My birth story

I had my heart set on having a homebirth ever since the subject had come up in our NCT antenatal class. Until then I really didn’t think that there was a choice. In my ignorance (and before masses of research) I thought it was something that only hippies did (sorry!) and not something I would ever dream of doing myself! But the more I read and thought about it the more I loved the idea, and not being keen on hospitals I was glad to have an alternative which I thought to be as safe as, if not safer, than a hospital birth. My community midwife was happy to attend a homebirth – in fact, she had had two herself - and I was relaxed and looking forward to it.

You can imagine my surprise, after a trouble-free pregnancy, to find out at 36+ weeks pregnant that my baby was in a breech position. My partner, Robert, and I were a bit taken aback by this and soon realised to our horror that the hospital was expecting me to have a very unwanted caesarean section and dismissing the homebirth that we had planned. My community midwife was now on holiday for 3 weeks which left me with nowhere to turn to for help or advice in the little time I had left, or so I thought.

Luckily for me, after many phone calls and days later, we managed to find Mary Cronk (a very experienced breech birth midwife and lovely person) and Lynn Walcott who we immediately liked and engaged as my primary midwife. I am so glad we did. This was the best thing that could have happened to us. Just eight days later Millie was born naturally, at home without panic or the need for pain relieving drugs. I know I owe this all to the two most special people we could ever hope to meet.

This wasn’t something that we entered into lightly. We had done our research and knew that the birth that we wanted was still favourable when compared with the hospital option in terms of outcome for both me and my baby. I didn’t need any convincing!

Apparently my labour wasn’t a long one! But if it wasn’t for Lynn coming over within hours of my call I’m sure I would not have been half as relaxed about the whole experience. She stayed with me for the duration (as I wouldn’t let her leave me) and for several hours after the birth. She was a brilliant support and said all the right things just when I needed to hear them – I think she’s done this before…! My experience has spoilt me for future births as I managed to get through it with just a TENS machine. I really wanted to try that gas and air! Apparently, after the birth is too late to ask! She can be sooo mean…

My contractions started in the early hours of Wednesday morning and unfortunately kept me awake. By 7am I had been awake a few hours and wanted to find out whether this was really it! I rang Lynn and apologised for ringing so early but was desperate to know if things were happening (under the illusion that hopefully this wouldn’t take too long!) Lynn responded by saying that it might be the start of early labour and a warm bath and some paracetamol would help with the discomfort and that she would ring to find out my progress later on in the morning. I realised then that this could actually take longer than I had expected – “what, you mean I won’t be done by this afternoon?”! As it turned out, Lynn appeared at my door at midday to see how I was doing instead. She was received gratefully as I’m sure I had a ton of questions to ask, as usual. The contractions that were reasonably regular suddenly stopped and then became irregular. We chatted over coffee while the contractions became more regular again and Lynn checked the fetal heart rate. Hours later Lynn considered leaving me “in peace” as my labour was progressing slowly. As Lynn lives over an hour away (another reason why we were lucky to have her at such short notice) I was suddenly alarmed at the thought of her leaving and not being around when things got hairy. At this point, of course, my contractions changed to being more regular and closer together. She decided to stay!

I ended up in the back bedroom where I had music playing to keep the mood relaxed and normal – well, as relaxed and normal as you can be under such circumstances. With 2 independent midwives a student midwife and Robert I felt totally safe and supported, if slightly on show, as I am certainly not used to the attention! When I wasn’t leaning on the birthing ball, Lynn occasionally was and giving gentle words of encouragement when they were needed most. At one point when progress seemed to be slow Lynn produced a birth stool for me to sit on which helped things along greatly.

Millie arrived at 4.07 Thursday morning, fit and healthy and totally unfazed by the whole experience. I felt it couldn’t have gone better – perhaps it could have been quicker!!!

There were no incidences and no need to go into hospital to have the dreaded caesarean that I had been threatened with. I am grateful everyday when I see Millie and am reminded of how she came into the world in just the way we hoped – well, bottom first was not quite what we had in mind!

Just think we may never have known Lynn and Mary and the brilliant work that Independent Midwives can do if it were not for our desperate situation! I don’t see how I can ever give birth again without them. They have become more than friends and more like family to us and we are sad to have come to the end of an era.