My 'birth story' by Lindsay

My babies estimated delivery date was 15th April 2007. We had a planned for a home birth and had booked a great independent midwife called Virginia who I’d been seeing since about January. I had hired a birthing pool and a tens machine and had read and practiced hypnobirthing so I felt I’d done everything I could to ensure that we could have a gentle home birth.  

At about 6pm five days after the EDD I had “a show” and I knew things were about to get going so I called my mum who had planned to come down from up north for the birth. Virginia had told me to let her know if things started so I called her and she said unless things really speeded up that we’d speak again in the morning. My mum arrived at about 11.30pm and we had a cup of tea and started to get ready for bed. Just as I was getting to sleep at about 12.30am my waters broke and I thought oh my god here we go. I started to feel contractions but nothing very strong. The water just kept coming and coming though which was quite unpleasant and not something I realised could happen. I thought it would be just one gush and that would be it. At about 6am I started to worry as I hadn’t felt the baby move for ages so I called Virginia who said not to worry that as long as the water was clear there shouldn’t be a problem. She arrived about 15minutes later and I was relieved when she listened to the baby and said that heartbeat was fine. When she looked at the water though she noticed that it was green coloured. This can mean that the baby could possibly be in distress so she suggested that we went to hospital to check it out on a monitor.

When we got to the hospital we were seen immediately and hooked up to the monitor. The baby’s heart rate was fine but the doctor we saw said that he thought we should stay in the hospital and induce the birth as my waters had broken and the green stuff was present and I was at risk of infection. This was hospital policy and although the nurses we saw were lovely we decided that we wanted to go home and see how it went as I was very keen to try and do it naturally and had read so much about induction leading to epidural when means a much greater chance of caesarean. Virginia said she was happy with and that she’s give us a call towards the end of the day to see how I was getting on. We went back to the house and sat in the garden under a blanket with the tens machine. At about 7pm the contractions seemed to really speed up so we called Virginia who arrived again within about 15 minutes. She examined me and thought I was about 8cm so I got into the pool. Unfortunately after about and hour and half when nothing was happening she had another look and there was still quite a lot of cervix round the back so I got out of the pool and we carried on as before for about another 24 hours. I was getting quite tired by now and we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere so we decided to have some gas and air and a shot of pethedin to get me to sleep. This and a swig of cobra lager seemed to do the trick and at about 8pm with a bit of midwife manipulation in the upstairs bathroom I was about 9cm. Then followed about three hours of pushing because the baby had her arm up. I can’t say this was easy, it wasn’t but we got there in the end and just after midnight on 22nd April our lovely baby girl Theone was born. She’s been a dream of a baby. Everyone who meets her says how calm and chilled out she is and I really do think some of it is to do with the calm was she came into the world. Born in front a fire on a birthing stool in our dining room. Virginia was fantastic as was my mum who knew the hypobirthing book better than me. It really worked for us and I have some great memories of those few days. …… 

• My mum top to toe with me, Virginia and the cat
• Me walking through the living room at about 7cm and seeing everyone tucking into fish and chips, “do you want some love” said my step dad,
• My partner Ian realising that the towels had been in the aga for 24 hours when the baby did finally arrive.
• Virginia calling to my mum through an old tudor window in the bedroom into the kitchen. “boil some water Maureen” . My mum’s face was a picture.
• My mum flushing the placenta down the toilet!

 

I have extremely positive thoughts and feelings about the birth and am very grateful I had some fantastic support. I would definitely do it this way again.