Initially I wanted to give birth in a birth centre but the more I read about hospitals / the medicalisation of birth the more uneasy I became. I read a bit about home birthing and decided it was something I wanted to explore, but I didn’t think it was for me giving birth for the first time. Kat’s hypnobirthing course completely changed this for me. The course gave me all of the facts, support and confidence I needed to try and have my baby at home.

I went into labour around 3am on a Saturday morning…… it may have been before but at this time the contractions woke me. They were really mild and I could just breathe through them and go back to sleep / doze in between. It carried on like this for some time. M (my husband) and I even went out shopping in the morning and were planning on having lunch out too but the contractions were getting more intense and I couldn’t focus on anything else. So we headed home and ate there.

After lunch we headed up to our bedroom and I just lent over the bed breathing through each contraction. M also helped by applying pressure to my lower back. We had prepared in advance so I had my relaxation music and lavender oil in the diffuser. Things started to get more intense around 5pm and we moved to the stairs. I don’t know why but it was where I wanted to be, again I just used deep breathing to get through the contractions. We also called our midwife at this point as I was having very regular contractions.

The midwife arrived around 6pm and just observed me on the stairs. She asked about the intensity ….. we had asked her not to use the word “pain” to describe my contractions. It’s a little bit of a blur from here as you kind of go into yourself and can’t really focus on the outside world.

I think we moved down to the lounge and I laboured a bit more over the side of the sofa then I got in the birth pool. It was nice and warm and I felt a bit more relaxed as it took the weight off the bump! I had some gas and air but if I’m honest I don’t think it did anything, and I actually felt my contractions getting weaker, so I stopped it. The midwife asked me to get out of the pool and try some different positions….. I went and sat on the loo and did some kind of squatting. I then laboured a bit more in the lounge and again felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere and there was so much pressure in my lower back, so asked to go to hospital…. the midwife said she wasn’t sure if we’d make it to the hospital in time. In hindsight, she knew I didn’t really want to go and it helped me focus.

Soon after this the midwives told me that my waters hadn’t actually broken so all of the pressure I was feeling in my back was due to this. I gave them consent to break my waters which then alleviated the pressure. I had the baby about 10/20 mins after they broke my waters! Our little girl was born about 1am in the light of the full moon. We are so grateful to Kat for giving us the tools to remain calm and confidence to have our daughter at home.