We didn't plan for a homebirth, but that wasn't because we feared the idea. When we found out I was pregnant, we actually had no home address. We were living on a boat with our first child. My first was born in a maternity hospital naturally without epidural, induction or any interventions. The story about my first provides some context for this second one.
I started my first pregnancy with a lot of fear around labour, not knowing what to expect & fearing surgery too, so I came across hypnobirthing & educated myself on the positive & negative hormonal cycles that can exist in labour. To train myself to get on that cycle of calm-love-endorphins (instead of fear-adrenaline-pain), I used all the hypnobirthing practices, affirmations, visualisations, breathing techniques as well as watching many positive natural births online. I also completely avoided tearing by doing regular perineum massage, & having a pre agreed communication with my midwife about helping me to slow down during that "ring of fire" so I'd have enough time to really stretch. So to summarise, my first delivery was incredible & I had a euphoric experience I was incredibly grateful for. 11 hours from early labour to delivery. If it weren't for not living in a house anymore by the time of the 2nd pregnancy, we would have been pretty confident in planning a homebirth.
Several months into my 2nd pregnancy after finances fell into place we found ourselves a house, but there wasn't time to rearrange for a homebirth. Last week I woke up to contractions at 36+6 according to the dates decided by the ultrasound dating scan.
Before I forget to mention, I had been having recurring fever since the night before & my daughter was sent to my mother's with a stomach bug. I hadn't eaten all day & had heard from 5 other family members who were recovering from a stomach bug. It's possible the bug sent me into early labour, however there was one other thing. Oxytocin & feeling safe... For the hours before I went to bed, @celtia looked after me while I was feverish. When I went to bed we had a very loving kiss & embrace. This is relevant because of how short I perceive my labour was (I'm not entirely sure when it started).
When I woke I didn't even check the time because I was sure they were false contractions & was so looking forward to getting into that safe zone of 37 weeks. So I didn't want to believe it was starting. But I know it was after midnight. At 1am I told @celtia I'm in early labour & since I could no longer sleep through it he calmly ran me a bath & we started timing them together. Similar to the first time during early labour they were just 30 seconds but only a few minutes apart. At around 2am they were 50 seconds long & I told @celtia we should plan to leave in an hour. We had no hospital bags prepared yet, so he started preparing the car with what he could think of without disturbing me in my process - but obviously this was not his domain, I hadn't printed out the checklist for him, still he didn't let that become something for me to stress about. I had gotten out of the bath & had been labouring on the bed as it got more intense and I had been drying off & dressing in between contractions (not very effectively). @celtia helped find me clothes & put them on me & at 3am just as we were ready to go, my water broke. This felt very similar to my first experience as this was when we went to the car, drove to the hospital & found out I was 7cm. This time though, as we walked downstairs to go to the car I suddenly felt a very serious urge for a bowel movement.
I told @celtia quite frantically that I needed to take a sh***, & he calmly reassured me that everything is fine. On the final step down the stairs I told him the baby is coming, and again, he reassured me saying we have time. We went into the downstairs toilet & I pulled my trousers down in front of the toilet but didn't sit down. I put my hand under myself to check if it really was a bowel movement coming, but felt my baby boys head crowning instead. I told @celtia, he is coming, I can feel him, you need to catch him & he continued to try to reassure me. Very abruptly, my baby's head emerged and I kept my hand under insisting my partner help catch the baby, which is when he finally & extremely suddenly switched gears.
He took a split second to call 999, put the phone on speaker & drop it on the floor before putting his hands below me as our baby's body emerged into our 4 hands. He helped get him to my chest, opening the buttons on my shirt while answering to emergency services. That phone call was made at 3.10am, just a second before our baby boy was born.
I found myself suddenly sitting on the toilet, with a very calm breathing baby cradled skin to skin on my abdomen & with an ambulance on the way. @celtia was taking all the advice given on the call, apart from the advice to use a string to clamp the cord, because I asked him not to and told emergency services we would wait for the ambulance to do that. That was really because I wanted delayed cord clamping. My placenta came just as we realised everything was under control. @celtia put that into a towel in a pot.
At 3.25am the ambulance arrived. They clamped the cord for us & @celtia cut it. They let me remain skin to skin as they helped me onto a stretcher. They were really warm people and excited for us. The story starts to shift a little in the hospital, but this is how our homebirth story ends. Long story short, he did not go to NICU or experience any intervention due to being 1 day pre-term. Though there was some pushback.
@celtia refused a homebirth for our first. He was open to the idea of a midwife in our home after our first went so well, but never expected to be the one to catch our baby. He thought all he had to do was keep me calm and be on my side about any interventions I didn't want. He agreed he'd advocate for me when I'm in that state of vulnerability. He was my doula. Now that it's over, he shared with me that he never wants anybody else to deliver our babies again. Our hands held him first.
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