“My Birth Story”
We moved to Scotland when I was 26 weeks pregnant. I went to get registered into the health care system when I was 28 weeks pregnant. While registering with the midwife, and discussing my two previous pregnancies, she asked if I’d ever considered a home birth.
I said, “No, I don’t think I’d want to do that. I thought ” Not me, not ever. Epidurals all the way.”
But then, I started to really consider my circumstances.
The maternity hospital was an hour away. I didn’t know how long I’d actually be in labour since I was induced with my first two. Would I have the baby in our car because I waited to long to go to the hospital? I might not have a babysitter for my three year old and 18 month old. It could snow since I was due in December, and we didn’t have snow tires.
As these thoughts and worries started to flood my mind, I started to research Home births online.
Home births are no joke. A lot of planning, research, and preparation goes into it. A lot more than I thought. By this time, I was 34 weeks pregnant. I kept going back and forth with the idea of a homebirth. Honestly, I know I waited till last minute to even consider a home birth (goes without saying) or to be prepared for one. After reading a hundred birth stories online, I finally started to warm up to the idea. If they could do it, why can’t I?
My next appointment I talked to my midwife and asked her if it was too late to plan for a home-birth, just in case we couldn’t make it to the hospital. She set up a home appointment to talk about all the things I’d need if we did one. After that appointment, I felt like it was a good idea to start getting everything ready for if we did do a home-birth.
All of my knowledge on homebirthing consisted of material I got from motherhood sites, blogs, articles, YouTube videos and advice from my midwife.
The pain medications they offered for homebirths were only a few. I started to list them in my mind and think about what I wanted to do.
Morphine injection.. “No, to that.”
A tens machine.. “Heard that didn’t really help.”
Water birth.. “Yes, definitely going to do that.”
Gas and air.. “Sure, I’ll try that while I’m in the birthing pool.”
Then, there was always the option of an all natural birth. No pain meds, just breathing techniques and power over mind sort of things. Then I thought, “I don’t want to do it without any pain meds, but I think it’d help if researched more about breathing techniques.
So, I started with researching the “Bradley method.” I didn’t make it too far with researching that because it said you needed to read this book and attend a 12 week course to learn it. I found a cheat sheet for the basics of it. “While you’re in labor, do these things in order through cycles. Eat, drink, walk, bath, nap.” Sounded good to me.
I then moved on to research about Hypnobirthing, because a lot of women stated in their birth stories that that’s what they’d used and how much it helped them. I found out that this too usually consisted of classes that lasted from 6 to 8 weeks. I thought, “I’m in trouble.” Thankfully, I ran across somebody’s birthing story that said that they used the Hypnobirthing app. So, I looked it up and to my delight, it was free and very informative. It became a great tool for learning about focusing on relaxing for pain control and breathing techniques.
Most home births are done using water for pain relief, also known as water-birth. Giving birth in the water was likened to “nature’s natural epidural.”
“That didn’t sound too bad,” I thought. So, if I was gonna do a home-birth, I wanted to do it with a birthing pool.
I looked online to see how much it’d be to rent or to buy a birthing pool. To my surprise the prices were actually pretty reasonable but still a little costly if I never used it.
I ended up purchasing one from a lady who never used hers. It took us a couple weeks to figure out where we’d set it up. We had to move our Christmas tree to make room. I blew it up with my hairdryer on the cool setting. It didn’t take more than 30 min to get it set up. We then set up the hose in the bathroom and stretched it out. It just reached the pool. So we were all set and ready to go when the time came to use it.
I was due on Wednesday, December 6th. But everyone knows that the due date is just an estimate, or in more literal terms, a guess date. Let’s get real. Babies come whenever they feel like it.
My Mom was coming from the States to be with us for the baby. Her flight would be here on Dec 3rd, Sunday morning. I’d been having some contractions for a few days, but on Friday night Dec 1st they started getting hard. It was impossible to sleep and I was timing every contraction from 3 am until 6:30 am. It was hard to breath so I turned on my Hypnobirthing app and put in my earphones. I went to the toilet and saw I’d lost my mucus plug. I decided to take a hot shower and after I got out they started to space out and slow down a bit, but they never stopped.
