Betty’s HBAC with Seren

My first birth had left me with a desperate and urgent need for this birth to go well. I have always believed in natural birth, and more-often-than-not-home-birth, and birth that leaves the woman feel like she was the conductor of her own flawless orchestra. Sadly none of this was true of my first birth experience which, after 5 days of labouring at home, ended in a rushed emergency caesarean, extreme meconium asphyxiation, and 11 days in intensive care. As a birth worker I found it hard to support women after to this as my faith had been dented and I felt a little like I’d been naive and stupid.

Three years later and I was determined. I had reason to believe that I would be unable to achieve my best birth with support from the NHS so I found an independent midwife who I fell in love with within seconds of meeting. (The only way you should feel about your birth supporters.) As I was a birth worker myself we came to an agreement both practically and financially that meant she would not need to cover my ante natal care, but would attend the birth, so I still had all appointments throughout pregnancy with an NHS midwife.

The moment I mentioned home birth my ‘case’ was escalated and I was encouraged to meet with consultants and obstetricians. They were obsessed with how “high risk” I was due to me previous caesarean, and had made it their mission to convince me out of my home birth plans. In reality all they convinced me of was that I shouldn’t have any subsequent meetings with either of them as they just brought me down and made me stressed. I was aware of the risk (0.2-0.5% risk of the scar ripping open and the baby escaping into my abdominal cavity and suffocating- their words) and had already made my decision, they chose to ignore that and rather than offer me the support they could along my journey, insist that what I was doing was crazy and repeat the potential horrors over and over and over and…. So I stopped going.

At 41 weeks, (or 40+6 according to lmp), I woke at 4am with pretty convincing contractions, although it still took two further hours for my body to convince my brain that it was really happening. By the time my husband woke at 6.30 I told him I was pretty sure we were having a baby today! We decided he’d be fine to go to work for a few hours (saving us a day of paternity leave) and my friend/doula would come over a little while later. I was glad I had made all of my necessary preparations in advance, and had found an adequate support network, because the contractions were already a little too full on for me to concentrate on much else. I certainly wasn’t about to get up and start baking for the midwife, or making dinner for when the whole thing was over like I had imagined. Instead I stayed in bed, hooked myself up to the tens, and put my daughter in front of the telly. I spoke to my midwife, Kemi, on the phone. She was concerned about the pain I was describing, as I was mostly feeling it around my scar and it was, as I described, quite “owy”. She told me that was an unusual description and tried to prepare me, mentally, for the idea that we may have to transfer. Immediately she had proven her worth. Any NHS midwife would have panicked and transferred us immediately without discussion. Kemi, on the other hand, ASKED ME WHAT I WANTED TO DO. We agreed to stay in touch and see how the next hour or two went.

Jade arrived at 9ish, with coffee and a bag of tricks. The excitement of seeing her slowed things down temporarily, enough for us to really connect with one another, eat some food, and feel prepared. I then went back to bed and allowed things to ramp up in their own time. Having loosely attempted weaning my daughter off the breast throughout pregnancy, it was now a free bar. Knowing it would boost oxytocin and assist labour I let her come and snuggle in whenever she wanted to, which was little and often. Perfect. She stayed naked all day, the gorgeousness of which definitely helped! and would come and ask if I was better, stroke me gently and cuddle in for “more-more” (milk). Jade was in and out of rooms sorting things quietly. Her permanent busyness was calming, it felt like someone was in charge and things were being handled. She would appear intermittently with little drinks and snacks, including her home made labour aid ice pops, and made sure Orla was being fed and kept in the loop. I kept telling her it was going to be a long day and night, and felt a little guilty that she had come so optimistically early. She just laughed me off every time. I guess from her perspective things were going really well. From mine, babies took five days to come out of my body and we were only on day 1!

Michael came home at around 1pm and shortly afterwards Jade went out for a coffee break. Things really ramped up, almost as though being alone with just my family had helped jump to a next level. I upgraded from TENs to a shower and contractions settled into a consistent 4 minute pattern. I still didn’t believe this baby was really on it’s way, but I was getting into it nonetheless. The pain continued to really radiate from the same problem area, and we were all nervous about it. My brain engaged with every contraction, which I knew wasn’t helping, but was absolutely necessary. We were all taking a risk by continuing at home, so I had to be absolutely sure each time that the pain I was feeling wasn’t cause for urgent concern. At about 4pm Jade and Michael decided to put the pool up. I thought they were being ridiculously premature but what the hell, if it made them happy! Jade had been in touch with Kemi the whole time, and apparently she was on her way. Now that labour was established and predictable I really started to get into it. I got the playlist on and got ready to get serious. It was like a really well planned party, everything was ready and it was time! As the pool filled I was desperate to get in, but I knew that getting in too soon was a mistake and so I kept telling myself to wait for Kemi. Maybe she could give me some indication as to when getting in would be a good idea. I carried on enjoying my labour, swaying to all the amazing songs on my playlist ( I had thrown it together so last minute and am SO glad I did, it was integral to the whole experience) and melting into the focused love all around me.

I noticed the fairy lights lighting up the water. I noticed that it was day time and I’d expected to birth in the middle of the night. I noticed that I could hear my neighbours and hoped I wouldn’t find them distracting or annoying. I noticed that I loved every song that came on. I noticed that the smell of the diffuser was too much for me and I noticed that Michael switched it off without me even having to say.

