A Healing Home Birth Story
Siobhan Ridley
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
