Positive Birth Story: First Baby Home Water Birth #birthedonlockdown
Positive Birth Story, 1st Baby, Home Water Birth on lockdown
At the time of positing, we are currently on lock down as the COVID-19 Pandemic sweeps the world. This has meant we have seen some changes to the way our maternity systems are operating, and natural it’s left lots of women feeling a little anxious and unsure of what to expect. But here’s the thing, the way we give birth still works in exactly the same way! And the opportunity for truly positive birth experiences is still there.
Our new campaign #birthedonlockdown aims to share these stories with you so you go forward into your birth feeling reassured, confident and ready to have the positive experience you deserve.
Over to Lucy for her story…
On the 2nd May I gave birth to my baby in the middle of the Coronavirus lockdown.
As my due date approached, I realised the likelihood of getting the peaceful homebirth that we’d been planning on for so many months was getting less and less, as home births up and down the country were cancelled. My mum would no longer be able to be there as my secondary birth partner, my husband wouldn’t be able to be with me in hospital if I had to go in. We tried to be realistic in terms of what may happen, but also tried to remain positive that all would be ok.
But as I approached my due date, Sheffield continued to support home births. So we picked up the birth pool, we got the living room ready. I tried to bear in mind that it may all go unused, but at the same time allowed myself to entertain the fact that we may be some of the lucky ones.
At the start of my pregnancy I discovered hypnobirthing through Birth-Ed - and suddenly everything I ever thought I knew about birth was turned on its head.
I did the online course and read every post on Instagram, read every positive birth story I could get my hands on and watched positive birth videos on Youtube. Thank goodness for these women who openly share their experiences!
The more I read the more it made sense - it explained what happens to your body in pregnancy and birth, the importance of certain hormones, how you can be as prepared as possible both physically and mentally. And above all, how not to fear birth. By understanding every element of what would happen to my body, and conversely what scenarios can lead to the 'scary' interventions we so often hear about in birth horror stories, I found that all my fears about childbirth evaporated and instead I was almost looking forward to going through this experience. I was now enthralled by the idea that birth is not this horrific event that so many women simply must bear. That it is not just one day, lain on a hospital bed that you just have to ‘get through’. That a ‘healthy baby’ is not the ‘only thing that matters’.
Six days before my due date I had mild period pain-type cramps throughout the day, but they were consistent and did not peak and trough - I assumed it was my body gearing up for labour in the coming week or so.
But at 1am the next morning, I woke up to a sharp sensation that I knew immediately was labour.
I lay in bed for half an hour before heading downstairs to make the final preparations in the living room to turn it into our little birth ‘den’.
I figured Tom might as well get as much rest as possible while I could handle the sensations, so I laboured for about four hours, just breathing through the contractions. The time went very fast and I spent almost all of it on all fours leant on my birth ball. By 5am they were 2 minutes apart and I felt like it would be nice to have some support, so I went and woke up Tom who had to watch me have a couple of contractions before he really believed it was happening!
He called the hospital who said to call back when I felt things had ‘gone up a gear’. I wasn’t sure what they meant by this at the time, but sure enough at 7am I knew exactly what they meant, and within half an hour the community midwife was with us.
I agreed to be examined which showed I was already 6cm, which I was pretty pleased with considering I’d only been at it a few hours. I had been prepared for the long haul! My waters broke gradually with each contraction, as they changed to an incredibly powerful bearing down sensation and I knew I was in the second stage.
The pool took a little longer to fill than expected, with Tom having to run up and down the stairs with pans of water. By the time I got in I was well and truly in the second stage and in the 'birth zone', and wondering if the noises I could hear were really coming out of me. But they were so effective! I could feel my baby coming lower and lower with every contraction.
One of the most outstanding things that I achieved through hypnobirthing in labour was that I genuinely did not feel scared or overwhelmed at any point. To me it felt not like something I was ‘doing’ but something that was happening to my body that I just had to facilitate. So I just went with every urge and every surge, I didn’t fight anything, question anything, fear anything. Having learnt all that I had, I understood what was happening at each stage of labour and so none of it was daunting. As a result, I felt the enormous power of what my body was doing - I didn’t have to ‘try’ to give birth, I just had to let it happen. Somehow I managed the entire labour with barely any pain relief; I used a tens machine up until the pool, but found I didn’t even want gas and air. I was absolutely hooked on my breathing and incredibly that was enough. The only bit that actually ‘hurt’ was when the head was born, but knowing our baby was basically here meant that the pain was more than bearable. I’d recommend the pool to anyone - the freedom it gives you to put your body where it needs to be takes so much of the discomfort away.
At 10:28am, about 9 hours from when I first woke up to my contractions, our baby was born. I pulled her up from between my legs and she cried immediately. I realised after a minute or so that I didn’t even know what gender our baby was! Tom cried ‘it’s a girl!’ as we both sobbed with happiness and I have genuinely never felt such euphoria as in that moment. I got out of the pool and lay on the sofa with our baby girl in my arms, and had a physiological third stage in just ten minutes. Tom cut the cord and we had skin to skin and our first feed.
The midwife thought there may still be a clot or some membranes left behind, and wanted me to go into hospital to get it checked. I was happy to go with their recommendation - I'd had our dream birth at home and had no problem going in to check everything was ok. We were back home in the afternoon, after discovering everything was totally fine with both mum and baby.
Despite everything that has been going on we had somehow achieved a birth experience that exceeded my wildest dreams. A natural birth, at home, in water, that left me feeling not just relieved and lucky and over the moon, but also totally awestruck by what women’s bodies can achieve if we just trust that they know what to do. I have never felt so powerful and a week later it’s still all I see when I close my eyes. I thought flashbacks of labour would be traumatic, but they make me so happy, empowered and almost a little disappointed that the incredible experience is over.
I know many women are not as lucky but I wanted to share that birth can be empowering and incredible and the most positive experience you’ll ever have. I’ll never forget it.
Want to feel prepared for a positive birth like Lucy did? Why not join us for the birth-ed® Online Hypnobirthing & Antenatal course too?
