Birth story - Ellie and baby girl

*Trigger warning* - Mention of eptopic pregnancy and miscarriage

First pregnancy & labour -

Known baby boy, straightforward pregnancy, minimal understanding of labour/birth so had a sweep at 40 weeks, spontaneous labour at 40+6 and planned hospital birth. Home for a long latent labour, hospital birth pool and gas & air for active labour, then followed a very medicalised plan and ended with an instrumental delivery after 2 hours of coached pushing on dry land; forceps following episiotomy and ventouse. I had some unknown birth trauma from this but only discovered and processed this when pregnant with my second. Following my first baby, I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy which meant I lost the right tube so we were nervous about how successful we might be to have more children. We had an early miscarriage shortly after but thankfully fell quickly on both subsequent pregnancies which we had our children with

Second pregnancy & labour

Straightforward pregnancy again for my second known baby boy, did a mini version of hypnobirthing through a wonderful midwife friend, educated myself as best as I could. Planned a home water birth however he was born one month into lock down (April 2020) at 40+4, so chose to have a hospital birth as home birth service was pulled due to the pandemic. Otherwise, a truly wonderful experience given the circumstances, another long but manageable latent labour at home and hospital birth pool active labour with gas & air, delivered in the water 2 hours after arriving at the hospital and home shortly after.

Third pregnancy

The hardest by far! Physically & emotionally exhausting, but set on my home birth. Had an amazing midwife who was with me for almost my entire antenatal and postnatal care and very supportive of my wishes. Completed a local hypnobirthing course with a wonderful group of people which gave me the confidence in my body again (amazing how quickly you forget after the other babies!) and then did the PBC course as a refresher and top up during the last few weeks of my pregnancy.

Third labour

A few prodromal labours from 37 weeks but very comfortable to wait for my body to do it’s thing. Regular Braxton hicks too, spent plenty of time on my gym ball in the evenings as baby feeling low. I had already discussed my wishes with my midwife for no sweeps and no discussion re induction and asked not to discuss these until after my sister’s wedding at 40+6 where I was Maid of Honour! But also as I felt comfortable waiting for baby to come when she was ready.

The wedding came and went and I was feeling very fed up (learnt with babies 1 & 2 this is a good sign!) and went to bed at 41+1 feeling as ready as I would ever be. Woke at 5am on 41+2 with surges, these picked up quickly to me needing to use up breathing through them. By 6.45am I had a bath and messaged my midwife to see if she may be able to make the birth, but anticipated a long latent labour as with my boys. Had a bath and at 8am my husband took the boys to nursery, at 8.20am I asked him to hurry home as felt things were professing quickly and wanted to get the pool ready. Shortly after I lost my mucus plug and surges were getting more intense and frequent.

8.45am he was home and started preparing the lounge for the pool, and at 9am I messaged my midwife again to say I felt a bit pushy so she called to say she was on her way. I had been labouring on the sofa, kneeling and leaning over the side and around 9.10am I felt my waters pop. My midwife arrived at 9.15 and was helping to get the pool ready, however quickly we realised there wasn’t time so the pool was left with a couple of inches of water in! I continued to labour on the sofa and our surprise baby girl was born (on the sofa!) soon after at 09.41. The second midwife and student arrived shortly after she was born.

We had delayed cord clamping (almost to white, I requested it be cut as was quite short and was making it difficult to hold/feed her whilst also trying to deliver placenta) and I had a physiological third stage, delivering the placenta around 45 mins later. We had immediate skin to skin, her first feed (plus many more) and then cuddles with daddy whilst I showered and was checked over by the midwives (no tearing). My husband and I had cuddles and alone time with baby girl whilst the midwives finished their notes and tidied up, and we collected our boys from nursery together that afternoon with their new baby sister

The most empowering thing I have ever done; I’m not sure I’ll ever be so proud of myself again or be able to beat the pure joy and elation at having our baby in my own home, using just my breathing and knowledge to guide me through. I was so trusting and relaxed in the knowledge that my body would birth my baby and I truly think this made for the most wonderful birth experience, and best healing out of the 3. Could not have done without my village of friends, midwife, hypnobirthing course and PBC.