My UBAC story

Still not sure if I'm ready to write this, but I need to get some details down, otherwise they will be lost in the fabric of time... lol.

I knew on Monday night that things had started to get going. I had a very few irregular, gentle surges, and things just felt like they were changing. I couldn't sleep, so I got the head torch out and read Harry Potter in bed as a distraction until I was tired enough to drop off.

Tuesday morning, and things were still very gentle and irregular, but I realised that this was it. I let Nick know to expect a call from work, and sent him off, knowing he was only 10-15min away if I needed him. I spent the morning doing fun things with Eve, we painted and then I set to tidying the house.



By the time I was happy that I had done all the tidying and cleaning I could physically do by myself, Eve needed to have her nap, this was around 11am. The surge were getting stronger, and I didn't know how I felt about lying down with her as she would expect me to, I've always found labour harder to deal with lying down. Nevertheless, I switched her bedtime music on, and cuddled up with her in the bed. She went to sleep pretty well, and I stayed in bed with her, realising that I had become tense, and that the music was relaxing me. I texted Nick to ask him to come home when she woke as things were getting harder to deal with and I simply didn't have the energy for both. He text back and said he would have to start his 3 week paternity leave (well, the holiday we booked anyway) if he came home now. Was I sure? This really upset me, I irrationally felt that he didn't want to waste his holiday on me, and that he didn't believe me. I rang my friend Carolyn and arranged for her to look after Eve for a few hours when she woke up, Eve adores visiting Carolyns house and her boys and ducks and chickens and all the different toys, and I thought this would be a good place for her to be, even though it was about 20min drive, it just felt right. I let Nick know what was happening, and he replied to say that he had been going to suprise me, but he was coming home early, he had some time to take back. He hadn't wanted to tell his boss I was in labour, I think part of this being that his mum works in the same office, and we wanted to keep things quiet until we were ready to let people know... I don't cope well with people worrying over me or calling to see how I'm doing.

So Carolyn arrived and we were chatted. She could see I was starting to work hard with the contractions, and that I was struggling slightly. I don't think this was because they were particularly difficult, but I was fairly tense, not at all like my first labour with Eve. I'm sure this was what made things harder. Anyway, Eve trotted off very happily with Carolyn as I knew she would, she was excited to go play with Will (Carolyns youngest) which I think took Carolyn by suprise as she had maybe expected a few tears. By all accounts she had a wonderful afternoon playing with the boys, eating a mountain of yummy food and only had one or two upsets when she was a little tired. Carolyn brought her home for bedtime as we had arranged, I thought she might fall asleep in the car, but she was just too excited to see mummy and daddy, and knows the route home too well to allow herself to fall asleep. I'm glad.

Meanwhile, I think Nick realised that I was seriously in labour -- I think having Carolyn confirm this helped -- lol. He set to pumping up the birth pool and filling it. I got in and had a few blissful hours. Then disaster. Nick realised the bottom ring of the pool was deflating. It got to a certain point and stopped, so I was okay to stay in, but I was never going to be able to use the sides as a sturdy support. He found the problem, and tried to fix it with duct tape, but it was on a seam, and it didn't look hopeful after re-inflating. He popped out quickly and bought some instant puncture repair patches and tried these too. The whole thing was just stressing me out, so I decided to get out of the pool and relocate to our bedroom.

I don't know whether it was being out of the water, or the fact that I was now in the last part of the dilating stage of labour, but I really struggled through this part. I checked for my cervix a few times in the pool, and it had been very high, and I was unable to feel it. At one point I did start to be able to feel the babys head with my cervix stretching round it, but the baby was not really properly pushing down on it at this point.

I have no idea of timeframe, but the next few hours were furious. I found the surges difficult to deal with, and I doubted my ability to get through them. I panicked. I thought I still had hours, possibly a couple of days to get through, and my lower back hurt constantly (I now realise this was the babys head descending) I cried, and I said I couldn't do it, I resisted the surges, and they became painful, unbearable. Nick did his best to comfort me, but he's not a great talker. He was immeasurably calm and unflappable. He knew I could do it, and I knew he knew it, but somehow hearing this didn't help.

