my home birth in northumberland

Four years ago when I gave birth to my first baby, I didn’t do ANY preparation. None. Zero. I thought that I would leave it all up to chance, and that it would be all alright on the night. I lived to regret that. That birth experience wasn’t enjoyable. Not for me or my husband. I had a lot of interventions and I didn’t feel in control at all. When I discovered that I was pregnant with my second baby, I declared that I wasn’t going to let that ghastly experience happen again. So I invested in a hypnobirthing course. I devoured every book, youtube video and blog on positive birth stories that I could find. I practised my hypnobirthing every day and I wrote a detailed birth plan. Our plan was to have a home birth. I was confident and determined.

The weeks leading up to the birth, I had a few ‘false starts’. These were usually in the evenings, I’d have a few hours of surges and think ‘this is it’, but then they’d trickle off again. My “due date” came and went. This surprised me as my son had arrived exactly on his due date.

So when at 4 o’clock in the morning on day 40+5 I started to get surges again, I didn’t really think anything of it. I fully expected that this was just going to be another false start. But they felt different this time, they were coming consistently every 20 minutes. By 6.30am I was fairly convinced that this was the real event. I woke up my husband and said:

“Don’t panic, but I think we’ll be meeting our baby today.” Husband then proceeded to hurry downstairs and start hoovering, tidying up and getting our son ready for nursery in a most definite “non-panicky” way.

I tried to act as normal as possible until my son was packed off to nursery. Once he was gone and the house was quiet, my surges started to ramp up. I lit my aromatherapy candles, put my ear buds in and alternated between bouncing on the yoga ball and walking around the garden while husband blew up the birth pool and prepared the room. I was easily breathing through my surges and stayed relaxed and confident to the point where I was still not entirely convinced that I was in labour! At around 12 my Mother In Law picked up my son from nursery, and they spent a few hours just pottering around in the garden together.

At around 12.30 I thought I should probably call the midwife team to let them know I was in labour. I told them I didn’t think I was very close to giving birth and to take their time. They arrived around 2pm. Two lovely NHS midwives from the Hillcrest unit in Alnwick. I consented to a vaginal examination (in my birth plan I had previously written that I didn’t want VE’s so I honestly don’t know why in that moment I said yes) and discovered that I was 5cm dilated. Meanwhile, husband was busy filling the birth pool. We have a very old house with an emersion heater so it took two full tanks of hot water and several pans boiled on the stove to get it deep enough. He made sure the fire was well stoked, so that our living room was warm and cosy to bring our baby into the world.

Around 3pm I got in the birth pool and was very glad for the warm water. The relief was amazing. I was still happily breathing through my surges, sipping water and munching on gummy bears. Between surges I was able to chat quite happily. My midwives sat in the corner like quiet little church mice, respecting my space.

At around 3.45 I went into transition. I experienced one very long surge that I struggled to breathe through and quickly asked my husband to come over so that I could hold his hand. One of the midwives grabbed my phone and started taking literally hundreds of pictures, for which I am so grateful. After that, my body told me I needed to be on my knees so I turned round and leant over the side of the pool. I very suddenly felt my baby’s head in my vagina pushing against the entrance. I let out a shocked sort of yell because it happened so quickly. I’d envisioned her descending gracefully into the birth canal, but no, it literally felt like she fell out of my womb and into my vagina.

With the next surge, my body pushed. I had no control over it. My body pushed my baby out with very little input from me. With one surge, out came her head. And with the next surge, out came her body. I caught her with my own two hands and brought her up out of the water and onto my chest. I was in a state of pure disbelief that it had happened that quickly and that…simply. My perfect baby girl was here and thanks to my hypnobirthing course, I had the confidence and the knowledge to do it all myself in my own home exactly as I wanted.

We spent the next half an hour or so snuggling in the birth pool, lapping up the uninterrupted skin to skin. That beautiful golden time was just amazing. My Mother in Law and son came in to meet baby Annabelle. My son requested to get in the pool with us, so we have some lovely photos of us three in the pool together, him meeting his sister gently for the first time. He gave her lots of hugs and kisses. Once the cord had turned white, the midwife cut it for us and I got out carefully to go and sit on the sofa. On the sofa, Annabelle latched on like a pro and started off some more surges which got the placenta out. The midwife let me look at the placenta and showed me all the bits. If you get a chance to look at your placenta, do! They’re so interesting!

After determining that I didn’t need any stitches (I had one tiny graze, nothing to write home about), the midwives had a cup of tea while they filled in their paperwork, then they left. They had been at our house for a total of 3 hours…and we were a brand new family of 4. Husband pottered around pumping out the birth pool and packing it away. This was just as an empowering experience for him as well as me. He felt like he had a purpose this time, in his own territory.

This was such a different experience to my first birth which left me feeling powerless and traumatised. This birth left me feeling empowered and ecstatic, like I was back in touch with a wild version of myself.

And do you know the biggest difference between my hospital birth and my home birth? My first food after giving birth at home was a delicious victoria sponge which my son and Mother in Law were baking while I was getting cleaned up. One thousand times better than the cold slice of toast and cup of tea you get in hospital.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my home birth. If you’re on the fence (particularly if you’re thinking about having a home birth in Northumberland) I really cannot recommend it enough!

All my love

Ellie

xxx