Positive Birth Story: Second time mum’s homebirth

I had a fabulous home birth experience on 24th of August 2017 🙂 The previous day I made the decision to have a sweep which happened at 4.30pm at 40+5 (was only 1/2cm and cervix was still high up and hard to reach), had on and off twinges from fairly soon after that until about midnight when I got into bed and they became regular, I still thought they were just pains caused by the sweep and didn't expect them to come to anything. Sat on my ball watching fight club until 2am when I got in the shower. Stayed there until 4am when it wasn't really helping so much anymore and I felt restless. I got out and asked Dez to help me put my tens machine on, he thought we should call the midwife but despite having contractions every 3 mins for over an hour, I didn’t know if this was it and didn’t want to waste their time 😂 Dez kept saying he thought we should so he called the midwives at 4.35am and she arrived at 4.50am. She took my temperature and blood pressure and listened into baby and as I swayed on my ball and breathed through contractions I said to her ‘so do you think this is it then?’, she looked at me funny and said she thought it was 😂 Dez started setting up the pool and my mum arrived shortly after 5am. I was on my ball with my tens machine managing well (aside from throwing up once which left me feeling incredible 😂) until just before 6am when I asked for gas and air and got in the pool just after 6am which was like getting into a lovely warm bath and I was able to sit back and relax). Midwife's changed shifts about 7amish (who knows?) and my one lovely midwife was swapped for two lovely midwives. Soon after that was when I started to feel the first bit of genuine pain I’d felt through the whole thing. In my head I was thinking ‘either my baby is coming right now and that means I’ve totally nailed this or we’re a while off yet and I cannot do this!’ 😂, turns out that was my transition phase and my body started to push! Ezekiel was born at 7.37am. The midwives were all fabulous and were hands off just as I wanted. No vaginal exams, no coached pushing and nobody touched my son but me. I moved through from the pool in the dining room to the sofa in the living room where we waited for the placenta while he fed and Orla (2 years 9 months at the time) came downstairs to meet her brother after being asleep in bed the whole time. I had the injection to deliver the placenta as I was bored of waiting and wanted to get dressed and chill 😂 the midwives went through to the dining room to do paperwork and left us to it and then they left around 9.30-10am. I stayed in the lounge for most of the day with my mum and Dez looking after Orla and bringing me food and drinks. By the time I went into the dining room later everything was packed away as if it never happened! In terms of my body, i had no tears and felt totally fine by teatime! I would recommend a home birth to anyone 💜 our Northampton home birth team are award winning and it’s been proven that for first time mothers a home birth is AS safe as hospital and for second time or more mothers it is SAFER than hospital for low risk mamas. Not to mention the fact that   (in this area) all your antenatal appointments are held at home which is AMAZING with other kids to think about 😂 the only thing I will warn is that you might have such a good time that you wonder if you could perhaps just do it again and again? 

Thankyou so much to Alix for sharing her story. You can follow Alix’s motherhood journey www.instagram.com/_andthebattlebegun_