Emily’s Birth story (LMU)
After attempting a home birth with my first baby I always knew I would like to try again with my second. As my pregnancy progressed I felt utterly desperate to birth my baby at home. Again, I planned a home water birth.
My labour started on Wednesday evening around 7pm after a membrane sweep earlier that day at T+6. Things started slow and mild, but consistent. I put our 3 year old to bed and my partner set up our pool. I laboured in the living room mainly using a birthing ball and using the comb. I found the comb a brilliant addition to my comping mechanisms and it didn’t leave my hand!
We contacted the homebirth team around midnight and our midwife came out to us. By then things were strong and regular. Our second midwife came to join.
I entered the pool and things remained strong. I felt so excited about finally meeting our baby and what was to come.
Throughout the night my contractions started to settle. I asked for an examination and was found to be 2-3cm. From here I stayed out of the pool and our midwives supported me to use a number of biomechanics techniques to improve my baby’s position and hopefully bring back the contractions. At 06:30 they left again as things had really slowed down and I tried to sleep.
By 10:30 the contractions were back again and increasing in frequency. We asked for the midwives to return again around lunch time. I started using the gas and air and re-entered the pool. Again, feeling positive and excited at the thought of welcoming out baby at home and very vocal (I’ve learnt this is one of my coping techniques in labour!). This time the contractions stayed. We used more comfort techniques (hip squeeze). I asked for an examination around 5pm as I was really started to struggle and was found to be 4cm and our baby OP. Our midwives were amazing at reminding me about how quickly labour can change and my options going forward.
Over the next hourish I considered my options (with lots of tears!) and decided I’d like to transfer to hospital. I was exhausted as we approached 24 hours in labour and really felt like we’d tried everything at home with little change and our baby appeared malpositioned.
At handover our new midwife arrived to take over our care and transfer us in. The ambulance transfer was straight forward, though uncomfortable.
We arrived at the Lotus Midwifery Led Unit (LMU) and I had some morphine and used one of the hospital TENS machines. This allowed me some rest and worked really well for me.
I accepted another examination and was found to be 4cm again, so I opted to have my waters broken. There was meconium so I had CTG monitoring from there. (A small bit of reassurance too that our birth ‘should’ have been in hospital and glad to not be transferring with this added intensity). I remained mobile between standing, side lying and kneeling.
Not long after this I started to feel the urge to push, and transition started to hit. Between requesting an epidural, my midwife was amazing at reminding me about transition and the purple line she could see meaning our baby was finally on her way. My baby had been OP all the way through (again!) but rotated while pushing.
The pushing stage was short and our little girl was born at 23:21 surrounded by love and the most incredible reassurance from our midwives. She was born on a Thursday just like her big sister.
We completed our baby’s observations for the meconium and were back home for midday. I feel really happy with the decisions we made and can only describe our birth experience as positive. We had the most incredible team of midwives care for us throughout our labour and I am so thankful for them.
