Birth story - Natalie and baby Kai

I was doing yoga with my mother at 9 in the morning when I felt some water in my pants. Since I did not feel any cramps, I thought it was a false alarm and lay down for 30-minutes. The water didn't stop so I called the midwife. After I described the liquid and how I was feeling she told me that she would come in 40 minutes and she asked me to save the liquid in a glass. After 45-minutes she arrived at my home and she she evaluated the liquid and said .. definitely your waters have broken. She told me that since I would like to have a home birth they expect my labour to begin in the next 24-hours otherwise I would have to go to the hospital.

So I started with my daily activity going up and down the stairs cleaning the house already expecting that my baby was coming soon 👶 Here in the Netherlands when you go to the midwife they work with 5 of them, so you never know who will be the one that's going to be on the shift when you are in labour.🤰
You can choose to meet all of them or like in my case I only met a few since it is already my second child and I was more calm, believing that the teachings of my husband and my mother would be sufficient support at the moment.

The midwife who came to my home said that her shift was going to finish at 5 p.m. and then the midwife I had had most contact with during my pregnancy would start her shift. I was very happy about that because I liked her.

At 3 pm I had to pick up my son from school (that's a 5 minutes walk from my house) I went with my mother and when we were coming back I started feeling the surges very subtly.

I called my husband and told him to come home .

The birth pool was not here yet but we had a contact of the person that we could pick it up from. So my husband had to wait half an hour to the woman be there. He arrived around 16:30 and he didn't want to build it yet because he was expecting it was going to be a long labour. (With my first baby the labour was in total 7 hours) He wanted to wait for the midwife. Even though I warned him that this baby would come super fast he was very stubborn thinking we still had time. 😒

He started my YouTube playlist with 4D nature images, it was very relaxing. I finally could catch up my breath and start focusing to be in synchrony with the baby. I already had some clue about what to expect but everything was so fast and so intense that it completely broke my paradigm. This time I could understand the difference of saying and thinking about surges instead of pain. Every time that I thought about that and focused on the moment it was like the pain was bearable and I could have some relaxed moments, to tune with my breath and eat something. It really makes a whole difference.

My midwife arrived around 5:20 p.m. and she saw how I was and ask my husband to immediately build the bath. By this time I already had my headset on and was listening to the meditations and positive affirmations. The candles were already on and I asked my husband to light the lavender oil. He then give me a very nice massage (the light touch massage is really amazing for these moments, I love it) . I was completely present in the moment.

After a while the midwife asked me if I would like to know how far I was and I immediately say yes. She checked me and I was 8 cm dilated😮 so she said, " if you planning to go in the bath you need to go now,"
so I jumped in but I felt very uncomfortable because it was too full so they had to remove some water.

After that everything went so fast...

I could relax for a while but few moments later I felt the need to push. I did not have a doula but my midwife was very supportive, she was encouraging me all the time, saying that I was doing great and reminding me about my breathing and how close I was to meeting my baby❣️ It was really helpful that I had given her my birth preferences.

After few pushes I felt the fire circle (not sure if is called like that in English, but is called in Portuguese : when the head is coming out). Finally the last push and Kai was born. No tearing and no episitotomy needed 🙏

My oldest son , who was also in the living room, saw everything. I'm not gonna lie he got pretty scared at the beginning, especially with all the blood in the pool. 🥺After that he calmed down, he held his brother and he was happy and he mentioned that mummy was crying now of happiness 😢. We didn’t plan for him to be here, but we didn't have time to to call my Father-in-Law to pick him up. ♥️♥️♥️♥️

I will be forever thankful to Siobhan, for all the teachings you shared online for me to access in the comfort of my own house. You are amazing🙏 thank you ❣️

I'm also grateful for all the experiences that I read (and cried to) shared here... so many beautiful stories, inspirations, love and empowerment that gave me the strength to meet my baby the most natural way 🥰