Birth story - Megan and baby Ozzy

Triggers: mention of unresponsive baby, second degree tear and use of word contractions

I'm so happy to be able to share my story! I had a really positive intervention free birth with my daughter Birdie in 2021 (story on here) and really wanted to go for a home birth the second time round.

Because I had strep B in my first pregnancy, I had to wait until I was 37 weeks for a test to see if I could have a home birth. I got the all clear at 37 weeks!

At 38 weeks I started having contractions and called the home birth team to tell them things were getting going. And how wrong I was! The contractions died off 8 hours later and came and went for the next two weeks!

At 40 weeks and 3 days I had a midwife appointment and accepted a sweep which felt like it kicked things into gear. The midwife said I was 2cm and could feel me contracting. This was at 2pm.

I went home and felt the contractions ramping up so sent my daughter to my in-laws around 4pm. At around 5pm I realised the contractions had stopped again so my husband and I went for a walk and as we talked about how disheartened we felt, a bit of my waters went! (Not the full waters! Important to note!)

We went back home and called the midwife at 6pm to say contractions were irregular and mild but some waters had gone so they were going to ring the home birth team and call us back.

At 7pm I got a call from the on call midwife Genene, who was my home birth assessment midwife! She remembered me and was so happy to be called. I cannot fault her enough and she was about to be my biggest advocate!

Genene got to our house at 7.30 and checked me, I was still 2cm and she thought I'd have a while to go so she packed up and left. She said to ring her if contractions increased.

At 11pm I started to have 3 contractions every 10 minutes and needed to use the tens machine (highly recommend) so we called Genene back and she said she'd come out.

Genene arrived at 12am and checked me at 1am. I was 4cm so she was happy to stay. At this point my heart rate was elevated so I was nearly transferred in, but my lovely midwife advocated for us to stay as long as baby's heart rate remained stable.

At 2am my husband filled the pool, at 2.30am I got into the pool and at 3.30am I asked for pain relief: Genene got me some gas and air but at that point I was in transition and absolutely hated it. At 3.35 I felt my contraction change to a pushing sensation so warned my midwife, she told me to take my top and bottoms off and just go with happened next.

At 3.41 I had the pushing urge, not painful just powerful. I put my hand between my legs and felt my baby boy coming out. His head was born en caul! Amazing. At 3.42 his head was out and at 3.43 his body followed. He was born in 2 pushes and my second stage lasted 3 minutes.

Things got a little scary here - the second midwife had knocked the door as I pushed him out but at first he didn't cry and was very floppy so the midwife cut the cord and whisked him away while my husband ran to let the other midwife in. Luckily Ozzy started crying and moving almost as soon as she got him to the dining room table and he was passed back to me within minutes!

We had a lovely few minutes in the pool and then my husband took Ozzy while I went and lay on the sofa to birth the placenta and get some stitches (a mild second degree tear which was fine and I didn't feel at all). I had gas and air here which was amazing.

Ozzy was passed back to me for his first feed (which he took like a champ), my husband made us all tea and toast and the midwives packed up and left by 5.30am, leaving us in the most amazing newborn bubble.

It was absolutely incredible and truly the best experience I could've asked for. Big sister Birdie came home later that day and is absolutely obsessed with her little brother, to the point she ends up holding him more than we do!