As a 38-year-old first-time mum I thought I would have a fight on my hands with my wishes to have my baby at home.
My midwife team were fully supportive and were really pro-homebirth and seemed excited about it. My husband and I attended a Hypnobirthing course, which taught us techniques for breathing and relaxation, which helped
me remain calm throughout my pregnancy. It also helped me to avoid a lot of fear and anxiety about the birth.

Where was Eden?

We had our birth pool in a box, our shower curtains to protect the sofa, piles of towels at the ready and then we waited….and waited…and waited. I was offered a stretch and sweep at the 40- and 41-week appointments, which I refused as I didn’t want any ‘fiddling’ or interfering. I reached 42 weeks pregnant but absolutely did not want to be induced unless there
was a medical reason for doing so, as that would have meant not having my homebirth. My friends on babyworld’s homebirth forum and my online antenatal club agreed that as long as
there was no increased risk to my baby I was perfectly within my rights to stick to my guns about the homebirth. They also said that a sweep may be a good idea, so I decided to have one. Anyway, after making us wait, Eden decided to arrive fairly quickly!

Pop! Went my waters

I started having mild contractions at 9pm on Tuesday night. I wasn’t even convinced they were contractions to be honest, but I felt a bit off colour too and had a bit of a headache and loose bowels so thought it probably was. We went to bed at midnight and as I rolled over to go to sleep, pop! My waters went. My hubby leapt out of bed and brought me a towel and then we lay on the bed with me literally wetting myself laughing. We called the midwife to let her know and she said to call her if/when things got going. We thought we might get a night’s sleep at that point. However, about an hour later I started contracting, so I put the TENS machine on. By 3am they were 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute. As soon as the midwife arrived, they slowed down, so at 4.30am, she left us and said she would come back at 7am.

I continued to have contractions about every 10 minutes but they were getting a lot stronger. The TENS machine was working a treat and I was just breathing through them quite comfortably. At 7am the midwife arrived and as soon as I started moving around, the contractions started getting closer together and were stronger so I had to stand up for them. She left us at 8am. I was still using the TENS and I was sitting on my birthing ball, leaning my head on the back of the sofa. About 9am I wasn’t able to sit on the ball any more as it was too intense. I got on my knees and leaned my elbows on the sofa.

I was making animal noises

My husband paged the midwife at 9am. I was making ‘animal’ noises according to him, and was just about coping with the contractions. Then I started getting urges to push and needed to get in the pool but I also knew I needed to wait for the midwife before I could do so. She arrived at 9.30am. I had to be examined, but I couldn’t move. Eventually she managed to get
me onto the sofa and I was 8cm dilated. She still wouldn’t let me get in the pool as the second midwife, who had the oxygen etc for the baby, hadn’t arrived. By this time I was going out of my tree as I NEEDED to get in the damn pool. She was telling me NOT to push, which was near impossible, like saying to someone don’t breathe.

At 10.20am, I was helped into the pool and the second midwife arrived ten minutes later. I was making noises: not screaming but kind of going ‘ahhhhhhhh’ like a mantra, using my voice to help me breath properly through the contractions. I was very aware that my conscious job was just to breathe, my body would do the rest.

She flew into the pool

At 10.45am, the head was visible; by 11am the head was crowning. At 11.04am, Eden flew out into the pool in one massive contraction. It was absolutely amazing; she was lifted onto me straight from the water after a quick unlooping of the cord around her neck. She cried  immediately and looked straight up at me.

I stayed in the pool until the cord stopped pulsating and then my husband cut it. I was helped out of the pool onto the sofa so that I could have skin-to-skin with her. She was just so gorgeous. I put her to the breast but she didn’t take it straight away. I was encouraged to stand up to see if the placenta would deliver but it wasn’t coming, so the midwife popped a bag into the loo and told me to sit. I decided to push like I needed a poo and it plopped out into the bag. Nice and easy, no drugs involved.

I went back to Eden and she then fed at the breast for 20 minutes.

I needed pain relief for the stitches

The midwife then checked me over and I had a second-degree tear, which she stitched up and I used Entenox to help me. I went the whole birth using only a TENS machine and a pool for pain relief and then used gas and air for the stitches! So I had my perfect home water birth. I got my perfect baby and I’m completely besotted with my little girl.

Where to next?

• How was it for you? Read accounts of different types of birth
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