Birth story - Abby and baby Ruben

*Trigger Warning* - Covid in pregnancy. Predicted big baby. Use of word contraction. 2nd degree tear.

Pregnancy

Having tried for over a year to get pregnant with our first baby, we were in total shock that we fell pregnant super quickly second time around! Unfortunately I caught Covid at 5 weeks pregnant and this, combined with pregnancy sickness, made me feel absolutely awful for around 6 weeks, my nausea then lasting until around week 15. At the booking appointment I met with the loveliest midwife who was really pro-homebirth and from then on I decided that was the route I wanted to go down, having had a very straightforward birth first time around.

My bump felt much bigger this time from very early on, and at 36 weeks I had to have a growth scan. Baby was measuring at 97th centile and I was booked in for a gestational diabetes check, and told by the doctor that they’d recommend against homebirth in case of shoulder dystocia and possible heavy bleeding. I was absolutely gutted, having had such a low risk pregnancy until that point, but decided to make my decision after getting the GD results. Thankfully the blood test came back normal, and after having spoken to a consultant midwife as well as my community midwife, I decided I still wanted to go ahead with the homebirth despite the potential risks. I was convinced baby would come early as I was measuring so big, and I was getting extremely uncomfortable from around 35 weeks. When my due date came and went I started to feel a bit disheartened as I really wanted to avoid induction.

Labour

I’d been having regular, quite intense Braxton hicks for the last few weeks of pregnancy, so when my contractions started at around 9.30am on 20th June (40+3) I wasn’t entirely sure if I was in labour or not. I started timing them on the Freya app after an hour and they were coming every 6-10 mins so I asked my husband to take our little girl to my parents and I went upstairs and bounced on the birth ball and watched some TV. By 1pm the app said I was in established labour and I had already spoken to my community midwife who thankfully was on call that day and said she would be able to come over when I needed her. The contractions became more difficult to manage at around 1.30pm, so I started using the tens machine and really had to breathe through each one. I called my midwife again at that point who was on her last appointment of the day and said she’d make her way over to us shortly, meanwhile my husband had almost finished setting up the birth pool downstairs.

At 3pm things really ramped up. I text my mum to come over (she was my 2nd birth partner and thankfully only lives 10 minutes away) and decided to go downstairs and get in the pool. The warm water was a real relief, and my contractions were coming every couple of minutes. My midwife arrived at 3.20pm, followed by a second midwife 5 minutes later. At around 3.35pm my body started pushing down and the pressure down below was so strong, my waters were still intact. The midwives were great, just observing me in the pool and checking baby’s heart rate, I didn’t have any cervical examinations.

The next couple of contractions were very intense, taking my breath, and I felt baby’s head pop out, along with my waters, followed quickly by the relief of the body coming out too, at 3.45pm. I was in a bit of shock and struggled to find baby in the water for a couple of seconds before bringing him up to my chest. He started crying almost immediately and my husband announced we had a little boy I couldn’t believe how quickly things had happened since I got in the pool, I didn’t even have time for the gas & air!

3rd stage

I sat in the pool holding Ruben for around 15 minutes and then started to get really uncomfortable, the contractions starting up again. My husband cut the cord and then him and my mum had cuddles with baby while I remained in the pool and tried to birth the placenta. After almost an hour it still hadn’t released so the midwife suggested I get out of the pool. As I stood up I gave a few little pushes and thankfully it came out. The midwife then checked me over and said I had a 2nd degree tear which would need some stitches. I laid on the sofa for this and finally made good use of the gas & air! The midwives stayed until around 6.30pm doing paperwork, and by 7.30pm we were relaxing with a takeaway.

I’m so thankful that I stuck to my guns on having a homebirth (and that there were midwives available to come out to us!) it was 100% the right decision, and my recovery has been so much easier this time too. Once again hypnobirthing gave me the tools for an incredible birth, I would recommend it to anyone.