Birth story - Sophie and baby boy

*Trigger Warning* – mention of miscarriage and use of word contraction

A brief recap of my daughters story, she was born September 2019.

I did the PBC course and wanted a home birth after completing all the videos. This was met by lots of ‘you’re brave, a homebirth for your first what if something goes wrong?’ We are about 30 minutes to the hospital.

I was low risk and had a very straight forward pregnancy and knew I would be happier and more comfortable at home. My waters went whilst in bed and my baby girl was born 4.5 hours later in the birthing pool without any pain relief I felt euphoric and so proud of myself and my husband.

This pregnancy

We had a miscarriage in November 2020 at 11 weeks, it truly broke my heart. Our daughter really got us through the toughest time, we focussed on trying to fall pregnant again and we luckily fell pregnant a few months later. I was incredibly nervous and almost didn’t want to get my hopes up like last time but was relieved after each scan showing a strong little heartbeat.

I struggled with recurrent urine infections so was very uncomfortable towards the end. I started taking raspberry leaf tablets from 37 weeks, and doing curb walking each day, listening to the Freya app positive affirmations, smelling clary sage oil and each night I would look at photos and videos of my daughter as a baby.

Labour

I went to bed the evening before my due date feeling a little fed up that I was still pregnant. I did my usual curb walking, listening to the positive affirmations and watching videos of my daughter as a baby. I fell to sleep around midnight but was woken up by a strong pain around 12.50. I rolled over and just waited and another one came a few minutes later. I got up and sat on the toilet and the contractions starting coming thick and fast so I woke my husband up at 1.20am and asked him to get the tens machine and also start timing the contractions. Straight away the Freya app said I was in established labour and my husband had been told to ring the delivery suite early on because of my fast labour last time.

I then swayed and leant over the sink and birthing pool. Things were getting quite intense and I found myself struggling to do the up breathing I was then sick in the toilet and wanted to get into the pool. My husband had set up the pool, set out the battery tea lights, had lavender oil burning and a spa music playlist on.

At 2.50 the midwife arrived and very shortly after then my waters broke as I climbed into the pool my body started to push, I really tried to take it slow and breathe his head out. I felt the ring of fire but was doing my down breathing and almost forgetting to take several breathes of the gas and air. The midwife then said on the next push you may feel a burn as you birth his head and I said, ‘oh it’s already out.’ She checked and said yes I can see him now, on the next contraction I reached down and picked up my baby boy slowly pulling him to my chest. After a little rub on the back he let out a little cry and looked up at me with his big eyes and I felt a huge sense of relief he was safe and finally in my arms. The second midwife then arrived.

We had some delayed cord clamping but then I was having fairly strong contractions for the placenta so I passed the baby to my husband for some skin to skin as I birthed the placenta in 2-3 pushes. I then climbed out of the pool and was checked over on my sofa (with shower curtains and towels covering it) I had a small tear which required stitching so I made sure I used the gas and air properly this time and didn’t feel a thing as I watched my husband cuddle up with our newborn he then was passed back for his first feed.

I couldn’t quite believe I was only in the pool for 9 minutes. I feel incredibly lucky to have had two very positive, straight forward births I have learnt so much from doing the course twice and have highly recommended it to friends and family that have then gone on to have positive births.

Good luck to all those that are about embark on this incredible journey. Our bodies are amazing!