Next morning, we had a Christmas event at a care home. I sang some Christmas songs with a group from our church, and two more songs as a duet while holding and keeping still my 18 month old. The contractions started to pick up again hard and lasting 30 sec and longer. After the care home, we went out to eat and I was just trying to make it through the hard sporadic contractions I was having. On the way home, I told my husband that I thought the baby would probably come within the next day or two. He kept reassuring me that, if anything, she’d probably come after my due date. He didn’t know, but that wasn’t reassuring to me at all. I was trying to make plans for if she came that night. At 5pm the midwife called and said that they just finished a home birth so she and the other midwife were off call and the other midwives wouldn’t come on call until 1 am. She said we’d have to go to the hospital if I went into labour before then.
We went home and at 7pm the hard contractions started to come more regular, so I started timing them with my baby center app contraction timer. They were 7-8 min apart, and getting more intense. I kept trying my new breathing techniques I’d learned, trying to relax my shoulders and jaw, and breath in through my nose for 5 seconds and slowly breath out through my nose for 7 seconds.
This helped me focus on the breathing rather than the pain but I started to forget what I was doing and I started to think about if I could make it until 1 am to call the midwives. Did we need to call a friend to watch our kids? Is this baby going to come just hours before my mom gets here? When do we fill up the birth tub?
All these questions were starting to frustrate me. I didn’t want to get in the pool too early because the water might get cold before I started pushing. I’d read over a hundred different accounts of people’s personal birth stories and saw the problems I could encounter if I got in the tub too soon, or if I waited too long. I should’ve been an online home birth stalker expert by now.
1 am came and my contractions were still 7-8 min apart. I finally decided it was time to call the midwife.
She came within the next hour. I let my husband sleep and she and I talked while we timed my contractions. They started to space out to 10 min apart. She said she thought I was putting a mental block on letting the labour fully take off because I knew my mother would be there in a few hours. She stayed for an hour and a half and the contractions got to 7-8 min apart. She said she’d go back home, then when my contractions got to 5 min apart to call again, but not before we filled up the birthing pool. She said if we waited to long to fill it up, we probably wouldn’t be able to use it.
So she left at 4am and I tried to get more sleep by laying upright on our recliner. As soon as I was about to drift into sleep, my contractions would hit me hard. It was getting hard to breath through them. It lasted till morning.
Sunday morning at 7am, I got the girls out of bed and started to make pancakes for breakfast. We were going to pick up my mom from the airport at 9 am. I had stopped timing my contractions because I was busy and I was frustrated with their irregularity.
When they hit, I just paused, breathed, then continued to do what I was doing. My husband didn’t believe I was in labour yet because of how well I was functioning in between contractions. We left for the airport running a little late, and I was feeling very very uncomfortable. It was a little less than an hour away. At every sharp turn and bump I was having hard contractions. Rick would try to talk to me and I’d hold my finger up, and breath hard in and out through my nose. We got to the airport and I I greeted my mom with tears and yet another hard contraction as I hugged her. I was so happy she made it before the baby had come, but at the same time I knew the baby would be here soon.
We got back in the car to go home and my mom and husband were talking of if we’d make it for Sunday school. My husband looked at me and I shook my head no. I never miss church unless I or one of the kids is really sick or in this case, I was in labor.
When we got home my mom realized the intensity of my contractions and said I should start timing them again. My husband thought it’d still be a day or two before I had the baby so he went to church. After he left my contractions got closer together. 8 min apart. 7:30 min apart. 7 min apart. I was waiting for them to get to 5 min apart before I called but my mom urged me to call then. As I was on the phone with the nurse my contractions went from 6:30 min apart to 4 min apart. They totally skipped the 5 min apart mark. Then I started to get a little worried. They were coming faster and harder. I could feel the baby starting to descend down. I knew she would be here soon. Mom was making lunch and watching the girls. The midwife came in 30 min and Rick had just texted me, “how’s it going?” I texted back, “come home. We need the water pool filled up. 😬” He still didn’t catch the intensity in my text or emoji face I sent. So he called. I told him the midwife was there. He said in a worried voice, “So you really think it’s time?” I said, “Yeah, baby will be here soon.”
When the midwife came she smiled and said, “See? I told you you were waiting for your mum.”
