Birth story - Melissa and baby Bertie

As this was my first pregnancy there was a lot of apprehension from family and friends around me having a home birth. Due to the current pandemic I knew I wanted to stay out of hospital and this was going to be the best way for me to have the birth I wanted with my husband by my side.

I was 38+2 weeks when I woke at 5am on Thursday 17th December for my hundredth wee of the night! As I stood up I felt a trickle of water run down my leg, ‘was this it, had my waters finally broken?’ I imagined a gush but this was a gentle trickle. I woke my husband and we both smiled wondering if today was the day we would finally get to meet our little boy. We took ourselves into the living room put on some music and I started to bounce on my ball to see if I could kick things off.

Over an hour had passed and nothing had changed, I had a midwife appointment at 10:30am so thought I would just take it easy until then and hopefully she could confirm my waters had broken and baby would soon be on his way!

Around 7:30am I started to get a dull ache at the bottom of my back, my husband began to set up the water pool and my sister got the call to come and give him a hand. The pain started to escalate very quickly and became so intense. We put on my TENS machine and I focused on my breathing. We used the FREYA app to record each surge and these were instantly less than 3 minutes apart. I called the hospital who told me the community midwife would call me back. The midwife called to let me know she was on her way, I continued to focus on my breathing using the techniques we had learned and practiced over the last few months.

We quickly realised baby was going to be here soon and I wouldn’t have time to get into the pool as the water was still so shallow. My mucus plug had gone and I moved onto all fours to get more comfortable. My husband called the midwife as I had the urge to start pushing. She was 10 minutes away and said to call an ambulance if I thought baby was coming! I knew I had to wait until she arrived.

She got to the house at 8:20am and quickly set herself up, I asked for gas and air but after a few attempts of using it I realised I was getting distracted from the breathing which was the only thing getting me through each surge. The second midwife arrived at 8:40am as I was bearing down to push my little boy into the world. Bertie arrived at 8:57am less than 3 hours from the first surge.

We are so lucky to have had the positive birth we wanted and thanks to the breathing techniques I was able to stay in control, relaxed and empowered knowing my body was perfectly designed to birth my baby. My (usually very panicky) husband was able to keep calm and leave his rational head on. Thank you to team at the positive birthing company for providing us the tools for such an amazing experience.