Birth story - Rachel and baby Wilfred

So pleased to be sharing my HBAC story with you all! I got the digital pack half way through my pregnancy it definitely helped me make my decision for a homebirth with confidence.

My previous baby was born via unplanned cesarean, spontaneous labour but baby got distressed during pushing being back to back and a bit stuck. However the hospital was busy that night so I laboured on the assessment unit until I was ready to push so not a great start to the labour and definitely didn't help not being active.

This pregnancy was hard come the end with bad Pelvic Girdle Pain, I had lost my plug 3 weeks prior so was hopeful the baby was going to be early. For 4 days prior to arrival I had start stop contractions. They were strong surges 6-10 mins apart but the would just stop after a few hours. So, on Saturday when they started again I thought here we go again, come 4pm they were now 3 in 10 minutes but totally manageable and I could almost talk through them. Since we planned a homebirth my husband was getting nervous and wanted to contact the midwife sooner than I felt necessary! We spoke to the midwife and to my surprise she said "we would actually recommend that you go into hospital as you've had a previous cesarean"

I was shocked as the homebirth was supported by my midwife and we had the home assessment etc and I knew it was against medical advice. I said no and she said OK what would you like us to do, come now or call you back in and hour. I was so deflated by her mentioning hospital that I asked for a call back in an hour.

After this I didn't have a contraction for 20 mins, my first thought was great it all stopped again. But once I relaxed and it started again, she called back, I made a point of saying when she mentioned hospital that everything slowed down and she genuinely seemed upset that it happened and said she was on her way.

When she came she was lovely and friendly and I felt a lot happier.

It was 5:30pm by this point and we decided that we would do a VE to see how far along things were but I made it clear I did not want a sweep or any risk of breaking my waters. At 6pm I was examined and was 2-3cm, I was happy with this as the surges were manageable and I was still talking and joking in between. Also she asked it I'd eaten enough today and I realised I hadn't had anything since lunch. I made some crumpets and bounced on my ball. In that hour the surges got way more intense and I was regretting all the butter I put on my crumpets as I was feeling like I might be sick. At the point my husband was filling the pool... I still felt like it was too early to get in. I didn't want to get in too early and slow everything down. Midwife said she was happy to examine me again before I got in the pool so I agreed and at 7pm I was 6cm so decided to get into the pool.

Oh the relief of the water was amazing! The hottest day of the year and I had a huge fan in my face and the water just felt amazing.

Straight away the surges started to change and feel like I wanted to push but not for the whole contraction.. It was odd. So I just breathed through them until I felt that the urge to push was overriding.

9pm is when the midwife had written I was in the third stage of labour. I didn't push I just let my body do what it needed and I did downward breathing. Then the pressure of babys head low was intense and midwife recommended standing up and letting gravity help, I stood but was all out of sorts and wasn't sure I like being stood out the water. All this time I was having babys heartrate checked with a doppler between the surges, sometimes they were too close and she couldn't get a reading but when she did it was good and recovered well each time.

I thought about gas and air but wasn't actually sure It would help so didn't ask for it.

To my surprise she was telling me his head was crowning and if I just held the push it would be out and she was right. There was the head out at 10:02pm and I bent down and lifted the baby out and got to find out the sex, a boy!! 😁

I am awe of what my body did and so pleased I got my vbac and in my home too. I lost too much blood and I had a raised temperature after delivery so the decision was made to go into hospital but I was happy with this as I had everything I wanted already so being check up on was fine with me. We went in by ambulance but this is just policy.

Anyway this is getting long now and we are both now home, happy and healthy!

I'm now enjoying the new baby bubble 💕