Kemi arrived around 5.30, Jade quietly filled her in in the kitchen and eventually she came in and took my temperature, blood pressure and listened to baby, all incredibly subtly and without the slightest interruption to me. It was also this point that I vomited a few times. “A good sign” she commented. She almost laughed in my face when I asked if she thought it was too soon to get in the pool. That was the first moment I genuinely believed this was happening, and that it was working! Maybe I really would have this baby!! She left to the kitchen to have her dinner and I got in the pool. It was like sinking into bliss. It was everything I had hoped it would be and I was so glad I’d waited until it had this much impact. Contractions continued to be quite sharply painful all across my front and required my attention to monitor whether I still felt safe. Orla came in and out of the pool, swimming about with a big smile on her face, and giving me cuddles and stroking my leg when I needed. Apart from the obvious occasional discomfort of labour, this really was heavenly.

At no particular point I realised I had been pushing down a little during the second half of each contraction. Kemi must have heard this change from the other room because she joined us shortly afterwards and just sat quietly watching. She took my temperature and blood pressure again at one point. But otherwise remained in the background. Soon after I started to complain, I was getting the feeling that I’d had enough now, that I wasn’t enjoying it, and that I wanted it to be over (transition, much?) And I think I said a lot of that. Kemi noticed that I was getting a bit fed up and suggested I left the pool and tried the sofa. Some women are just meant to birth on land, she said. It seemed an impossible task, but with everyone’s help and my determination I managed to move my giant birthing body out of the water and on to the sofa. It was too annoyingly squashy to be on all fours so I lay on my side instead. Michael propped up my back and I tried to get my legs as open as possible which was difficult when I just wanted to collapse and rest. Pushing here felt different. It felt pretty good actually. I had a bit of the back of the sofa that I could pull against as I pushed and it felt like I was making progress. My waters burst suddenly and surprisingly (as I thought they had gone already). Thanks goodness for the waterproof sheet! Kemi mentioned, quite nonchalantly, that she could see the baby. I couldn’t believe it! I kept questioning her. Surely not!? Apparently I was still in doubt that it would actually happen for me. Again I felt the strength of the team all around me. It felt like we were all working on it together. Kemi then suggested moving again, to the toilet. She said she didn’t want me to get fed up. She had this wonderful way of suggesting a new position without making it sound like things weren’t working. Perhaps a different midwife would have caused me to worry at that point, but Kemi just made it sound like she was trying to keep things interesting. I noticed Kemi and Jade rush to cover the tiled floor in the loo with towels so the cold floor didn’t touch my feet.

Turns out I hated the toilet. It felt ineffective and I was getting annoyed now that this baby wasn’t appearing. I had been putting my hand over my vagina with each push, expecting to feel something, but there was literally nothing in the least bit interesting going on down there as far as I could tell. I did, however, poo. Which felt like some kind of achievement, and somewhere in the back of my mind the doula in me got excited that this meant things were close. The human inside me was just glad I’d done it on the toilet.

Kemi encouraged me back to the sofa and I agreed. Only I didn’t make it. In the living room, still standing, the next contraction had me clinging on to Michael, hanging my weight off his shoulders. It felt good, so I stayed there. Pushing suddenly felt like it had reached a new peak. As though up until this point I had only been pushing as if to move something down, and instead I needed to push as though to turn myself inside out. It was intense. It was my extreme. But it felt GREAT. It was the satisfaction of scratching an itch. Each push gave me huge relief. And with Kemi and Jade concentrating from underneath me I felt completely able to focus on what I was doing. Michael was everything I needed (which was surprising, as initially I had expected him to take a back seat and leave it to the girls), he stayed solid as I pulled down on his neck and pushed my knees outwards as he pushed his inwards against them. I was so full of love for him, and us, and so aware that what we were doing right in that moment was monumental. The thing was I could only push with my all now. I had lost control of any sort of settings, so I just pushed and pushed with full force! Kemi said 'woah woah woah’ at one point but there was actually nothing I could have done to scale it back!

Suddenly I felt like I wasn’t going to stretch any further. I said this to the others, in fact I had been fully communicating my experience between each contraction. I felt really rather chatty, actually, much like when you’re under the influence and don’t quite notice how much you’re embarrassingly oversharing! I was really concerned, panicked even, that I now felt very dry and unstretchy. I think, as it turned out, that was the feeling of crowning. Jade tried to find a compress for me, but with the next push baby made the space she needed and tore through me rather quickly. Her head was suddenly out, there had been no gentle crowning, no pausing for rest, no breathing my baby out. She shot out explosively. As it turned out, with her hand up by her face, which explained why it had been SUCH hard work. I felt a sense of urgency to get her body to follow, (for no particular reason, it just felt like I needed to get it done now), and sure enough she was out with the next push. Caught in her towel by Kemi. She guided me to sit on the sofa without tripping on umbilical cord or standing on a baby, and I just collapsed down.

As an HBAC mum, all I was thinking in that moment was “I did it”. It took a few seconds for my focus to shift onto the baby, because I was just so full of joy and disbelief that I had finally vaginally birthed a baby in my own home. It might seem like a more minor detail for others but to me it was everything. Eventually I was ready to meet my baby, and there she was. As though she’d always been there, always been mine. I was so full of gratitude that she’d come out of me! So proud of her that she knew how to do it! I loved her so much.