Birth story - Jade and baby Evelyn

🚨 Use of word contraction and brief explanation of previous birth that involved instrumental delivery

I transferred over to the Home Birth Team at 28 weeks as I was having a low risk pregnancy, and had had a traumatic first birth with my son (Dec 2018) on the labour ward with various interventions (waters broken but labour didn’t start so induction, episiotomy, forceps, ventouse).

Unfortunately we then found out that I had gestational diabetes at 29 weeks, and moved onto daily medication (1x Metformin) at 32 weeks.

The Home Birth were incredibly supportive of my desire to have a home birth and to avoid induction, as my blood sugars were stable and diabetes was under control with no high readings. We agreed that I would reassess my options on my due date and go ahead with a sweep as first idea. I followed the NICE guidelines and ended up in some pretty tough debates with diabetes consultants who made me cry at various appointments (they kept reiterating the worst case scenarios and made me feel like a silly little girl). The diabetes team were very keen for me to be induced at 38 weeks, and were quite pushy. Thanks to PBC, I used my BRAIN, and stood my ground. The Home Birth team were amazing and stuck by me. We made a plan and started the waiting game for labour!

At 39+4, I woke up at 7am to what I though might be contractions. Unfortunately, the night before had been a rough one with my husband only getting to bed at 3am due to work drama. I decided I wasn’t sure it necessarily was contractions, so I got up with my toddler and made us breakfast, whilst I let my husband sleep.

All of a sudden, at around 8am, I felt really sick and faint. Toddler and I ended up in the bathroom with me over the toilet and toddler playing with ALL the toys.. everywhere!!

At 8.30am my husband heard me, and I asked him to call his parents to come and look after our toddler. They needed a heads up as live 1.5 hours away. However, by 9am, my contractions had ramped up to every 3 mins suddenly and I told him to phone them back and get them to us ASAP. I also asked my husband to call delivery suite and let the Home Birth Team know that I was in labour. Luckily he remembered we had the tens machine and hooked me up to it... it was a game changer and really helped massively!

I knew I needed quiet... by now my toddler had toys everywhere and all the TVs were on. Our house was chaos. Luckily we also had our neighbour (an NCT friend) on standby... and she saved the day, and took our toddler to play with her son at super short notice.

Unfortunately the Delivery Suite advised that the home birth midwife was unwell but that we could use the Carmen suite (midwife centre with pool) which was available. My contractions were coming so fast and getting so powerful by now that I happily agreed, knowing we wouldn’t have time to set up the pool at home.

We started driving to the hospital at about 10am but unfortunately got stuck in Tooting traffic but I could feel my body pushing down. I tried not to tell my husband as traffic was stressful with buses and after-school-drop-off-traffic everywhere.

When we arrived at the hospital, there were no parking spaces, so we parked up literally just outside the gates. I tried to get out of the car, but I felt the VERY sudden urge to be on all fours. So I put myself back into our car across the front seats. Tim phoned the Delivery Suite and advised the midwives where we were and that I wasn’t going to make it inside.

Midwives Jeanette and Jenny came to us from Labour Ward (circa 1030), and got to us within minutes with a full ‘baby delivery’ kit. They bumped into two midwife colleagues buying coffee and brought them along too! So, four midwives arrived at the car where I was on all fours across the front seats in my pj shorts, t-shirt, and slippers! I was insisting on taking my shorts off, and moo-ing, so they said they knew it was happening fast. The poor passers-by got quite an eyeful!

At this stage a student nurse came out of hospital for a break, and saw what was happening so went back to A&E and asked one of the ambulances to drive over to us.

They pulled up alongside us and helped get me into the ambulance, telling me it was a safer, warmer and more private environment. One paramedic offered me gas and air, but I swatted it away and was apparently telling them that I was going to push out her head.

The midwives and paramedics were really respectful and gave me space to do what I needed, and let me lead the way listening to my body. Tim helped me throughout as I breathed down and birthed her head. He was talking me though it calmly and helping me breathe. There was no fear or panic... just my body doing what it needed with Tim encouraging me. The midwives and paramedics were amazing, just letting me do my thing.

Evie was born at 10:46... We stayed for 24 hours to check her blood sugars (she passed them all!) and because I bled a bit too much after birth.

Overall I had a massively empowering experience and I couldn’t be more thankful for the Positive Birth Company. The positive thinking, knowing my rights, standing my ground with consultants and leading the birth in my own way all really helped me have a fantastic experience! I am still in awe of how amazing our bodies are!!