_edited.png)
Here Sian's wonderful story of her 99% home birth!
"If you asked me a year ago how I planned to give birth, I would’ve told you that I would 100% have an epidural/all the pain relief & be in hospital & that I did not want to be in water. Oh how things changed by 20 weeks I had decided I wanted a water birth in a MLU, and by 34 weeks I changed this to a water birth at home being my first choice.
The more I learned about birth, my body & the beautiful process, the more I trusted I could do this and the less I feared. I began to trust that my body was designed to birth my child & I wanted to give myself the best chance I could of letting it plus I did sooo much research and the stats in favour of home birth made it a no brainer for me in the end.
The Build up
Around 41 weeks I started getting very anxious for baby to arrive. I knew he’d come when he was ready and that my EDD wasn’t accurate, but the conversations about sweeps & inductions were coming thick and fast. I was very keen to decline all interventions unless baby was at risk as I wanted to give my body a chance to progress naturally. I would never have dreamt of advocating for this without doing the birth prep I had. I had multiple meetings & appts scheduled in from 41+5 so consultants could chat to me about my decisions, provide extra monitoring etc . I really felt too tired for the fight at this point so my prayer was that baby would come by 41+4 before everything kicked off… and my prayer was answered.
I tried all the labour inducing things you can.. we had an ‘Oxytocin day’ at 41 weeks where my husband and I did every lovely thing I wanted to do. It was such a special day just us. For the next few days my life consisted of short walks, long naps & dancing to my bangin’ nostalgic 90s playlist I made. I used clary sage oil on my ankles, tried to relax, and then finally things started on Monday (41+2).
Labour
Monday day nothing but lost my mucus plug.
Monday night surges every 10 minutes for about 5 hours.
Died down Tuesday day so I rested all morning then cleaned the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom, the back door etc and then we played board games and watched our fav comedian.
Things started again Tuesday night around 9pm regular every 10 mins
Wednesday called midwives to ask how long early labour is before you get help she said if nothing happens by 9pm Weds (24hrs) to come get checked
She said this was early labour now and told me off for not having any paracetamol and to get in the bath and eat something. So I force fed myself a bagel & told Simon to come home from work as I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in and out of the bath alone.
The bath was great - Simon set it up dark with my chill playlist & twinkly candles and poured warm water over my back & did light touch massage & spoke affirmations, scriptures and prayers over me. I got out after a while as surges were picking up and I wanted to be near my bed.
We stuck on Disney movies and I used the tens machine finally which I initially refused to put on higher than 1 or 2 as I was saving it for ‘real’ labour. I sat on my ball leaning over cushions stacked on the bed. We did my up breathing along with Freya app and I started upping the tens and Simon would squeeze my hips / rub my back during a surge.
My waters started to leak soon after so we called the midwife to come out especially as surges were nearly 3 in 10 etc. This was about 3:30 & the midwife headed over & was with us by 4:30ish.
When she arrived I consented to one initial cervical check (I’d requested to not be told my dilation number unless I was over 6cm as I wanted to avoid getting disheartened) I took gas and air for this check & I told her I’m sure I’m only about 2cm… turns out I was over 7cm!
I felt so proud I’d laboured in my bedroom with Disney movies, aromatherapy, 2 paracetamol & the tens machine! I finally gave myself ‘permission’ to officially be in labour. And I never handed the gas & air back!
I started getting in the zone now:
Movie off, music on. I sat on the ball leaning over bed and stood/squatted for every surge. Vomited once but peppermint oil helped keep nausea at bay.
It was now nearing the end of midwife’s shift with no others coming on for home births so we asked to be transferred in at this point to birth centre as I just wanted to get there and get settled in a calm way.
However after making call, paramedics said they might be 6 hrs to transfer me so we set up the pool ready for a home birth with just 1 midwife! I was definitely pushing more at this point and regularly lost waters feeling like I was pushing my waters out with surges… one in particular had a weird pop/gush and that was them all gone!
Got in the pool about 8:30. The warmth was great and I kept up the gas & air. Paramedics ended up arriving soon after at 9ish said they could only stay 30 mins as there were heaps of emergencies. I was pushing & didn’t want to move! But home became pressured and our midwife was already over her shift so tired & less alert, so we decided to go ahead with the transfer as we wanted to have 2 fresh midwives in the birth centre.
I remember feeling so so angry. But also fiercely determined to get there and deliver my baby peacefully.
Ambulance ride was not fun, I refused to lie down so knelt over the back of the bed while my midwife supported me & Simon drove behind. Thankfully I was barely there 2 mins without Simon & they had the pool ready for me in a dark twinkly room with my music on right away.
They asked if I’d hop on the bed for a VE to see how far along I was to which I yelled "ABSOLUTELY NOT. NO FLIPPING WAY GET ME IN THE POOL" they obliged very quickly.
My pushing was full force now, I didn’t actively do down breathing but the gas & air made me control my breathing and I knelt over the side of the pool and just roared (and mooed) my baby down the birth canal, feeling his head coming down. I was advised to try a few pushes without gas & air which really worked - I was a bit frustrated at this point, I needed him out! But I felt no pain in the pushing - just intensity and pressure! I just let my body do what it needed to… until the very end where I could feel his head nearly out and I was like ‘I REFUSE to let him slide back up again!’ . Midwives said I did an almighty push and out came his head (what relief!!) followed by the body with the next push which was much easier.
Just 30 mins or so of properly pushing after arriving at the birth centre, I was pulling our baby boy through the water and calmly up onto my chest. He let out a calm little cry.
I saw that he had beautiful ginger hair (the same as my late Mum) and wept with joy saying that he was a gift from heaven such a special moment. We cuddled in the pool, dad cut the cord when it went white & then I decided to get out to birth the placenta which came naturally with a bit of a push within about 15 mins! After a little bit, Dad did skin to skin while I got checked over & then sadly I got transferred to theatre for stitches so ‘golden hour’ was finished just with Daddy.
The birth was so positive and I’m so proud of myself and so thankful for the hypnobirthing prep that we did. The transfer in from home was a blip but it was the right decision for us in the end.
Having to go to theatre for surgery after & dealing with my recovery has been the toughest part (plus breastfeeding!). I’ve blamed myself for not breathing baby out slowly at the end.. but I’m starting to trust that I followed my maternal instinct and I just needed to get him out to let my exhausted body rest! So I’m trying to forgive myself for it, also knowing that it happens to sooo many people and some people are just more susceptible to tears. Would I still have torn at home?! Not sure.. but using hypnobirthing tools post partum as well is helping me to accept what happened and focus on the positives!
We gotta be kind to ourselves - women & our bodies are incredible!"
Sian and her partner both came along to my Hypnobirthing Essentials session earlier this year. If you are interested in Hypnobirthing email me for a chat, or book my September group course now!
Comments