An experience Of A Lifetime- Homebirth Of Hariette May

*WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC BIRTH PHOTOGRAPHY*

This was my 4th birth but my first homebirth and Ben and I were really looking forward.

We only organised it with 4 weeks to go we were going with hospital care but at the last minute changed our minds and thanks to a friend and my awsome midwives it all just fell into place, was obviously ment to be.

So my due date came and went but I though I must of been going to go soon with the other the longest I went over was 3days and since about 38 weeks Id been having pre labour symptoms on and off but no this little miss needed more time.

Finally at 41 weeks I felt like this was the day, it was the older 2 kids daycare day I felt like it was the break I needed to get in the zone so to speak. I kept busy all day and after going for a walk around the block was having contractions all day 10mins apart, Yay!

I phoned my midwife about 5pm that evening and told her Id most likely be needing her later on that night or the next morning, contractions were still 10mins apart at this point but 50-60secs long but I knew it was still a fair way off. 

Inlaws came about 7pm to collect the 3 kids and I was so glad I found it very distracting having them around and now I felt my body would finally progress. To fill in time we went down the street and washed the car and got some lollies from the supermarket, we got back home and I was still just the same so I tried to get some sleep cause I was quite tired from all the pre labour I had been having for the week before I hadn't been getting much sleep.

I managed to get some sleep/rest my body seemed to know I needed it and toned the contractions down for me until 3am when I had a shocker and just had to get up and move.

It was quite a cold night so we had the open fire going encase of bubs arrival and I found it great to stand in front of in between contractions to ease the pain and the lovely crackling noise was very relaxing. From this point the contractions went to 7mins then to 5mins and at 6am we called the midwife to tell her to think about coming over soon.

Both my midwives H and A got to our house about 7am and it was all very relaxed and casual, it was just lovely really. A even folded some of my washing for me. 

At this point the contraction were very stong I got through them by breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth quite heavily and thinking about how each contration was opening me up, I was very cool, calm and collected.

Ben or my midwife H would rub my lower back or put pressure on that area if I needed it and the brilliant thing was I didnt even have to say anything its like they were just intune with what I needed. I didnt have any internals done we just went with my body and before long I could tell it was time for my knickers to come off haha. I was starting to get a bit agitated Im not sure if anyone else noticed but I was and I knew it ment I was in transition and I layed down on the floor for a while to get some energy back then I stripped right off to be ready for skin to skincontact when bubs came earthside.

I was leaning over the fit ball on my knees and it wasnt long before I could really feel myself opening up and the baby moving down then my body just started pushing to me this felt like ages but Ben said it wasnt that long I think I was just getting impatient. I had alot of pressure cause my waters still hadnt broken but all of a sudden they went and man was it a relief, not too much longer and the head was crowning and once again it was such a relief once it was out, I was so happy but she was a little wriggler and kept moving around. Youch!

It was only a few more pushes then she was born into her fathers arms, it makes me so happy to know that the first look at the world she got was her daddy there wating to catch her. He immediatly passed her up to me and I was just so happy, so proud it was just exhilarating! It felt so right to have birth my baby in such a natural, calm way in our own home we just sat there for a while taking it all in and enjoying those first cuddles and gazes into each others eyes.

I moved to the couch to lay down and get comfy and as soon as I did she was searching and did the crawl to the breast, was amazing none of my others did it like that. So we had our first feed and waited for the cord to pulse out.

We wanted a physiological 3rd stage but I had lost quite a bit of blood and we all decided it to be safer to have the syntocinon and I was fine with that, Hatties cord had already stopped pulsating so we still got our delayed cord clamping. The placenta was horrible to birth, it had come away from the wall and was sitting there puttnig pressure on my back it hurt so much more than the actual labour and I was sort of numb down there and couldnt feel anything when I pushed. It was really stressing me out but after we determined it had deffinently come away H tugged on it gently as I pushed and it was finally out and I was so relieved and got back to enjoying snuggles with my girl.

Because of the quite heavy blood loss my H reccomended I have some raw placenta, the hormones help stop the bleeding. Before now there is no way I thought I could have raw placenta but I didnt want to have to transfer to hospital so was happy to do anything to help with the bleeding. A cut up 5 pill sized pieces and I had them with strong cordial and it was no where near as bad as I though tastes just like if you bit the inside of you mouth or tounge even Ben tried a bit which we were all very impressed with.

Before we chopped the placenta up A did some blood prints with it which I just love, The tree of life. The rest of the placenta A cut up and popped in the oven to dehydrate so I could encapsulate it.

Afterwards I was  bit dizzy and nauseous cause of the blood loss but overall felt great, had no tearing at all barely even a graze.

Ben and I both agree it was one of the best experiences of our lives, Im so so happy we ended up going homebirth. I hope my story inspires others to choose homebirth.