My Home Birth Story

We were in COVID lockdown number 13639620467564, and my husband, two children, and I had been isolating for two weeks before my due date to try to protect ourselves from catching COVID and interfering with our planned home birth.

I knew our third child would be our last, and being able to give birth at home was so important to me. I felt like I had to jump through hoops to make it happen, as I had a postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) with my second birth, meaning I was going against medical advice. However, having recently trained as a birth educator and Hypnobirthing practitioner, I felt incredibly empowered. I did my research, and home felt like the right choice for me.

At 10 days overdue, with increasing pressure from healthcare professionals to be induced and three days of on-and-off contractions not amounting to anything, I started to feel fed up. I had loved being in our little family bubble at home, but I was missing family and friends and felt desperate to get out of the house.

I called on my sisters for emotional support, and they came over for lunch and suggested a walk in Shrewsbury Quarry. The walking and a good gossip must have got the oxytocin flowing because my contractions started up again. Walking through the contractions, with the distraction of chatting, made them very manageable.

We decided to pop up to my mum’s for a cuppa and a chat, and it became clear that this time, they weren’t stopping! My contractions were getting longer and stronger, and the excitement among my family members was growing. I almost didn’t allow myself to get too excited since I’d experienced this over the last couple of days, but my mum and sisters began timing my contractions. When they were about six minutes apart, they insisted I go home and left me to it. We called the midwifes and they said you seem fine now, take a paracetamol and call us when things get more intense (I gave the paracetamol a miss).

I spent the next hour or so with my husband and daughter, happily pottering around the house, listening to my hypnobirthing affirmations and music and practicing my breathing. Everything felt lovely and manageable. While my husband was cleaning downstairs, I took a shower and spent some time in my bedroom with my eldest daughter. She was supporting me with my breathing through contractions, rubbing my back, and giving me lots of cuddles whilst we listened to my Hypnobirthing relaxations and it honestly felt so, so special.

I started feeling like it was time to get in the pool, so I asked Lily to get Daddy to start filling it up. He was really apprehensive, thinking it was way too early and that the water would go cold, but I trusted my intuition and told him I wanted it done.

Lily and Seb both went to bed and I joined Dave downstairs. As my surges became stronger, the water instantly soothed them. I had never had a water birth before, and I was honestly staggered by how much relief it gave me. When I got in the pool, it took away almost all sensation of contractions—so much so that I kept hopping out, thinking it was slowing things down! But as soon as I did, my body told me otherwise, so I’d get back in, totally relaxed and soothed again.

My husband was just relaxing with me, helping with my breathing when needed, and we were listening to playlists which ranged from piano music to our wedding songs to our favorite club classics. We thought we probably had the whole evening ahead of us and hoped we might have the baby while the kids were asleep.

Suddenly, I had this overwhelming feeling that we should call my mum and ask her to come and sleep over in case we needed to go anywhere. My husband really didn’t want her to come over—he wanted it to just be us—but I insisted he call her. Once she arrived, she sat with us for about 15 minutes. She kept commenting on how calm and relaxed I was. She was telling me how amazing I was, comforting me and helping me with the breath too and it felt really special having her part of it.

Then, out of nowhere, I had this strong feeling that I wanted her to go. Mid-conversation, I abruptly said, “Do you mind leaving us alone now? I just want it to be us.” I remember thinking I sounded a bit blunt, but I just knew I needed it to be me and Dave. She was fine with it and took herself to bed.

Dave and I reconnected and took a little selfie video of us breathing together, and then he said, “I’m just going to pop to the loo, babe.”

The moment he left, I felt my waters go and an intense pushing sensation take over me. I recognized that feeling instantly and knew the baby was coming.

My husband came back into the room to find me in the birth pool, making the familiar strong “moo” sound that has seemed to involuntarily taken over me in each of my births. He looked pretty shocked, and when I told him, “Baby is coming now,” he said, “No, it can’t be!”

With the next contraction, I said, “It is—its head is coming out of my vagina!” He looked and saw the head, and that’s when the panic hit him. He rang the midwives, who told him to call an ambulance.

Honestly, I think I zoned out at that point. I don’t remember feeling any panic—I just listened to my body and surrendered to it while he answered the questions from the call handler. I instinctively leaned against the side of the pool with my left knee up—it felt strong and powerful, and I felt completely at one with freebirthing.

Very quickly, Ava was born in the pool. I was holding her, looking at her perfect little face and body thinking “WTF just happened” !!! And “that was incredible” in equal measures. It took a few seconds for her to take her first breath, and I will never forget that moment of watching her take it in – just WOW!!

The ambulance call handler told us we had to stay on the phone until the ambulance arrived—I told Dave to put the phone on the side, and we forgot about them. He got in the pool, and we had this wonderful 10 minutes, just us and our baby girl, taking it all in. It was truly incredible. The chord was really short so only I could hold her but we all huddled together hugging and keeping her warm in the water.

Dave went to tell my mum so she wouldn’t get a complete shock when the ambulance arrived, and I heard her say, “Fucking hell!” for the first time in my life. She came back downstairs to meet her granddaughter—She couldn’t believe a baby had arrived in the time it had taken her to go upstairs and get into bed. Later, she told me she would never get over how serene I looked—just smiling, holding my baby. No worry that there were no midwives, just pure peace. She has five children herself, all born in hospital, and she said she could see how different and special this birth was.

The ambulance crew arrived about 15 minutes after Ava’s birth. Those 15 minutes were glorious and so special, but as soon as they arrived, I began to bleed. They gave me medication to manage the third stage, cannulated me, and gave me fluids to stop the bleeding. Shortly after, the midwife team arrived. A midwife called Rita (who was fab) took over, did some compressions, and helped birth the placenta. It went from total bliss to a room full of medical staff and felt quite the opposite of the environment I was hoping for—but needs must. The bleeding was stopped quickly, but I agreed to go in for monitoring. Ava was absolutely fine—they just wanted to keep an eye on me to ensure there was no further bleeding. As much as I didn’t want to be in the hospital, I understood it was necessary for my health.

By morning, I discharged myself once I knew I didn’t need a blood transfusion.

I arrived home to a clean front room—no birth pool in sight—cakes, soups, and prepped meals from my family, and a whole day of cuddles with my gang as we got to know our newest addition, Ava-Rose.

Unfortunately, the GoPro I set up didn’t work, and since it all happened so quickly, we completely forgot to take any pictures after her birth, which I was devastated about. However, Ava-Rose’s birth truly cemented my belief that our bodies know how to birth and that intuition is everything. My home birth showed me how birth works best when we don’t interfere unnecessarily. I could see so clearly how feeling safe, unobserved, and in familiar surroundings helped my labor progress and how huge a role oxytocin plays in birth. Despite the bleed, I would choose home birth a thousand times over.