At some point the surges changed. I wanted to bear down, but I wasn't sure of myself. The sounds I needed to make changed, and I remember very clearly looking up at Nick directly after I made this first sound -- it reminded me of the sound I make when heaving. Which was interesting because I had a dream about what the pushing would be like, and it felt like vomitting in reverse... lol. I was getting a bit panicky and everything was overwhelming. I didn't want to continue (not that I wanted to go anywhere, and certainly not hospital) I just wanted it to stop.

Thankfully at this point Carolyn arrived with Eve. Nick shot downstairs and sent her up at my request. I immediately had another surge and demanded fairly politely that she rubbed my lower back, the way Nick had been doing... lol. When it was over I grabbed her and sobbed on her shoulder that I couldn't do it and probably told her I was scared and various other transition-like statements.

And this is the part that makes me wonder... she very quickly suggested I get in the bath to have the water around me. Inspiration?!? How could she possibly have known that this was EXACTLY the thing I needed to calm me down and make me feel in control again?

Back in the water, I felt better immediately. I kept asking if I was pushing. I didn't want to push voluntarily, but I felt like my body was starting to do the pushing thing. I'd got more vocal and it felt different. In between surges she asked me if I wanted to check myself again. I did, but I couldn't really feel any change, and I felt a bit bummed out. Not that there was anything I could do, surges kept coming fast and furious and I just dealt with them... Carolyn kept a warm terry nappy on my lower back and just kept talking in that soothing voice and making me laugh inbetween the surges. A few surges later I decided to check again, and this time I could tell she was coming. I felt instantly different. Now I knew it was all coming together, I knew I was being productive. I knew baby was on her way and it would be over soon.

At some point Carolyn asked when we were going to call the midwives and I thought it over. There was about a finger-length of birth canal left so I decided to just do it, then at least we could say we called when I was in labour if anyone took it personally.

The final part of the labour was probably my favourite -- it was incredible and empowering and just amazing. She started to crown on my perenium, by this time I was in a full squat sat sideways on in the bath. I reached down to support the tissues and see how it was going. Carolyn had already reminded me how it was important to let things happen slowly at this point, to let the tissues stretch and try to resist the urge to push while this happened. It was a funny feeling resisting when earlier the idea had been not to resist :) At one point I thought I had torn as I almost allowed a surge to get past me... apparently I let the whole neighbourhood know about this... Thankfully Nick had been going round the house closing the windows since I had been fairly vocal, which I completely didn't expect.

Another perfect moment, Nick bolted up the stairs to ask if we needed anything and walked in literally 5 seconds before little one popped out, her head was immediately followed by her entire body and I picked her up. She had her cord around her neck, but it really wasn't a problem, we just unlooped it, and she was fine, went pink straight away. I was amazed at how blue her cord was.


At some point she had a little cry, and Eve, who had been sat downstairs enjoying watching late night TV (probably a film, I don't know) with Daddy, trotted upstairs and met her sister at a minute or so old. Perfect.


About 5-10 min later I started feeling really weak sensations and I knew it was the placenta, and I needed to stand up and let it come. It took Nick and Carolyn a little bit of persuading to let me get up, I gave the baby to Nick, half stood, and it just plopped out. I had expected it to be a little more difficult, so a nice suprise. We had a good look at it, then Nick got a bowl and we left it in there until the MW arrived, since I assumed she would want to check it over and clamp and cut the cord.


Nick went to call my Mum and Dad, and then sneakily waited until they had almost arrived to call his own parents who only live around 1min walk away from us. I didn't ask him to do this, but it was nice that they all arrived at once. By this time I was snuggled up in bed and everyone popped in a few at a time, but mainly milled around downstairs.

Midwife R arrived about an hour and a half to 2 hours after baby was born. Nick had spoken to someone at the triage while I was pushing, and we were a little confused as to why no-one arrived sooner. I mean, I was meant to be "high risk" and have 2 MWs present and an ambulance on standby. But it didn't look like all the planning we did had actually made them any more organised or ready. Ridiculous really. Good thing I didn't need them!!

I know some of you will be thinking that I'm a lunatic for planning it this way -- giving birth at home without any medical assistance... especially after my primary cesarean. Well I had a lot of reasons to do this, and I will blog about them, but I really think it's something that deserves it's own post. So it will wait until I have time to think out how to explain it all.