it lasted any longer! Alex told me to get in the pool. I said “..but they tell you you can’t until the midwives arrive!” (not really one to follow rules but hey). He told me he wasn’t sure when we’d have them here, so we needed to slow things down and I should relax in the pool. So I disrobed and slunk into the pool, feeling slight relief but not as much as expected from all the accounts I have read. They both came back into the room and I heard Liliana say to Alex to tell me the truth. The truth was, there were no midwives around, they were short of staff and I’d either have to go to Homerton, or free-birth (which would be frowned upon).  They asked me what I’d like to do. I thought great, I didn’t want to have to make a decision and use my brain, so I kind of ignored it. I really didn’t want to go into hospital, believing it will reverse my progress and also I feared the journey there more than anything – I was ready to accept intervention if there was no other choice than to be hospitalised, but I couldn’t imagine getting from my flat to the hospital, even though it’s a 10min walk. I continued to breathe through the surges, and felt that the blubbering breath helped and low moans.

Ignorance was key, as not long after, Liliana had called around and managed to persuade the hospital to send out a midwife from the ward, and also found a community midwife too.  They arrived shortly after 11pm (Alex kept track of the time, I had lost all sense of time) and proceeded to fill out their forms, asking if I’d like to be checked. Initially, my birth preferences asked not to be monitored or bothered with checks, but because I felt like I left it too late, I wanted reassurance everything was going OK so agreed to be checked, but Alex reminded me that perhaps I should just be told if I was in established labour, rather than how many cms dilated I was, in case I wasn’t as far along as I thought and be disheartened, which was a good call! The midwife said I was indeed in established labour and said I could get back into the water. Alex found out from the midwife I was 5cm dilated, but my cervix was paper thin and the amniotic sac was bulging out, and that was what was bearing down my backside so much, making me want to push already. But it was the best thing not to tell me I was only 5cm, because I definitely would have felt defeated that I was only ‘halfway’.

Back in the water, Alex continued to press on my back through each contraction as they got closer and closer, and harder to bear. At some point, I decided I needed something else, and asked for gas and air, even though I’d heard people felt nauseous from it. Thankfully it did not make me nauseous at all, and provided a good distraction. I’m not sure it was much of a ‘painkiller’, but rather something to concentrate on. Every so often during a surge, I would feel a warm trickle come out, and I would ask Alex to check in case it was a lot of blood, but he would say it was a tiny bit and mostly mucus. By this point, I was also making a noise that I had not practiced and was not expecting – a very low roar. Then Alex disappeared for some time and I called out to him during the next surge, the midwife told me that Alex was in the next room resting. I thought to myself ‘Oh God, if Alex needs to rest it means we’re in for a very long night, not sure how I am going to cope! This means we’re not even close!’ and that disheartened me, but also made me determined to buckle up, concentrate and breathe in the gas and air deeply. What actually was happening, was Liliana said to Alex he needed to stop tending to me, as I was depending on him for support and I needed to own it. I thought Alex had abandoned me!

I got tired of being on my hands and knees, and the pressure on my lower back was getting too much that I felt like I needed to lie down (if everyone else was!). I told the midwives I wanted to get out of the pool and lie down on the bed (but felt bad I had to turf Liliana and Alex out from resting). They helped me towards the bedroom, bringing the gas and air, and I instinctively wanted to lie on the opposite side to where I usually sleep (on Alex’s side, facing the wall – funnily enough, I did think I’d spend a lot of the labour in that space in the bedroom, as it was small and away from everything). The midwife told me to have a rest and she would come check on me in an hour’s time. I couldn’t really muster up the energy to go “ANOTHER hour?!”, and concentrated on sucking on the gas and air and breathing through the contractions, enjoying the different position.

The surges were very strong and I had to concentrate not to push, but that was all I wanted to do. I went from the low roar, to an almost scream when I wasn’t sucking on the gas and air. Alex was in the other room with everyone else, and apparently every time he heard me, he would jump up, but the midwives and Liliana would get him to sit back down again to let me get on with it. At one point though, he decided to come through just to check I had water. He saw blood on the bed, and asked the midwives to check on me. The midwives assessed the situation and then told Alex quietly that there was slightly more blood than they were happy about, and we might have to transfer, but I was unaware of this. Alex was disappointed because we had come so far.

They came back in to check on me, and then my waters broke – but it was the hind waters, and the amniotic sac was visibly bulging out. The midwives said it was all systems go. Unexpectedly, I adopted the scream again to get me through the urge to push rather than the low roar I thought would relax my cervix, as well a sucking in the gas and air. It all happened very quickly, the head came out still in the amniotic sac like a shroud – Alex somehow managed to get a picture of it on my iPhone, after a few attempts in the dark he turned the flash on, but I didn’t notice this happening! More warm trickles felt (the rest of the waters broke) and I thought the baby was out at this point because the midwife said ‘Are you ready to meet your baby?’ and I was expecting her to lift the baby up to me, but she then followed it with ‘Another push!’ and I was like “Really?!”.  One more roar, and I felt the baby slither out. It was 1:45am, September 7th. The midwife placed her on me and the first thing I said was “Shit the bed!” and attempted the breast crawl for feeding, which she needed help with, but then latched on and fed.

Five mins later, the midwife said ‘OK, I need you to push again for your placenta…’, I thought to myself already? They always say it takes at least an hour! Maybe my idea of time was totally warped, but it was indeed about 5mins after giving birth that my placenta was ready to come out too. I had taken Homeopathy remedy Sabina to encourage the expulsion of the placenta, but that was ridiculously quick. What we discovered later was that, the excessive bleeding was due to the placenta detaching itself at some point. With the next surge and under the instructions of the midwife, I pushed and the placenta was out.

Skin to skin was wonderful, and they weighed the baby and did the checks after even though she cried to be away from the warmth of my body. I had a 1st degree tear and they offered me stitches, due to the excessive bleeding, but I declined, willing my body to heal itself properly (and I’d never experienced stitches before!), and after applying some pressure the tear began to knit, so they were happy for me to heal naturally in the end. I didn’t even notice the midwives leaving, I was still breastfeeding and staring at our beautiful little human being we created. Liliana advised that I feed her lying down in bed with us and keep her close to us, so we did just that.

She fed from when the midwives left, until about 6am, on and off, I guess their tummies are so little! But it was a hell of a journey she made, so she was hungry. As the sun rose, Alex snuggled with her in bed as I moved into the living room (all cleared and tidied away, almost back to normal) in search of something to satisfy my hunger, as I had too, made a hell of a journey. My eyes found the remaining chicken wings, and I greedily ate the 2 that were left, sat on the sofa, swollen, sore and bruised, with the amazing realisation that we were never going to be back to normal.