Eden’s Homebirth Story

Birth. What words spring to mind when you hear this word? This was a question put to us in one of my first birth class in the hospital. The words that jumped onto the board were pain, labor, work, hard, blood and I think this is pretty reflective of how we in the western world view birth. The images we’re fed from main stream media are of women screaming down the hospital corridor as her partner looks on helplessly in horror, this partnered with the strange phenomenon of women loving to tell expectant mothers how horrific birth is has lead to a society filled with birth fear. But what if I told you there is another way to view the birth experience, one of joy, empowerment, and dare I say pain-free?! I have been lucky enough to have had two beautiful births however, there was a stark difference in the two, one I prepared for pain, had my ‘pain relieve’ plan laid out and of course experienced such that. The other I prepared for a joyful pain-free birth and to my amazement experienced little to no pain.

I had this experience largely due to my amazing midwife who, when we spoke never mentioned the words labor and contractions but instead used the words ‘birth’, ‘wave’ ‘surge’. She gave me a hypnobirthing book and some guided relaxations which I did daily and I also told myself and everyone who asked that I was going to have a pain free labor. I bought into the idea and fully committed to the fact that birth could be enjoyed and was something to be fully emerged in rather than feared. And therein lies the key, our perception and believes have a profound effect on our bodies especially in birth. Our bodies are amazing and have been given everything they need to birth. Of course there are exceptions, that’s why we have hospitals, but in a low risk, no complications birth, little or no intervention is needed. However for the hormones and neuro chemicals to work affectively we need to able to stay in the parasympathetic system ie deep relaxation. Moving out of this into the ‘fight or flight’ sympathetic nervous system causes the release of adrenaline and cortisol cutting off our supply of natural feel-good hormones such as oxytocin and pain-relieving neurotransmitters such as dopamine & serotonin. Further ‘fear’ can cause us to resist, tighten up, our muscles become stiff when we need them to remain soft and flexible. Fear in its self creates pain. Birth is a natural process and when we allowing it to follow the natural course birth can be an enjoyable process. For this reason I chose to have both by births at home, I felt the chance of unwanted intervention in the hospital was too high, secondly, the quality of care in the home birth for me far exceeded anything I would receive in a mainstream hospital.

Ive toyed with writing my lasted birth story as I’ve heard so many stories of the hard births (women are truly warriors) and I worried how my story of ‘ease’ would affect them. However, my story is my story, just that, it’s positive and does not take anything from anyone else’s experience.

So here it is…..

My latest birth sounds like a dream, I woke up at 7am and had a baby by 8am with out having to leave the comfort of my own bed.

That’s pretty much it but I will fill you in a little more :). I went to bed that night with an inkling, slight cramps and hope that things might be starting to happen. I woke up throughout the night with cramps, intense enough to wake me up but smooth enough that I could fall back to sleep in-between. At 6 am my daughter Iza crawled into bed beside me and cuddled in close. She fell back to sleep but I wasn’t able to sleep. By 7am I woke my husband Max and I was excited and pretty sure birth was happening. He bounced out of bed also excited but we were both pretty sure this was just the start of a long process, so off he went to have a shower whilst I looked after Iza. We rang the midwife to let her know things were maybe happening, she asked how far apart the waves were, to which I responded ‘we haven’t even timed them yet, it’s too early’. She said she’d do the school run and drop in to check on us on the way home. We also tried to ring our friends in Dublin who were on call to come and mind Iza whilst I birthed. Of course it being 7 am they didn’t answer but again we figured we have lots of time so didn’t stress too much. I remember the shower wasn’t working and max kept coming back in to check on us whilst he tried to fix it, with each visit I felt more and more urgency for him to hurry up and have the god damn shower!

By 7.20 with each wave I was drifting off into that otherworldly state of mind and was unable to concentrate on looking after Iza, and I’m pretty sure the animalistic noises I was making were freaking her out a little. We quickly rang our childminder, who luckily lives just a few doors down and asked if we could drop Iza off. Max gathered her bits and sped down the road. I remember whilst he was gone things went up a notch and I was pretty sure we should ring the midwife back. Max returned home and whilst on the phone with the midwife my waters broke (with Iza my waters broke 10mins before she was born) and with that the midwives raced to our house. The midwife arrived and came into the house and asked to enter the room, if I wanted to be checked, however before I had time to respond, I pushed and the head was visible. Yes I was defiantly in established labor :). With each wave, I went into a trance, made strange noises and tuned in to all the feel-good hormones flying around my body. After a few more waves the head was out. At this point I remember it felt like ages before the next wave came, I lay down and rested, wondering if another wave would even come. It did and with one last wave, she was born and placed straight on my chest. Its was an amazing experience, I felt so alert and in sync with my body the whole time, it knew what it was doing, all I had to do was trust and surrender, and just like that I had a beautiful baby girl in my arms.

The next few hours were an endorphin haze, the midwives did their thing, cleaning up and supporting in any way I asked. By 10 am me, Max & Eden were tucked up in our own bed with fresh sheets, wondering who this new little soul was.

I had read a birth story in Ina Mays book about a lady would labor through the night, waking the next morning being fully dilated, wouldn’t that be nice, what a great labor, I could do that…..

I hope this story settles into someone else psyche just as did the story the from Ina Mays book and gives them reference for a more positive birth.