A Healing Home Birth Story

This beautiful story is about a second healing birth, sunshine after clouds and trusting in oneself.
Thank you so much to this very special family for sharing their story. 
Marin, born at home. Welcome to the world sunshine girl.

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It was a Friday night and we were heading for bed. I had a feeling things were going to get started - I'd spent a couple of weeks feeling my body and baby shifting into position. On this night, there was a dull ache in my lower back and it felt...different. 

I woke at about 3am and could feel very gentle surge sensations beginning in my lower back . I told Tim and we agreed to get some sleep and wake our son in the morning; he was in bed with us that night and I vividly remember his little arms around my neck while I was breathing through some gentle surges - his love and warmth really got my oxytocin flowing.

At 6am I woke my husband and told him I was ready crack on! He took our son to my Mum's  while I ran a warm bath... my happy place. I had spent a lot of time relaxing and listening to my hypnobirthing MP3s in this bath and I instantly felt relaxed. I had a couple of surges in the bath and enjoyed breathing through them. Tim set up the birth pool downstairs while I pottered about in our bedroom and tuned in to the building sensations. It was very cool to experiment with how I could make the surges feel stronger by staying upright and forward - if I lay down I could feel them softening. There was a moment when I remember thinking, 'right, let's get this show on the road, no lying down now!'

I instinctively felt the need to be in the garden for a while - it was summer time and the birds were singing. A little robin sat on the fence next to me through a few surges. Back in the house I continued to experiment with positions and found that kneeling over the birth ball was great, and pushing against the wall in a standing position was effective too. Tim did the hip squeeze for me through every surge which gave me such relief in my lower back where an immense pressure was building. 

Our Midwife Rosie arrived, took a little look at me from a distance and went into the next room to set up her paperwork. She was a close family friend and it felt good when she arrived in our birth space - she brought complete trust in me and my body, and we were comforted by her presence. I had written into my birth preferences that I didn't want routine vaginal examinations and she was completely respectful of this, so I was just left to get on with things.

I decided now was the time I needed to shift a gear and wanted to be in the pool. The relief as I got in was out of this world. I felt absolutely in my element and the feeling of being weightless and cocooned by the warm water was next level! No more hip squeezes required, Tim was now sitting next to me, totally present and watching for any signs of tension. He knew I wanted to keep my jaw and hands completely relaxed.

The surges were building in strength and now it was taking all my focus and attention to ride the waves, which were long and powerful, but completely manageable with the amazing hypnobirthing breath work we had learned. 

At one point I said to Tim, 'I don't think I can keep this up all day'... he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, 'that means she's nearly here'. He remembered that it's very common for women to feel a moment of self doubt when they are very close to birthing their baby. And he was right!

On the next big surge her head was out and a second surge followed what felt like straight after and the rest of her body was born at 11.45am. I was totally stunned by this foetal ejection reflex - I didn't try to push at all, my body just did it! I had read about this, but still expected to need to do some form of proactive 'pushing'. Tim had caught Marin underwater, but my mind was still somewhere else and I couldn't physically turn around to pick her up for what felt like ages! I needed a moment to come back into the room. Now I know this is called the 'birth pause' and I love watching videos of birthing women suspended in this moment in time. 

When Tim handed Marin to me she started pinking up really quickly, but didn't make a sound. It was as if she hadn't realised she had been born. We stayed together in the water wrapped in a towel and we couldn't take our eyes off her. I find it very hard to put in to words the feeling of love I had for her in those moments. 

We got out of the pool and onto the sofa and breastfeeding began. We sat there together for an hour, completely undisturbed except to birth the placenta, which was uneventful. Marin was still attached to her placenta and Rosie explained that this was an intact birth. Wow! How amazing to see this. Tim felt the cord and when he couldn't feel it pulsate any more he cut it under Rosie's guidance. 

Our Midwife was incredible... I have very vague recollections of her listening in to baby's heartbeat, but other than that she was completely hands off. Just her presence in the house, albeit in the room nextdoor and sometimes standing nearby, was so incredibly calming and comforting. As a close family friend I know it helped having someone familiar in my birth space. 

I had a third degree tear with my first born, and so I was keen to know from Rosie whether I would need to be transferred to the hospital after this birth. I did need some stitches, but Rosie could do them at home while I lay on the sofa cuddling Marin. After that I had a shower and we all went to bed. Rosie tucked us in together and we spent the afternoon having skin to skin.

This birth was almost exactly as I had spent all my time imagining it to be, although it all happened in the day and I had pictured it being at night. I don't think I truly understood just what the hypnobirthing practice had done for me until after the birth, when I realised I had absolutely zero fear of the process and a complete trust in my body and baby to know how to be born.  Our confidence rolled on into the weeks after birth where Tim and I both felt so empowered to parent Marin in the way that felt right for us and her. It was a pretty magic time and we feel so very lucky to have this positive birth story to tell. 

We can't thank you enough for helping us unlock our power as a birthing team and for instilling such confidence in the birthing process within us. It was a gift of the highest order!

Love, Heather and Tim Xxx

Orgasmic Birth

Back in 2017 I was chatting with the inspirational founders of The Hotbed Collective about orgasms. It just so happens to be one of my favourite topics….vaginas + pleasure…how could it not be. They asked me to share my experience of orgasms and birth and I wrote the following piece which was originally posted on The Hotbed Collective website.

Here it is:

I grasped his arm as another thrusting wave gripped my legs and began to ripple up my body. My upper thighs tingled. Warmth spread throughout my vagina until every inch of me throbbed. From the surface of my naked skin to the very depths of my soft core and I couldn't feel one body part as distinct from another. As the power of the surging waves grew I fell into a state of otherworldliness of raging pleasure and piercing intensity until, at the very peak, I gasped.

