Birth story - Yaki and baby Georgia

We had our first daughter in 2019 and while we had planned to give birth at a birth centre, we ended up in hospital due to premature rupture of membranes and labour not progressing fast enough. Once we were in hospital however, the cascade of interventions began and I was left physically and emotionally traumatised and suffered postpartum depression and anxiety for months after.

We found out we were pregnant again in July 2021, with EDD end of March 2022. We also knew in August that we were going to move as a family to another city in early 2022 for my husband’s job. We have no close friends or family here so I quickly made the decision to hire a birth and postpartum doula - the best decision I’ve made! I did a Havening therapy session to clear the birth trauma from before, and I also started doing the PBC from around week 20. With my doula and midwife’s support we decided to have a homebirth! It’s quite wild considering that my husband David is a hospital doctor and comes from a family of doctors… and that in our culture (we’re from Hong Kong originally although we’ve both been living in the UK and now New Zealand for over 10 years) homebirth is unheard of! We didn’t tell any of our friends and family in Hong Kong we were planning a homebirth, but with all the research I’d done I just knew it would be the right choice for us.

My pregnancy was quite straightforward but I did have a small bleed in the shower at week 29. I was admitted to hospital for monitoring but they couldn’t find the cause after everything done and sent us home - it seems like it’s not uncommon for bleeding to occur without a cause for healthy pregnancies.

We moved house end of January and fast forward to March we kept thinking this baby would arrive earlier than her big sister (who was born 39+2) so when she went over her due date, and decided to become an April baby, we were a bit surprised and tired!

I had been having pre-labour contractions for over a week so when I got home from my midwife appointment on Friday 1st April feeling a bit crampy, I ignored it like I did and went about my day, picking up my toddler from daycare, having dinner and going to bed as usual. I slept well that night and come Saturday morning, when David went out for his usual Saturday 2 hour long run, I stayed home with my toddler Romy who wanted to “do some dancing” with me. So I found some “labour inducing dances” on YouTube and we did lots of hip circles and figure of 8 lol together. I noticed that the cramps were back while we were dancing…!

We had plans to go to a cafe when David came back. Just before we went out I went to the loo and noticed that I’d lost some of my mucus plug. I’d never seen it with my first so it took me a few seconds to click what this snot looking thing was! I calmly told David what happened but tried not to be overexcited as I know things may not happen for another few days.

When we were at the cafe the cramps picked up and I was pretty sure I was in labour then as they felt quite different and were clearly coming and going in waves. I messaged my doula Lily to let her know things were starting and that I’d let her know when to come over. We left the cafe, got some cakes and groceries and headed home.

Back home I shut myself in our bedroom, pulled the curtains and just paced up and down listening to my hypnobirthing tracks and breathing through the contractions. They were about 1-1.5min long every 5mins. I messaged Lily and asked her to come over when she could, even though I was managing quite easily with just breathing.

When she arrived she helped pump up the birth pool and made the living room dark with the fairy lights. We thought we’d fill the pool later so the water wouldn’t get cold. She then suggested that I tried putting the TENS on, labouring on the Swiss ball and the toilet. At one point she said let’s go out for a walk and I thought that’d be a great idea to catch some late afternoon sun. David stayed and made dinner for Romy. I should mention that David is our chef at home - I don’t cook lol.

We were out for a 15min-ish walk but it felt like an hour..! Contractions intensified and became much more frequent and on the way back I had to stop every few metres to breathe..! The TENS was a great distraction and I also used visualisations to get through them.

After going just up and down the street and barely round the block, we went home and David had made me some dumplings which were too hot to eat. I had two strong contractions and felt slightly pushy but was in complete denial that I was in transition. I then said I’d go into the shower for some pain relief. Lily and David were starting to connect the hose to fill the pool. Once I was in the shower I was on all fours and couldn’t get up..! Contractions were 10 times stronger and my body suddenly just started pushing. I panicked and started growling. David popped in and asked “should I call the midwife?” And I screamed “YES!!!”. While he’s calling I had another big contraction and my waters went. Lily rushed in and I said “the baby’s coming”. She asked David to put our midwife on speaker and told my midwife I was feeling the urge to push, while rubbing my back and reassuring me to trust my body and go with it. Poor Lily she’s soaked head to toe! The next contraction I felt the baby crowning and Lily reminded me to direct the energy downwards and I gave a few deep, low growls (which David and I laugh about now) and the head was out! At this point I should mention that David is a doctor training to be a gastroenterologist… and with all this drama going on he was calmly and properly washing his hands getting ready to catch the baby, and in a super chilled tone telling the midwife on the phone “oh yeah I see the whole head” when I was thinking “what the heck are you still doing come over NOW!!!”. The whole body was out in the next contraction and David caught her! She was crying right away and it was such a relief! He and Lily passed baby to the front to me but the cord was so short I couldn’t bring her to my chest. I just looked down at her in awe and said hi! My midwife was 2 minutes away lol.

I delivered the placenta naturally in the toilet and was so glad that all was well as I had PPH with my first birth. Also had a first degree tear (didn’t need stitches but midwife gave me two with my consent to help with a faster recovery) and a few grazes.

So I didn’t get to labour in the dreamy pool lol but I wouldn’t change a thing about how it went. This definitely was a very empowering redemptive birthing experience for me!

Thank you all of you for sharing your stories, I’ve absolutely loved reading them! All the best to the mamas out there yet to give birth!

Photos by @lilythedoula