Evie May Greenwood was born at home on Tuesday 23 rd August 2005 at 4.21am weighing 7 pounds 2 ounces.

I have felt broody since I was about 14 but my career meant that I needed to wait a while before starting a family. I am now 30 and needless to say, I was over the moon when I found out I was pregnant one month after I got married to my husband, Mark (we decided not to hang around!)

It was my mum who first told me about independent midwives. I found out about the independent midwives association and was directed to Virginia and Kay’s website. I met with Virginia very early on in my pregnancy and booked her the day after meeting her! Mark and I really liked the idea of getting to know one midwife who we could trust and who we knew would be with us throughout the pregnancy and at the birth. We had not ever considered having a home birth before meeting Virginia but once she told us more about it and showed us the research about home births, we decided to go ahead and plan a birth at home. Despite working in a hospital, I felt that a home birth would be right for me, Mark and our baby. Mark and I felt slightly disillusioned by hospital births after speaking to friends who had experienced very traumatic births in hospital. Although I knew that labour would be hard work and painful, I wanted it to be a positive and happy experience. Therefore, I wanted to choose a place to have the baby where we would feel safe and in control. As Mark and I are both home lovers we felt that we would be more relaxed at home.

Our families were very supportive of our decision to have a home birth. We had various reactions from other people. Generally, people appeared surprised. Mark and I were often told how brave we were, particularly as it was our first baby. Some people asked whether we were concerned about the “risks” and what we would do if we needed an emergency caesarean. Talking to Virginia was always so reassuring. In the end, Mark and I were quoting all the research to other people about how safe home births are!

Evie was due on 12 th August 2005. I had always expected that she would arrive early as my sister’s three children all arrived one or two weeks early. However, Evie obviously wasn’t ready and the due date came and went and my spirits dipped as I was desperate for her to arrive! What made it worse was that I was having lots of “trial labours” where I would experience strong period pains and back pains that would come and go but then drift off. So I was constantly thinking “Is this it?” as I was not quite sure what to expect. I had started to have funny dreams that I would always be pregnant – one night I dreamt that I gave birth to a 5 year old who was fully dressed in her school uniform! In the dream, I was thinking that she was too big to breast feed and that it would not be easy to hold her in one arm as shown in my NCT class! Virginia told me that I would know when I was really in labour and she was right!

At 41 weeks, Virginia and I discussed the issue of induction and she gave me some literature to read. I had two sweeps to try and stimulate labour to begin. I had the second sweep at 3pm on Monday 22 nd August. By 4pm I was having definite contractions and phoned Mark at work to tell him that I didn’t think he would be in work the next day. The contractions had a clear start and end, which is what felt so different from the pains I had experienced before. I phoned Virginia at 6pm to let her know that I was in the early stages of labour. She was really excited, which made me feel excited too that I was actually going to have my baby!

My mum came over to our house at about 7pm. My mum and I are very close and I wanted her to be with me and Mark when I had the baby. I phoned Virginia again at 8pm and she asked whether I could walk around in between contractions and whether I could talk during contractions. The fact that I could meant that she had time to get some sleep before coming over. By 10pm the contractions were feeling much stronger and more painful. I got into the pool that was set up in the sitting room. It felt lovely to get into the warm water at that stage. During the contractions, I remember gripping the handle of the French windows as if that would somehow act as some kind of pain relief! I tried deep and controlled breathing. My mum massaged my back, which also helped. By this point Mark phoned Virginia to tell her that I wanted to her to come over. I remember asking every 5 minutes when she would be there!

Virginia arrived at 11.30pm when I was in strong labour. By this point, I certainly wasn’t able to talk during contractions! Soon after midnight, I wanted to get out of the pool. I found it difficult to work out where I wanted to be so I kept moving from the downstairs loo to the lounge. I found the best positions for me were leaning forward and squatting. When I started to feel the urge to push, Virginia examined me to find out how far dilated I was. I was 9cm dilated and very nearly ready to start pushing. I didn’t notice when I was in transition stage and passing from the first to second stage of labour seemed to progress very naturally.

My second stage of labour lasted just under 3 hours, which was exhausting! I am aware that if I had been in hospital I would probably have had some kind of intervention such as forceps or ventouse as the policy tends to be for women to not push longer that around and hour and a half. Virginia had shown me the research to indicate that there is no need to intervene in second stage unless mother or baby is not coping. She was monitoring both my blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate and we were both fine. It turns out that the baby had turned round during labour and her head was coming out sideways, which is why it took a long time to push her out.

In the end, I moved into the downstairs loo to push Evie out. It doesn’t sound the most romantic of places but I felt really comfortable there! I was leaning on Mark and my mum was in front of me. Virginia got Mark to swap places with my mum so that he could catch Evie when she came out. When Evie’s head came out, she opened her eyes and looked around. And with another push, her shoulders and body followed. Mark caught her in his hands, which is a moment he will never forget. I felt completely shell-shocked at first but it felt wonderful to see her and hold her. To be in my own home with the most important people with me was the most fantastic feeling.

The third stage of labour took longer than expected. I had hoped to have a natural third stage but after 2 hours the placenta had still not come out so I opted to have the injection and it was delivered with no complications. I then got into a bubble bath with Evie, which felt lovely.