Pulsing. Tensing. Opening.

Until finally, with one incredible body shaking, thigh wobbling, orgasmic breath I opened fully and released. I felt a familiar wave of ecstatic relief and utter exhaustion that only follows a climax of incredible sensual magnitude. Except this time it was different. I looked up at my husband...but he wasn't there.

 He was below me, his hands between my legs, lifting our baby up to me.

Rewind several months and you would have seen me sitting at my computer reading the entire internet's offerings on birth. I stumbled across an article on 'Ecstatic birth' and I distinctly remember chuckling out loud in disbelief. I think I even muttered something like 'freak ass women!' to the screen. Then as my basic understanding of the birthing hormone oxytocin grew, the notion of a pleasurable birth seemed less ridiculous. But to be honest, it still seemed something more likely experienced by the woo brigade or some sort of masturbating champion who can flick their bean to high heaven in any situation.

Kudos. Then it happened to me.

My first labour was simple. I woke up with mild contractions, then my waters went. By lunchtime  I was at the hospital and in the birth pool. After 2hrs and a half hours of 'active' labour I got out to go to the loo and instead of having the massive wee I was fully expecting, a tiny human head began to pop out. Throughout labour my contractions had been tiring but I had felt no pain and no discomfort. Just a full body ripple that took over and shook me deep inside, not too dissimilar to the sensations of an intense orgasm rising, and then suddenly disappearing before climax. But it was the moment my son travelled through my vagina and into the world that the full surging climax came.

Two years and five days after my first birth, I was standing in the nursery in our home. Again I was holding onto my husband and again, I was feeling those same intense pleasurable sensations as my rocket baby was arriving. I guess my deepest confession is that I didn't want it to end, so I drew him back up again inside me just for a moment, to prolong the climax. Both times there had been no bean flicking, no nipple tweaking, nothing. Actually, there hadn't been for a while; in the latter stages of both pregnancies my body frankly felt plenty full enough thank you very much. I was far from a sexual being.

It's incredibly hard to clearly describe the sensations of my ecstatic births. They had all the trademarks of an orgasm and the language I use is sexual in nature but they're the only words I have. I am well aware that my first paragraph reads like a cheap erotic novel (minus the last sentence!). In reality, it wasn't sexual or erotic. The same sensations and pleasure minus the sensuality. It is as if I were travelling some sort of invisible sensory road between piercing, shattering intensity and a roaring ocean of surging non sexual pleasure. I didn't feel sexy, I felt gloriously functional. I didn't do any of my normal erotic reflexes like arching my neck or flicking my hair as I might during erotic climax, instead my body bore down and pushed a baby out. Same same but different. 

So giving birth to my baby made me cum. Sounds seriously weird doesn't it?

That is why I rarely talk about it (not exactly a story to wheel out at my son's 18th either). I do feel like a freak. What kind of perverse fetishist orgasms whilst doing this thing that so many people fervently describe to be the most horrific moment of a woman's life? It's not exactly something I could chat about with my antenatal girlfriends. As we sat around rocking our newborns like automative robots, our faces draculian white through lack of sleep, I had the rosy post sex tinge still on my cheeks. How can I share that not only do I love giving birth, I had an orgasm to rival the best shag of my life! I was acutely aware of not wanting to upset any one with my story. I didn't want to boast, I just wanted to share my truth. I also remember how judgemental and dismissive I was when I read those ecstatic birth stories and now I cringe at how cruel and disrespectful I had been to those women.

Since my joyful births, my sex life has had a serious promotion. My orgasms are frankly blinding. I am more sensitive, more aware of every vibration and more erotically connected than ever before. Every erogenous zone has been awoken and now they work in harmonising glory. My poor neighbours.

I can't tell you how to have an ecstatic birth because frankly, I haven't a clue. But what I can say is that it isn't just reserved for the spiritually connected or the sexually confident. It can happen to anyone. 

And I wish with every fibre of my being that it happens for you.

This blog can also be found here: The Hotbed Collective

Emma and Jack: Why we chose a doula for our first birth

“You can’t get too much support, care and love when it comes to birth.”

GUEST POST from Emma and Jack
It’s day 4 of World Doula Week and to celebrate, first time parents Emma and Jack share why they chose to a doula and what that extra support brought to their birthing experience.

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As Phoebe was our first child, we just assumed that a home birth couldn’t possibly be an option. After meeting our wonderful hypnobirthing instructor, Siobhán, she made us aware of our options and gave us the confidence to birth from home.

My environment is so important to me, so the idea that we would be able to birth at home using the hypnobirthing skills we had learnt was amazing. We formed a very close attachment to Siobhan through the hypnobirthing sessions and when we found out that she also offered doula services, we couldn’t believe our luck!

“She was there every time we needed her but was never over-bearing”

Having Siobhán at the birth was amazing. She was the perfect blend between an experienced birthing professional and a caring, calming friend. She was there every time we needed her but was never over-bearing. She was brilliant at ensuring our birth plan was followed, creating a calm space and letting us know important information from the midwives in a way that we felt was gentle.

At the start of our pregnancy, we never thought it would be possible to have such a wonderful home birth but we know that we couldn’t have done it without our amazing doula. Having Siobhán there to look after whatever we needed whilst Jack focussed on supporting me was absolutely invaluable. No job was too big or too small for her and it just felt like having a friend or family member there who you trusted implicitly but without the emotional distraction.

We wouldn’t hesitate to use a doula again and would strongly recommend anyone who is thinking about using one. You can’t get too much support, care and love when it comes to birth.

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To find out more about my doula services click here: PREGNANCY DOULA, BIRTH DOULA

Visit my profile on Doula UK HERE

Check out NORFOLK DOULAS to meet the cuddle of local doulas