Birth story - Geo and baby boy

*Trigger warning* - quick labour, use of word contractions, previous 'big baby', second degree tear

So excited and feeling unbelievably lucky that I’m sharing my second home birth story here (feel free to search for my previous one in the group!). Both my sons born in our home, but with two very very different labours!

Pregnancy

A lot more complicated than my first. Anaemia so bad I needed multiple transfusions in hospital, low level cholestasis which thankfully didn’t get high enough to require treatment. I was very tired and nauseous throughout and chasing a one and a half year old probably didn’t help 😅 our local trust was having staffing issues and our local birth centre was closed for refurbishment, so with all of this there were multiple times where I was bracing myself for not having another home birth. 😵‍💫 We had a bit of a fight on our hands with the obstetricians who were adamant that I should be induced at 37 weeks because my firstborn was 10lb 1oz, but I refused all additional scans and ignored their letters, because I knew the risk of cascade of intervention was high, and I also knew I home birthed a “big baby” before.

💕 labour / birth

Our first son was born at 41 weeks after a 3-4 day labour so we had assumed we were going to have a March baby this time. I also had had no indication that this baby was making his way, he’d been low for most of the third trimester so I’d had a lot of sensations in my cervix but nothing felt any different this week vs any other.

I woke up at about 6am on Sunday and went for a wee and when I got back into bed I had a bit of cramping which then went away. As my husband and I were chatting/snoozing I could feel these light cramps coming and going every 15 minutes or so but because we’d had no other indication and we were 39+5 and they were very mild I put it down to braxton hicks and ignored them. My husband got up with our son and left me to snooze and I got up about half 8, still cramping but ignoring them.

✨We all went to the park and had a lovely walk around looking at the ducks and playing with one of his nursery friends. The mum asked me how I was getting on and I said I’d had some braxton hicks so hopefully we’d have a baby in the next week! (But I secretly was thinking he’d still be ages).

I dropped the boys home so my husband could put the baby down for his lunchtime nap, and I took myself to Tesco to buy some bits. Came home, cooked a full roast and then sent my husband off to watch the cup final. At this point, around 4ish I texted my midwife to give her a heads up that my braxton hicks hadn’t stopped. They hadn’t increased in frequency or intensity but also hadn’t slowed or paused in ten hours. I also let my husband know I was having them (hadn’t told him yet 😂) but told him not to get too excited as I was still convinced this was the beginning of a very long road.

I spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out with my son, doing his dinner and dancing about with him. It was only at around 6 when he was playing quietly by himself that I realised that I was instinctively breathing through the cramping and that it was actually a bit more intense than I’d realised. I texted my sister to say I thought we might be having a Feb baby after all, but assumed we were still days away from meeting him. 🤪

By half 6 I was feeling a bit tired and dizzy, I asked my husband to come home and take over with the baby’s bed time and I was going to go and have a lie down. I had a shower, got into some comfy undies and stuck a funny podcast on, and slowly started tidying up a bit, pausing occasionally to breath through what I was still thinking was a “cramp” 🤦🏼‍♀️ At 8pm I went to the loo and when I wiped there was a tiny tiny bit of plug. I texted my husband to say I was starting to think these weren’t braxton hicks but not to raise the alarm (we had friends on standby to take our son when things started ramping up).

At 8:30pm after putting our son down my husband said he walked in on me in my pants in the dark bracing over a chair and up-breathing. He immediately (without telling me) called our friends to say that the baby was coming and could they get ready to collect our son. He was so surprised to see me very clearly in labour when I hadn’t shown any signs of it up until this point. In my head because of last time we were still days away so I was just cracking on with things 😅

We spent half an hour setting the room up and in that time the contractions were getting closer together and I’d stuck the tens on to help me as they were getting a bit sore. At 9:15 my husband called labour line as I was no longer able to talk through the contractions and they were every 2-3 minutes. They told him there were three other home births happening so to call back once things intensified. He called back 15 minutes later at 9:30pm saying the baby was coming tonight and they needed to send someone. They said they were scrambling but that they’d send an ambulance just in case. My husband was amazing he really dug his heels in, he said if an ambulance came we’d definitely be transferred so could they please try and find us a midwife, they said to give them ten minutes and they’d call back.

They called back at 9:45 and said they were sending someone but she couldn’t get to us until 10:30. I could tell that my contractions were more intense when I was standing so I instinctively sat on the birthing ball and tried to slow my breathing down. I think my body was listening to me because everything got a lot less intense and quick for the next 45 minutes whilst we waited for help.

At 10:30 the first midwife arrived and things started ramping up again, they started filling the pool and calling around for gas and air as I was struggling without any relief except for tens and paracetamol. At 11pm the gas and air arrived with a second midwife and a student, and my husband and I got in the pool. By this point I was still breathing through the contractions but I felt more out of control than I did with my first birth. I could just tell things were happening a lot quicker than I had experienced before but my husband was coaching me through and I was just so excited to meet our boy!

Pushing started 40 minutes later. With my first son I was very much actively pushing him out. With this birth all I was doing was getting myself through each wave as my body pushed him down. It was very very intense but I was also so excited. Every sensation of him moving further down, feeling the ring of fire, putting my hand down and feeling his head was euphoric and really getting me through the intense waves. At one minute past midnight his head popped out and on the next contraction his body came out too!

I hugged my husband and we were both crying and I was saying ”we did it! He’s here!” and one of the midwives had to remind me to reach down and collect the baby from the water 😂🤦🏼‍♀️

I had a second degree tear again which they stitched no problem, and it took an hour for my placenta to birth but other than that it was a very relaxed and happy third stage. We just snuggled our boy and felt this overwhelming relief that he was here and we had done it together. Only a few hours before we were having a roast and wondering when he’d come and here he was in our arms 😂

We are so thrilled to have had two home births and to have had an actual water birth this time!