Birth story - Sarah and baby Sebastian

Seb is my 2nd baby, I decided to give birth in Mexico because my first experience in the UK was awful. I had a 4 day labour ending in forceps and being so tired and drugged I couldn't hold or feed my baby. This time was a chance to rewrite all that. I found a birthing centre that tries to really listen to women and found Salud Primal in Playa del Carmen. I met with my midwife via videocall and had some really in depth chats with her prior to arriving in Mexico. The birth centre was comforting, like someone’s house, a bed, a comfy couch and open air indoor garden with everything you would need, options for water birth, birthing stool, soft flooring. I felt so supported, I went for pregnancy massages and after a bout of food poisoning the midwife offered to come to my hotel with an IV, honestly amazing.

I felt the first contraction at 5am, I was co-sleeping with my 22 month old daughter and just stayed in bed trying to breathe through it. This was more intense much quicker than my first labour, but I assumed it would take hours based on my first experience of over 3 days. I messaged the midwife and told her but joked " we'll be ages yet." She suggested we set up a WhatsApp group anyway with the Dr, doula and herself to keep everyone in the loop and 'get excited' about the arrival of Sebastian, which was so reassuring. At 10am we decided to go swimming the midwife said it was fine as my waters were in tact. By 11am I felt I needed to get out as I wasn't sure about being able to walk back without support and we had a toddler to contend with.

Things really intensified on the walk home, I was dripping wet waddling along having contractions every 10 paces. My husband battled to get my daughter down for a nap and I was in the next room trying to tell him we need to call our babysitter NOW. He was thinking we have at least a day left of this and didn't seem to realise what was happening. The babysitter arrived, she tried to call every taxi she knew and I could just hear her telling taxi drivers in Spanish that I'm going to have the baby on the floor unless they come 😆 I used breathing techniques through this whole time and it kept me really focused in the madness.

We got a taxi, managed to get into the birthing centre and they removed my clothes for me, they started preparing to massage me to calm me and then realised that I was ready to push. Seb was born after 2 pushes in the squat position. 10 mins later I birthed the placenta while breastfeeding with doula support. I had a small tear but no stitches required. We sat in a candlelit bubble for about an hour and then I was showered by my midwife and doula, they helped wash me ( I add this detail because I remember the undignified and painful solo walk to the shower with my first child). We drank tea , sat around talking and taking photos. The doula did a print of the placenta and kept it for pills or planting. It was everything I hoped for.