My second birth with William was a wonderful homebirth.
After a week or so of braxton hicks and some stretch and sweeps from my private midwife, I was 6cm when she checked me Thursday morning when I was 41 + 4. After the check my husband and I went to Bunnings to get some firewood and the cramps began to get a bit stronger. My mother in law dropped our daughter home after she had been away for two nights of sleepovers that had been planned for when we thought I would birth. Since nothing had happened I had decided to have her home because I missed her. She came home and we did all our normal routine of dinner, bath and bedtime. The whole time I was in early labour but not yet breathing through the contractions. Still very mild. My husband and I watched some tv until 10pm and then I went to bed.
I woke up at 11:26pm to a very strong contraction. I went to the toilet and there was a bloody show. I tried to go back to sleep for two contractions and then woke my husband at 12am. We went out to the lounge room and he began to fill the pool up and I put the TENs machine on. It was so good. I didn’t figure out the setting to keep it on the level I wanted for the peak of the contraction so I had to keep pressing the up and down buttons the whole time. In retrospect I should have learned how to use it before I was in labour but it definitely worked well! I laboured for about 40-50 minutes with just the TENs machine on breathing deeply through the contractions leaning on a soft arm chair backwards. Then I started to vocalise my contractions and I told my husband to message the midwife to say we were ready. He messaged her at 1:04am. I had three noisy contractions and then I needed to go to the toilet. I went and sat on the toilet and in the next contraction I realised I wasn’t just needing to poo, it was the baby’s head about to enter the vaginal canal. I yelled out to my husband and he came running in. When the next contraction ended I yelled “look at my vulva!” And he said “I can’t see anything!” And then another contraction happened and I said “LOOK AGAIN!” And he saw the scalp of the baby’s head. My daughter woke at this point and came running in clung to my leg crying and asking what was wrong and if I was alright. My husband switched into happy dad mode and consoled Frankie and said
“mummy is okay she is just working very hard! She’s about to have the baby!”
With complete instinct I quickly waddle ran from the bathroom to our bed between the next contraction and dove onto the bed on all fours. The next contraction began and my uterus was pushing the baby out. I was not pushing at all, it was just my uterus. It was now out to the eyebrows and my husband could see little brows furrowing. Then the contraction pushed to the nose. At this point I was doing a poo as well and my husband was worried a poo was going to land on the baby’s face so he swiped it off and ran to rinse his hands. In the time he ran and rinsed his hands (about 7 seconds and 10 steps there and back) the rest of the baby was pushed out and landed on the bed as my husband raced through the doorway. The waters broke as the baby came out.
He picked up the baby and patted them on the back and it cried. We both yelled and cried and laughed all at once. He looked down and we saw it was a boy. Then we looked over and saw Frankie’s face, she had been sitting next to me on the bed and she had seen it all. She was in shock, shaking. It was the first and only time she’s ever been speechless. Our midwives arrived three minutes after he was born. He had arrived 10 minutes after my husbands message to the midwife, and was born at 1:14am.
We moved to the half filled birth pool and I sat in the pool washing off. My husband put a movie on for Frankie. I gave William his first feed as we listened to the sound track of frozen play.
It was so beautiful, and also so normal and ordinary.
It felt so right and sacred to be at home.
I have some pictures as well to share, and I’m happy for you to share this story with others. Hopefully it will encourage more families to try a homebirth.
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