finn’s birth - my birth story #2

In the days leading up to Finn’s birth I was getting more and more impatient. I was feeling very heavy with Finn and my walks to and from Poppy’s nursery were getting more and more tiring. I felt a really heavy weight right down into my pelvis which made walking too far or too fast quite uncomfortable. In hindsight this impatience and heaviness should have signalled to me that things were happening!

On the evening of 27th July 2019, Joe and I took our daughter Poppy to see We’re Going On A Bear Hunt at the theatre and then we went out for dinner. It was such a lovely evening and I was keen to do as much with Poppy as possible in these last few weeks of my pregnancy. Savouring our time left as a family of 3.

At 1.00am on the 28th of July I woke up to some mild twinges. I tried to get back to sleep but excitement hit me. Could this be it? I practiced deep relaxing breaths and stayed in bed until about 2.00am when I had to get up. I decided to leave Joe asleep and went down to the sofa. I put on some nice lights, burnt some lavender oil and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks.

The twinges remained infrequent and didn’t ramp up in intensity. I mainly felt them in my lower back and down my legs. By about 7.00am everything had stopped so I went back to bed and grabbed a couple of hours sleep.

That day we went out for lunch to celebrate Joe’s Granny’s birthday. Very unusually Poppy was extremely cuddly and when we got to the restaurant she climbed up onto my lap and fell asleep. This was very unusual for her as she’s very independent and hardly ever napped on, us preferring to take herself off to bed when she’s tried! It was lush for me to have these snuggly cuddles with my biggest and it probably gave me a huge hit of oxytocin. I also had some lovely cuddles with my brand new nephew over lunch which I expect increased my oxytocin levels further.

After lunch I went home for a nap and Joe took Poppy to the park for a few hours. I am so grateful for this extra period of rest because I had no idea what was to come later that evening!

Joe and I went to bed at about 10.00pm and watched some light-hearted TV before I turned off to go to sleep. Just as I was drifting off at about 11.00pm I felt a trickle down the inside of my legs. I immediately sat bolt upright and told joe “I think my water’s have just gone”. “Seriously?” he replied, looking quite worried (we still had 2 weeks until our “due date”). “Either that, or I’ve wet myself” I told him.

Joe was keen to get up straight away and start preparing the pool but I told him to stay in bed and try and get to sleep as we couldn’t know if surges would start for a while yet. I was planning a home birth this time around and our pool had been delivered a few days before. We had (quite luckily) set the pool up and had a practice run. We were supposed to take the pool down again but hadn’t yet got round to it (thank god we didn’t!).

Joe decided to call my mum (who was due to come and be on hand in case Poppy woke up) and my lovely Doula, Olivia to tell them what was going on. They both told us to stay in bed and try to sleep if we could.

Within half an hour my surges started. I stayed in bed and listened to my hypnobirthing tracks and practicing my breathing techniques. Because it was summer, I had a fan on me and I just laid on my left hand side. I felt completely calm.

Joe got up and started readying the “zen den” - my lounge, which he lit with candles and fairly lights, had my favourite oil burning and had placed my favourite affirmation cards around the room. It was the most beautiful my lounge has ever looked and the perfect birth environment for me.

A bit later I decided to try a bath, as I remembered that being wonderful in my first birth. At this point my surges were coming fairly frequently about every 4 minutes or so. However, as soon as I got in the bath I felt them slow down. I wasn’t enjoying the bath as much as I had thought I would, and I was really keen to get back into my bed. After I retuned to bed, my surges picked up again. It really goes to show how much listening to your instincts aids the birthing process. My brain had told me that a bath would be good, but my body was telling me it wanted to be laid down in my darkened room.

Shortly after I had got back into bed my mum and my doula arrived. Olivia stayed downstairs with Joe and helped him set up and also called the midwife. At some point after that, my midwife arrived and was greeted by Olivia who she had attended at her birth earlier that year.

Lucy, my midwife, was absolutely incredible. I had seen her a few times antenatally and she had explained that they were trialling case loading amongst the midwives so that pregnant people had better continuity of care. However, at my last midwife appointment I had been told that Lucy had left to take another job and I wouldn’t see her again. I was bitterly disappointed because I had really clicked with Lucy and felt that she would be the best person to attend me at my birth. I really knew from speaking to her that our birth values really lined up. However, the stars aligned for me because when Joe came upstairs to tell me that the midwife was on her way, he told me - “Ellie, it’s Lucy! Lucy’s going to be our midwife!”.

As soon as I heard this, I felt my relaxation deepen further. I remember thinking ‘wow, my birth team is so strong, this birth is going to be amazing’!

Lucy came up to see me and did some gentle observations, listening to the baby’s heart rate and checking my pulse. Everything was perfect she told me, before quietly retreating to the lounge to make some notes, leaving me to continue breathing through my surges. Privacy and quiet is exactly what I wanted.

Lucy never once asked me if she could perform an examination as she knew I did not want one. She sat back and watched me go through the process quietly observing.

At about 3.30am my doula came to see me and held my hand. Her presence was instantly grounding and I felt very calm and very excited about the birth ahead of me.

By this point my surges were extremely intense and they were all rolling into one another. I decided that I wanted to get into the birth pool (which was now thankfully filled) and Olivia led me downstairs to my wonderful Zen Den. I got into the pool and almost immediately felt the surges ramp up another level. It was at this point that I hit transition.

I suddenly decided that I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt a wave of emotion wash over me and for a brief moment it all felt a bit too much. I very calmly announced to my birth team “Nope, I don’t think I want to do this anymore thank you very much”. Olivia took my hand and started making some “ooooh-ing” and “aaaahhh” sounds. She knew that if I was starting to tense up it could slow the process down so we worked on relaxing my jaw by making these sounds which would loosen up my pelvis.

Following transition, I experienced the “rest and be thankful” stage. For a about 4 minutes I did not feel any surges. I rested my head against the side of the pool and closed my eyes and savoured this period of rest.

I then started to become quite vocal making some primal noises, the sort one only makes when in the throws of labour. I began to shake my head. Lucy, my midwife, came to me and calmly told me, “Ellie, you’re body’s already began to push”. She was right I realised that I could feel my body bearing down. It wasn’t voluntary, my body was doing it for me, all I had to do was breath down with it.

Unlike with Poppy, with every surge my body continued to help my baby move down the birth canal, he did not retreat back, there was no forward and backward motion. It felt very clearly that with every surge he was moving closer and closer towards joining us earth-side.

Finn was born at 4.24am into the birth pool, in my lounge at home and it was an absolutely incredible experience which I managed relying solely on the support of my wonderful birth team. At 6.30am Poppy awoke to meet her baby brother. I rode this birth high for a good few weeks afterwards.