Birth story - Sabrina and baby Sadie

*Trigger warning* - Use of the word contractions as not negative to me.

After my first birth being quite long and ending up transferring to hospital we were determined to have our uninterrupted home birth this time. And we got it.

I noticed my lower back hurting when I went to bed for the night but I didn’t think anything of it as I had been in pain, with consistent Braxton Hicks (BH) and ready to give birth for weeks at this point. I woke up at 3:30am to very mild contractions and tried to go back to sleep, they didn’t die down so I started to use the Freya app to time them and they were 5 minutes apart lasting around 40-50 seconds, the app said I was in established labour but I knew from my first birth it was just beginning still.

I tried to let my husband sleep a bit before waking him up but at around 4:30am, he contractions were getting stronger so I just woke him and told him labour had started. He lay in bed for another hour trying to sleep while I was watching tv trying to keep my mind off the contractions & had a shower which felt great. At around 5:30am I asked my husband to set up the birth space and blow up the pool.

He also started preparing care for our daughter and our dog, we planned to have them there for the labour as long as possible but I decided I couldn’t deal with being climbed all over while having contractions.

At around 6:30am I felt the contractions start to get a lot stronger, I hadn’t lost my mucus plug or noticed my waters breaking yet. So I wasn’t sure if I was actually progressing, (this all ended up happening right at the moment of birth) I wanted my husband to call the midwives as I started to get nervous I was going to have a really long labour again but he calmed me down and reminded me we didn’t need the midwives yet, only I could deliver this baby and I was doing great on my own.

So we just kept on, using the Freya app the whole time to calm me down while during contractions and get me back to green when they ended. By around 7:30am the pool was ready and I got in, AMAZING, my husband and his sister were pouring water on my back during contractions which helped soo much. At about 7:50am I noticed the contractions changing and feeling the need to push, so my husband called the midwives to come. They arrived at 8:30am and by this point I was actively pushing, baby’s head was crowning but bobbing up and down. I was leaning over the edge of the pool on my knees and the midwife suggested I turn over and put my legs up to help me push, this is when it all happened. Baby was out, such a relief ! I was checked over and had no tearing or grazes. Wow! What a change from last time where I needed internal stitches and had an episiotomy! Recovery has been so much faster.

I can’t believe we did it, we got our uninterrupted natural home birth, midwives we’re only there for 30 mins of pushing before baby arrived. It was such a special feeling to be in our own space with only people I completely trusted around me throughout the labour. The Freya app was awesome, saved me through the labour from getting scared & losing my breathing. What an experience, you can all do it too mamas.