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!