Rick came in the door and the midwife was getting ready to check to see how far along I was. I turned to him and said, “you need to get that pool filled up now. “
The pool was already inflated but need a little more air so Rick started to blow it up some more. The midwife checked me and excitedly announced that I was at least a good 7cm dilated. My mom overheard and said, “you better hurry. She went quick with her last two after this much.”
As another contraction hit, and the midwife was coaching me on how to breath through it, Rick exclaimed “the pool is deflating.” After my contraction was over, I came over to see what was the matter. To my horrible dismay, I discovered the pool had gotten a huge tear at the top of the plug. I started to cry. Rick, hopefully, started to put some water in it thinking it was just the top layer that was torn, when the midwife exclaimed, “Oh no, that simply will not do. You can’t use that now.” It made me laugh and cry at the same time at the ludicrousness of the whole thing. “Now I won’t get my natures epidural” I thought. The midwife and my mother assured me that I had done so well already and wouldn’t need the pool anyway. We then had to come up with a plan B. There was a tub upstairs the midwife said I could labour in, but I couldn’t birth the baby in it because they didn’t have access to walk all the way around the tub. So my mom, Rick, and the midwife started to carry all the birthing equipment up the stairs to the guest bedroom to get it all set up. The clock was ticking and I told the midwife I felt like I needed to push soon. As I made my way up the stairs, the midwife told Rick “forget the tub we won’t have time to do that.”
Every summer, since I was a young teen, I worked at a Christian camp. It had a 20 ft rock wall at the water hole that I loved to climb. Every time I climbed it, I still had a fear of jumping off of it. As soon as I jumped, I always had this gut wrenching feeling of knowing I couldn’t take it back, couldn’t change my mind. I was going to hit the cold water wether I liked it or not. This is what I felt like at this moment. I was having a home-birth. No pain meds, no epidurals, and no water birth. This baby was coming and very soon wether I felt ready or not.
I made it up the stairs to the guest room and the midwife showed me how to use the gas and air. She explained that it didn’t take away the pain it just relaxed you. It was a hand held nozzle that you place in your mouth. The air was constantly flowing from it so all I had to do was to inhale through my mouth to use it. The first breath made me dizzy and thirsty. It sounded like Darth Vadar when I breathed through it. It was hard to focus my eyes. The midwife said that I could take a breath of it when I felt a contraction starting and keep breathing until the contraction stopped. I tried it then put it down to get a drink. Then as soon as I moved the contraction hit again. I was arched over a stack of pillows holding on trying to just breath through it. I always thought that it would just be painful down below when it was time to push but it was my whole body that I felt working and heaving together to push this baby down. I was waiting for the midwife to tell me when to push but she never did. She just kept me as comfortable as possible coaching my breaths and rubbing my back. Then, all of the sudden, my body took over and with the next contraction, without thinking, I let out a yell and pushed. The pushing urge took me by surprise. I didn’t even know that it was going to happen. Then I put the gas and air back in my mouth and with the next contraction I breathed in hard and fast and pushed as hard as I could.
It was so strange. Nothing like what I imagined. I think I was breathing the gas a little too much and fast because with the next moment I felt like I was Alice in wonderland falling down into a deep dark hole. Everything went black and while I was “falling” I pushed with all my might. I think I was about to pass out when I heard my midwife yell to me, “keep breathing, just keep breathing.” Then I took a deep breath and gave another long hard push. Next thing I knew, the midwife was saying “There she is! Grab her. Look she’s right there!” I looked down and there she was. I was in disbelief and was overwhelmed with joy. I picked her up while the midwife suctioned out the afterbirth from her little nose. I couldn’t believe it. She was finally here. I now was the mommy to three beautiful little girls. I held her to my chest and took in the moment. I didn’t want to forget it. Another miracle was brought into this world; was brought into my home. She already had a place in my heart. Nine and a half months of me carrying her inside me, to finally be able to see her face and hold her in my arms.
When you move to a foreign country, you start to think of things you never thought about before. You start to fear things you never feared before. You get to do things you never thought you’d do. Well, this was one of those things. I am glad I was able to have the opportunity to do it. Even with all its little mishaps, it was a life changing experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
