A little bit of background:
I first became interested in water birth at school when we were shown a documentary about Michel Odent. This transformed my perception of childbirth! It was my ambition to become a midwife and I will forever treasure my one year's experience as a student midwife. I got to work with a fantastic community midwife and team who believed in home birth and encouraged their women to make this choice, often against the advice of their GPs. This was North Middlesex hosp in the mid 90s. Sadly I had to leave my training due to poor health; I never got really better and 10 years later I was diagnosed with ME.
My first child, a daughter was born 1997, A home birth, almost a water birth, but the midwife showed up just in time to terrify my husband in to lifting me out of the pool and on to the bed since she wasn't experienced in water delivery. This was in Newham and they were not supportive of home birth. It was nearly an unassisted delivery as babys head was already out at this point. I wish she had arrived just 5mins later! My first labour and the shortest (4hrs), no pain relief. Very pleased to just succeed in delivering my baby at home against the advice of everyone around me.
Second baby, 1998, a son, booked for home water birth but baby was OP (back-to-back - see 'get your baby lined up') and labour stopped and started for days. Went into hospital in early (non-established) labour for monitoring. They 'found' something on the trace, kept me in, broke my waters, it was a false alarm, everything was fine, labour progressed from then, very painful and I really missed having use of birth pool and was more or less forced from my hands and knees onto my back to deliver baby. I went home within hours amidst much protest from staff. Was relieved to have got away with minimum of intervention under the circumstances.
Third baby, home delivery of huge baby boy, nearly 3wks 'late'. Following all the stress our family had been through during my pregnancy (long story) and then the stress of going so far past my due date only to have a shortish straightforward delivery (I'd almost call it easy). I was on cloud nine after this one. He is named Yoliba (rejoice). Midwives weren't qualified to do water delivery (they were lovely all the same), but I felt ok about stepping out of the pool to push him out. Weighed him in one of those silly springy scales - clonk, it only went up to 11lb and he was at least 12 I should think - weighed in at 13lb a day or 2 later but they were just the bathroom scales so that could be out too.
7yrs on: my gorgeous youngest had been diagnosed with Autism at age 4. I was diagnosed with ME 1 year later. Another baby was NOT looked for. The very idea terrified me! But then: late period, thought I’d better do a test just to rule out pregnancy, NO! it couldn’t be, Arrgh, it most definitely was!
So fast forward a few months and I'm having days when I feel like this is the best thing that ever happened to me and then days when life doesn't feel worth living. On bad 'ME' days I can't imagine how on earth I'll cope with labour or caring for a newborn. I found the Homebirth website and Homebirth UK forum *invaluable* for support and advice (and that's coming from a seasoned homebirther). I read every one of the birth stories on the website while pregnant! I think there is a little something to be learnt from every one of them. I found my midwives from reading one of those stories - the wonderful Brierley midwives - an NHS practice in SE London. Among instances of helpful advice and info from the yahoo group too many to name this has to be the most worthy of mention: Thanks to ladies who recommended osteopathy for SPD and the pregnant womens clinic at the BSO in particular, I went from virtually bed bound, barely able to walk, to walking freely again in one treatment! Dr Sandler was the man if that's helpful to anyone.
So my due date was towards the end of April and I predicted I would have this baby early May as my pregnancies tend to be a couple of weeks longer than 40wks. Still I went through the doubt and worry of whether I would go into labour spontaneously without anyone finding something to indicate a need for induction. I hate the fact that induction is discussed at barely 40wks and you're encouraged to make an appt with the consultant as it's assumed you should see one if you go more than a few days over. This just stresses me out, worrying about something that I needn't be. (I've had huge hassles with the medics in previous pregnancies when I've gone 'overdue' and I really wanted to avoid that this time).
