One month ago we welcomed our second daughter at home in Aberdeenshire – I’m finally attempting to get my birth story down in writing!

Our first daughter, G, was born in hospital in Bristol. My waters broke around 11pm on Wednesday, with contractions starting the next morning. I worked through them at home, finding them easy to deal with. The remained around 8 minutes apart. I felt the need to lock myself in the bathroom, leaning on the towel rail when my waters again released and I went from surges 8 minutes apart to on top of one another and very intense. Being my first baby the midwife was sure I was just not handling things well and asked my partner and mother to pop me in the car and drive me over to the hospital. In one of the most congested cities in the UK. At rush hour. Thankfully my Husband had the foresight to call an ambulance! The paramedics brought me some much welcomed gas and air, and checked me finding I was already 10cm and ready to go. They made the decision to get me to hospital to give birth, and unfortunately strapped me to the stretcher with my legs strapped shut on my side, which was by far the worst part. On arrival things slowed a little as I was taking far too much gas and air and not pushing at all effectively. Around 1 hour after arriving my daughter was born. Due to the quickness of going from handling things to being ready to push, and the fact I felt the journey to hospital really stalled things, we chose a homebirth for our second child.

My pregnancy progressed smoothly, and I let my midwife know right from the start that I would be having a homebirth – which she was fully supportive of! In fact I’d go as far as to say most of the midwives seemed really excited about homebirths in Aberdeenshire. There were 2 stipulations on my homebirth, they would only attend from 38 weeks, and if the other lady who was due around the same time as I was went into labour before me on the same day I’d have to go to the midwife unit.

As 38 weeks rolled by I was so ready to meet my little one. I’d taken hypnobirthing class and had my breathing and visualisations ready, the pool was blown up from 39 weeks, I had everything looked out. And my due date came and went in a flurry of nights of false labour. Most nights for the 2 weeks prior to birth I would have contractions every 6 – 7 minutes which would dissipate come morning. It was frustrating! At 40+2 I opted for a sweep, which was possibly the most painful thing I’ve endured. She told me that I was not at all dilated or effaced and the sweep couldn’t be done. With the new rules about inductions at 40+7 she phoned up to book me for an induction, which I told her I’d have no sooner than 40+12 if necessary. The lady booking me asked for my Bishops score. Zero. I was the least ready for birth downstairs that I could be. I had a little cry in the car after. I was so ready for my home water birth and now it felt like it wasn’t going to happen.

The next day I was photographing my sisters baby announcement at the beach, and my two year old was with us. Of course she decided she needed to pee whilst on the beach, leaving me at 40+3, squatting in the sand holding her up in a squatting position so she wouldn’t pee on her trousers. I’m 90% sure this is what kick started things! On the way home I had a contraction, just a little one, but the first I’d had during the day this pregnancy. I crossed my fingers and headed home.

In the night I got up to use the bathroom and noticed a big bloody dark mucousy thing when I wiped – the bloody show! I could have ran through and hoisted it under my Husbands nose in excitement (but thought better of it!). Back to bed I went with sporadic contractions lasting through the night.

Come morning I lost more bloody show, and had contractions continuing around 10 minutes apart. My mum was staying, and out weeding the garden, and my Husband was cleaning. They asked whether I thought this was it, and I still wasn’t sure. Come 11am the surges were 7 – 8 minutes apart, but still very easy to deal with. I opted to phone the midwives at 11.30am to let them know what was happening, and that I thought this might be it, but had never been told when to call them. The midwife opted to come out and see and arrived at 12pm, with her second arriving around 12.30pm. By this point I had to stop and breathe through each contraction (still around 6-7 minutes apart), but was able to walk around, snack and chat in between. They opted to start filling the pool. At this point I still wasn’t sure I was definitely in labour. I asked if they would check me, or how would they know, and the midwife said they wouldn’t check me unless I insisted, and they would wait and see.

One of the midwives asked to check my blood pressure and I told her to wait a moment as a surge was approaching. Midway through I decided I needed to be on all fours to deal with it (I’d been standing leaning on the piano top which is the perfect height, right next to the open window as the insisted on the house being flipping roasting!). I had a further two contractions on my knees which were very intense, I think this was around 1.30pm and I asked for the gas and air. I focused on relaxing during each. Keeping my mouth, my jaw and my nether region as relaxed as possible took a lot more focus than I thought, my whole body shook as I tried to keep everything calm. There was commotion in the kitchen as the hot water ran out midway through filling, so my poor husband had to boil pots of water and kettles to try and fill it up. I’m still not sure any of us knew how far along I was at this point. My mum came in from gardening to help watch my daughter who was very eagerly chatting with the midwives and trying to help by building me a pillow bed on the floor.

At 1.50pm the midwife insisted I try to go pee before getting in the pool. I honestly couldn’t fathom why (I think I said than it didn’t matter if I wee’d in the pool, I’d probably do much worse). So I went and sat on the toilet, had an almighty contraction, didn’t pee and told her nope, I’m getting in the pool and that’s it!

I got in the pool at 2pm and it was lovely, for about 2 minutes. I really wanted to be on my knees but they insist I sit back on my bottom. I really couldn’t figure out why and was a bit annoyed at them. It turns out the water wasn’t quite high enough and they were worried I’d pop out on my knees during pushing. I had a surge and an almighty need to bear down. I remember looking down and seeing my sac bulging out and complaining that it hurt and was stretching me and couldn’t they ‘burst the bloody thing’ to which they pointed out her head was right underneath it. One more surge and push and her head was out. I felt her head and looked down at it as I awaited that final push knowing how amazing it would feel as she came out. One more bear down and she was there in my arms at 2.20pm. She came out en caul and the midwives seemed pretty excited to see it! We peeled her out and put her on my chest and had a good snuggle. My two year old had watched the entire thing and was pretty enamoured with the cord (although the initially thought baby had done an amazing curly poop lol). She told me that I’d sounded like darth vader (gas and air) and roared like a lion. The midwife asked after a few minutes if I wanted to check the sex. We’d been told all the way through pregnancy that we were having a girl and thankfully she had no dangly bits upon inspection. My placenta came naturally an hour after birth, and I had a second degree tear (again) which surprised me as the pool had remained perfectly clear!

I had not been at all prepared for the afterpains with my second baby, I don’t even remember having them with my first! They were easily the worst part of labour. My two year old was not at all traumatised and tells everyone we meet about mummy having a baby out of her ‘front bum’, and was the first one to hold her sister after myself.

I would definitely recommend a homebirth, by 6pm the house was back to usual and we had take out with my parents and my daughter before heading into my own bed that night. Bliss. I do feel slightly cheated out of my water birth due to not actually getting to labour in the tub (all that filling and I was in for 20minutes total).

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