Birth story - Libby and baby Theophilus

We had planned for a homebirth (no pool as wouldn't fit in our house) and were hoping our toddler would sleep through the birth, which is remarkably exactly what happened!

I started having gentle and irregular surges around 9.30am but they weren't causing me any discomfort at all so I was able to just have a normal day playing with my daughter and hanging out around the house. After lunch I went to breastfeed her to sleep and I had a nap too. An hour later I woke up to the unmistakable feeling of my waters going (and was kicking myself for not putting a pad down on the bed first!) and we called the midwife.

The surges were slightly more frequent and intense at this point, but still not much really and I didn't even need to breathe through them, I could just ignore them and carry on playing with my daughter. The midwife booked me in for a 'just in case' induction and left, but said she was sure we wouldn't need it.

The surges continued to slowly increase in intensity and frequency throughout the afternoon and evening, but I didn't need to start breathing through them until around 6pm. I was still feeling well enough to try putting my daughter to bed at around 7.30, but couldn't quite manage it. My husband tried to take over but she wasn't very keen on that so ended up coming back downstairs for a play, while I put on my birth playlist and lavender diffuser and bounced on my birth ball.

At about 9.30 the surges were very intense and my husband had put down towels and a shower curtain before taking my daughter upstairs again. I was getting quite concerned at this point that he was going to have to stay with her and miss the birth, but I tried to just relax and get 'in the zone' and focus on getting through each surge.

Around this time I started to struggle and had to focus really hard on staying relaxed and counting my breathing with each surge (I didn't succeed every time!)

They were around 3 minutes apart, so I called the midwife and she said they were an hour away but would come as quickly as they could.

At 10.30 my daughter finally fell asleep so I got my birth partner back! It really made a difference having him there to encourage me and rub my back. He also did a great job of not letting on how stressed he was about the possibility of the midwives not making it in time!

They arrived at around 11pm and fairly quickly I felt like I needed to push. I asked for the gas and air and got on my knees in front of the sofa (after doing my first push while sitting and being a bit worried about squashing baby's head!) I concentrated on relaxing and down breathing and just let my body push for me - having practiced on the toilet really helped this to be second nature I think! It was so much more gentle than the hour of coached pushing I had last time! After 3 or 4 more surges his head was out (best feeling of relief ever) and then with the next surge he pretty much flew out! There was so little for the midwives to do that one of them took videos and pictures for us- very graphic but very cool! They passed him up through my legs before helping us up onto the sofa and we had some skin to skin and a first feed ❤️

The after-pains were more difficult than I was expecting, and the placenta took a while to come out and went very suddenly when it finally did! I had 3 very tiny internal tears, caused by Theo coming out with his hand up by his face (he sleeps like that a lot still) but I decided not to have stitches because of the slight risk of infection and they didn't really seem necessary.

He's 2 weeks old now and I feel so much more recovered than I did last time and than I was expecting. I feel more or less back to normal now, just less fit than I was pre-pregnancy!

Without going into details, I hated my first birth 2 years ago, I was terrified the whole time and it took me quite a while to get over it, so I was determined to have a better experience this time. There was no way we could afford a hypnobirthing course, so I'm really grateful for the digital pack that made it accessible for us! I really think the great birth has contributed to a relatively calm and easy first 2 weeks - the whole experience this time couldn't be more different to first time around and I'm so glad, thank you so much!