1st May I had a hunch that things may be starting to happen. I took my (almost) 8yr old son to his activity group at the Leisure centre and all the other mums were predictably on the look out to see if I was 'still here'. I said 'well it's May now so baby can come'. Used the loo and noticed a bit of a show, manageable contractions continued all evening and into the night. Couldn't really sleep but tried to rest until 12am when I got up to check my pregnancy/birth books about when you're supposed to call the midwife. Decided to go back to bed and hold out as long as possible without disturbing anyone. Contractions continued regular, about every 5-10mins and quite painful. By now I realised that the pain/pressure was mostly in my bottom. Not a good sign. By 5am I had had enough of coping on my own, woke DH and got him to start filling the pool in our bedroom and to call the midwife. I was in tears when I spoke to her as it was hurting so much now. Contractions 3 minutes apart lasting 1 minute.
The midwife arrived about 6am, it was not my own midwife but another midwife I knew, Katie, she read through my birth plan and said 'that sounds like a very sensible birth plan' which put me at ease immediately (especially since there were some less regular/conventional bits to it) Katie is a young midwife, hasn't had any children herself, but she was absolutely fantastic throughout. Absolutely understood the meaning of 'with woman'. I don't know what I would have done without her.
06.00 My nearly 8yr old, Yoliba,(his birthday was in 2 days time and we'd long speculated that baby might be born on his birthday) woke up to find the pool filling, mummy breathing heavily and midwife on the edge of our bed. He didn't need telling what was happening! Ran to wake up his siblings saying 'mummy's baby is coming!'
06.20 I have some toast and sip on a bottle of water.
06.45 Katie notes 'Charlotte is walking around, moving her hips and breathing through contractions really well. The children are up and are very excited!'
06.50 A VE showed that I was 7cm which was very encouraging, but I was in for a long journey none the less. One thing that was completely different for me with this labour was that my waters didn't break until right at the end; before it had always been the trigger that sent me into established labour. This labour was much slower and drawn out.
07.00 I was longing to get into the pool and finally did so. Huge relief, contractions slow down a little and I get more of a break in between when I can chat a little with Katie and my husband Kevin. My children were right by me as well, being supportive, rubbing my back, etc. They were all ready for school early that day and Yoliba kept thinking it should have been time for him to leave as he didn't realise he'd got up an hour early.
At some point I'd called my mum as I was finding things really intense and I wanted hubby close to me so needed someone else to supervise the kids getting off to school. It was a distraction worrying about them at this stage and I wanted someone else to take over entirely. Had the labour been progressing quickly and the birth been imminent I would have kept them back to be present, but at the time it didn't feel that way and while it was nice having them there for part of the labour I was quite looking forward to them getting off to school.
07.50 since contractions had slowed down quite a bit, Katie suggests nipple stimulation to get things going again. She could see the 'purple line' when I knelt forward but not sure what it was telling her!
08.20 The pain in my lower back and bottom is really hard to bear, I desperately need someone to rub when having a contraction, really keen for some entonox now.
08.30 kids finally leave for school. After this contractions started coming thick and fast; I sucked the entonox for all I was worth. Breathing very heavily and vocalising. Katie kept telling me I had to let go of the entonox between contractions and breathe some air, but it was so intense that I couldn't tell where one contraction ended and the next began, I just kept sucking on the gas and air to try and distance myself from the pain. I was far away in a weird entonox world whilst still hearing what people were saying to me - as if I could hear their voices echoing down a long tube. I kept thinking 'cesareans - great!' and thinking that my sister (who has had 2) had been very fortunate after all! I still had nearly 2 and a half hours of this to go! Really, really the most gruelling experience of my life!
09.15 the second midwife arrived, I was just able to say hullo and recognise her as Kate, who I'd met a few times before. A student midwife also turned up a bit later with my consent.
