My first child was born in hospital 2 years ago, after a traumatic 26 hour labour with everything being out of my control and very stressful and scary. Baby came out very stressed and I needed stitches and was completely exhausted from the whole ordeal. After having him I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to go through that again! Fast forward 16 months and I’m pregnant with my second baby! This time I was determined that it would be different and decided from the beginning that I would be having a home birth.

Over the following months I began planning, buying the essentials and hiring a birthing pool.  My husband and I attended hypnobirthing classes and my birth plan was written up.

From 37 weeks pregnant I had been up in the night in pre labour at least 3 times a week.. There was sooo many times I thought it was the real deal and it felt like everything just kept starting and stopping. It was so frustrating as I just couldn’t wait to meet my baby girl! I really thought she would come early as my son was born at 39 weeks but infact I ended up going overdue!

On Wednesday 29th May I had a midwife appointment at 2pm (40+4). I was extremely fed up at this point and getting so scared of induction which would have been the end to my dreams of a natural home birth. I felt like this baby was honestly never going to come!! My midwife gave me a sweep and said she could feel my babies head in a really good position and said that I was 3cm dilated. But I didn’t get too excited as I had a sweep the week previously and it did nothing.

I went home and took my 2 year old for a long walk in the woods and a man on a bike went past us and made me jump out of my skin! I then went home and chilled out, making us all dinner and bouncing on my ball. Still no signs of anything happening except mild period pain which I had with my last sweep! After dinner my husband put some music on and got me to dance around the kitchen cleaning up! I cleaned the house top to bottom doing lots of squatting and then we watched some TV and went to bed at 10pm with nothing happening except some random light contractions which I had been having most days anyway. I had one in bed while my husband was cuddling me and he knew I had one because he had a massive pain in his back at the same time!! It was so strange!

At 1.30am I woke up with the most intense pain that I had to jump out of bed onto all fours. I felt like I needed to poo and be sick at the same time! I went to the toilet but couldn’t actually go and then as soon as I got back into the bedroom I got another pain. I still wasn’t convinced it was real after so many false starts but decided to start timing the contractions anyway. They were coming every 3 minutes and lasting about a minute. At 2am we decided we better get moving and get the pool out and I phoned the midwives. I was in a complete daze and still couldn’t quite believe I was finally in labour. My 2 year old woke up crying and my husband went upstairs to settle him- leaving me on my hands and knees inflating the pool while having contractions! By 3am the midwives still hadn’t arrived so my husband phoned them again and they said they were 10 minutes away. Every single contraction was bringing me to my knees and I was finding it really difficult to stay calm because of how quickly it was all happening! I was planning on a nice organised and relaxed labour, prehaps watching some tv and having a nice massage!

My husband lit some candles and put on some relaxing music and dimmed the lights. He helped me to remember my breathing techniques to stay calm and rubbed my back when I had a contraction which really helped. My 2 sisters arrived as they wanted to be at the birth and at this point I was starting to feel pressure down below and I was throwing up. As soon as the midwives arrived they gave me an anti-sickness injection and I finally got some gas and air which was such a relief!! I asked to be examined because I wanted to know if things really were happening as quickly as I thought. The midwife told me to get into the pool as I was 10cm!

The pool was a bit wobbly as we didn’t get time to inflate it properly and it was still filling up with water as I got in!

As soon as I got in the pool I felt the urge to push. The warm water felt so amazing. My husband got in with me as I needed his hand on my lower back for counter pressure during contractions and he couldn’t reach me properly without getting in. After 10 minutes of going with my body and pushing/breathing baby out my baby girl was born at 4AM exactly! I felt so confident and relaxed and really trusted my body which was so different to my first labour where I remember laying on the bed thinking I was going to die!

We stayed in the pool for a while having skin to skin and then the cord was cut and I got out of the pool and laid on the sofa with baby and had the injection to birth placenta which came out pretty quickly. After that I was checked and had a small first degree tear but to my relief no stitches! I did have a slight issue of a big blood clot which the midwife couldn’t get out and then I lost about 450ml of blood and was quite dizzy and sick but I think part of this was shock! By 6am I was feeling a lot better and the midwives left. My 2 year old son woke up 10 minutes later and came down to a clean and tidy lounge and a baby sister! It was like nothing had ever happened!

Fifi Ray MacMillan. 7lbs 2oz. A 2.5 hour labour from start to finish! xx