Birth story - Stevie and baby Tobias

I only bought the digital pack at 36 weeks and had never considered a home birth until I watched the videos. It made so much sense to me & helped me to reflect on my first birth to see where it could have been better (horrible journey to hospital/waiting to get in the ML birth centre). So with 4 weeks to go, I switched to the home birth midwife team & started organising.

Skip to due date, I had a slight show & surges over night, but they never built or became regular. The next day they started up again at 6.30pm, and I decided to go to bed at 8.30pm to try & rest between. I wasn’t sure if this was it, or another long night leading to nothing. By 10.30pm I felt the surges were too intense to be lying down & went downstairs to bounce on my ball & tell the husband this could be it. We inflated the pool & I put on ‘Step Brothers’ to keep positive & relaxed. I called the midwife at 11pm & began filling the pool. She said to call back when surges were 5mins apart. At this point I would say I still wasn’t 100% sure that this was the real deal as I was coping well & up-breathing through each surge.

By midnight they were 5mins apart & the midwife was on her way. We put on the affirmations and I got in the pool at 12.45, after some checks by the midwife & felt instant relief in the warm water. However, the first surge in the water felt completely different. It was so intense & I began to have a little wobble. I told the midwife & she was so supportive & encouraged me to listen to my body. With the next surge I felt my body pushing, so I went with it. I have to say, I was quite loud at this point, and panicked I would wake up my toddler! But with 3 more surges the head was born and at 1.22am my baby swam into my arms!! It was incredible! Delayed cord clamping, natural placenta delivery, skin to skin and breast fed straight away.

A quick & calm birth at home & all thanks to the digital pack, without which I wouldn’t have even considered birthing at home. We were all in bed asleep by 4am! My eldest slept through the whole thing & woke up to a brand new baby brother. I couldn’t recommend it enough - thank you 😊