10.00 I agree to another VE (3hrs since the last). Am now 9cms but head still quite high, membranes bulging.
My notes are scattered with comments like these: Charlotte is finding it very intense
Charlotte pretty fed up
It is very hard work
Charlotte drawing heavily on entonox (I got through lots of entonox - it was one of my biggest fears that I might run out when I needed it most so I'd put in my birth plan PLEASE DON'T LET ME RUN OUT! It meant a lot that they took this on board and promised they wouldn't)
Pushing this baby out was tremendously hard, I really got that 'between a rock and a hard place' feeling, just had to keep going when I felt I simply couldn't. With my previous labours, my body had just 'taken over' and pushing had not been such an effort. My midwives were fantastic, always upbeat, encouraging, making helpful suggestions for changing position when appropriate, they really kept me going when I was starting to seriously doubt I could do this and wondering if I might have to transfer. Katie later told me that they were quite worried too and willing things to progress, but they didn't let that come across to me at all. They stayed very calm which was vital as I was close to panicking and would have picked up on any anxiety they showed.
I kept putting my hand down and trying to feel for the baby's head but the membranes were still intact and everything just felt mushy. Eventually I felt the membranes really taut and bulging at the perineum and I was past caring and 'accidentally on purpose' popped them with my finger nail.
10.20 With my waters finally broken things did move on a bit but it still took another half hour of pushing to get the baby out, at 10.45 Kevin entered the pool to support me.
10.49 Finally! My baby is born into the water and is passed up to me - much too weary to worry about who receives my baby - I'd planned to deliver him myself but knew I might not feel able to when the time came. I just hold my precious child who is calm and pink and barely cries. He seems not to have suffered much at all given what I'd been through! His heart rate was great throughout the labour and he had apgars of 10 at 1 and 5mins. I soon realised he wasn't the little girl I was kind of hoping for but I had a third son. Did I mind? Not much, I certainly wasn't going to love him any less! We have named him Odinakaobasi* Moses. (Igbo name meaning: 'in God's hands')
What happened next was that I was helped out of the pool as the water was getting too cold - I climbed out, reluctantly, as I was so shaky and it meant handing the baby to someone else, this made him cry properly for the first time. I went to sit on the loo and delivered the placenta, only then did we cut the cord which had stopped pulsating. My husband cut the cord and it was tied with a plaited embroidery thread cord tie made by our new baby's big sister Nwaka.
I'd lost a fair bit of blood and a temporary nest had to be made up for me and baby just outside the bathroom as I wasn't able to make it back to the bedroom and kept passing out. I feel pretty fortunate not to have had to transfer for PPH as it was fairly borderline.
As with all my previous children, terrible after pains! My midwife gives me some remedies from my Helios homeopathic kit. I had a tear which didn't need stitches and never bothered me.
He was weighed about an hour after birth and was 11lb 5oz - a bit smaller than my last child but far far more hard work to give birth to!
So, being the toughest call of my life would I have preferred a caesarean really? NO! This was really tough but nothing actually went wrong! And here are the major positives:
Whilst I was labouring upstairs, my Mum was busy cleaning and tidying below and didn't even realise how tough going it was or how far progressed I was (she actually missed seeing the birth!) So although the labour was so long and drawn out to me, it was just a normal event with no big upheavals. Also my next door neighbours knew that I'd delivered because they heard the baby's first cries; they didn't say if they heard me yelling beforehand!
In the days to come we had a really tough time with lots of difficulties; it would have been so possible to have just descended into postnatal depression. I actually believe that had I not had a positive normal birth experience that is exactly what would have happened.
Charlotte Okparaeke
First Babies and homebirth
Siblings at a home birth - what to do with your older children? Should they be present?
Pain relief - what are your options at home?
Big babies and homebirth
Transferring to hospital - why it might be advised.
Get Your Baby Lined Up - what it means when your baby gets in an awkward position, and what you can do about it.
Overdue - but still want a homebirth? When is 'postdates' risky?
The Third Stage of Labour - what are your options, and the pros and cons of each?
Post-Partum Haemorrhage - what can be done if you bleed heavily at home?
Grand Multiparas - mothers of 4, 5 or more - how does it affect your labour?
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