Part 2: The home birth experience

Due date: We had planned our home birth experience, there was a pile of clean towels in the cupboard, along with all the other home birth essentials, a birth pool, hosepipe, sieve (purpose unknown...), snacks for mummy, energy drinks and straws. The drawer was neatly stocked with baby clothes (boy and girl ones as we kept the gender a surprise). The one thing missing was the baby. To avoid well-meaning pestering from friends and family, we kept the due date a secret and so it turned out to be a pleasant day. I had a visit from the One to One Midwife and a sweep to see if we could get things moving, and then went for a playdate with friends. Running around the park certainly helped to keep my mind busy and get my muscles warmed up! That evening, we sat down to watch the Bake Off and I felt those familiar twinges begin.

Around 1am, I gave up on sleep as I was too excited and contracting every 10 minutes. Within 10 minutes of getting up, my contractions had sped up and gotten much stronger. Time to phone the midwife and wake up the husband! Foolishly, I told the midwife I didn't need her yet (what a martyr) and created a cosy birthing atmosphere with candles, fresh lavender, etc while husband pumped up the pool.





By 1:50am the contractions were thick and fast and I realised that, without the midwife, I had no access to pain relief and paracetamol weren't going to cut it! Quick phonecall to her then back to pacing the living room and trying to remember to breathe (much harder than it sounds!)

2:30am: The midwife showed up, thrusting gas and air into my outstretched arms before unpacking her essentials. And then the pushing began. The whole process was much easier second time around, mainly because I knew each stage would end soon and there would be a baby at the end.

3am: The second midwife arrived just as Alex's head emerged, that has got to be the most awkward first introduction that I will ever encounter! And then he was born, right in our living room with me and my husband on the sofa. Sadly we didn't get to use the pool as it was only a foot deep, those things take forever to fill. It was also filled with red-hot water so wouldn't have been very relaxing but did create a lovely steamy atmosphere for the baby.

The beans meeting each other, and
the sofa looking as good as new!

The whole experience was so empowering, I felt in control for the whole thing. And, following the birth, we got to climb into our own bed. My favourite thing about home birth was that, as my contractions built, we weren't worrying about childcare for bean1, or whether there might be traffic on the way to hospital, or if I'd remembered to pack toothpaste. We simply sent the midwife a quick 'heads up' text and climbed into bed for some rest before it all kicked off.

We didn't end up needing a lot of the "equipment" on the midwife's list. We used the towels and plenty of plastic sheeting to protect the sofa, the bucket was needed for when I threw up and to collect the placenta. As we never got round to using the birth pool, the hose wasn't used and we never found out the function of the sieve!

Part 1: Planning a home birth

My first pregnancy was a very straight-forward one and labour was equally textbook, only around 6 hours and I managed with just gas and air in the hospital. While the hospital environment didn't bother me during labour, I didn't enjoy the stay in hospital after the birth. Hours after giving birth to our little girl, my husband had to go home, leaving me pretty clueless and sore, The midwives leave you to it these days, I can understand they don't want to interfere, are very busy and want to encourage mums to get stuck in, but picking up a baby from those weird fishtank-style cots is difficult when all your bits and bobs are so sore!

Midwives seem to be getting younger and younger these days...

As bean1 decided to come on a very busy baby day, we had a bed squeezed onto a C-section ward and had to wait on the delivery suite for 5-6 hours before getting the bed. Plus the lift wasn't working so I had to carry her up a large flight of stairs, the water was off for the whole morning (so no flushing loos or running water for drinking or washing hands!) and there was only one paediatrician on, meaning the wait to be discharged was veeeeery long. All in all, there was a lot of uncomfortable waiting around when I just wanted to be at home with my new family. Plus, why do they make maternity wards soooo hot?!?!

How the long wait on the maternity ward made me feel!

So when I found out I was pregnant again, I decided to go down the home birth route. I signed up with the One to One midwives as I wanted to get to know the midwife who would be present and sadly this isn't possible with community midwives as you just get whoever is on call. I clicked with my lovely midwife straight away and she assured us that home birth doesn't mean that your house looks like a murder scene afterwards - this was our biggest worry!

A month before D-day, I was sent a list of things to buy. Some of the items were pretty scary, ranging from old towels and a hose to fill the birthing pool, to bendy straws (hopefully for drinking, I don't want to think what other purpose they could serve!), a sieve and a bucket.

Check back soon for Part 2: The home birth experience, to find out about how it went and what all the equipment was for, plus the state of our house afterwards and a run-down of my personal pros and cons of home births.