Beanie’s Healing Second Birth

Bear’s Home Birth Story

Utterly other worldly wonder

I had spent the week rushing around after finishing work and feeling like I had nothing organised for the baby. On Friday afternoon after a day with my high energy three year old son at 36.6 weeks pregnant I went into labour.

Around 6.30pm I handed over childcare duties to Chris my husband and because we had friends coming for dinner I thought I’d have a rest. I lay on the bed and started to feel rythmic contractions. I still wasn’t convinced he was coming. Chris came and checked in on me and I showed him the timings, he looked shocked ! Three weeks and one day early just felt like it could be a false alarm, we cancelled supper with our friends all the same and Chris made contact with our doulas Romy & Jimena and Abby, our midwife from the Homerton Homebirth team. Abby and Laura arrived at around 9pm with all their gear, we lit a fire and I put on four weddings and a funeral and lay on the sofa. Even though it was quite clear to everyone else at this point that I was in the early stages of labour I needed confirmation. Abby examined me and said I was 4cm the baby was coming tonight !

I lay on the sofa for a while longer and the contractions started to slow a little so I sat and moved between kneeling and leaning on the birthing ball.

Jimena and Romy arrived. Some time passed and I suddenly felt like I wanted to be upstairs in our bedroom. The contractions were strong and it felt like I should rush between them to get up the stairs, I made it to the top and had another contraction. Chris ran me a bath but I didn’t feel like lying down or being submerged in the water so I got into the shower and had the hot water on my back. After this Jimena put the tens machine on my back and it started to help ease the pain of the contractions and almost coach me through them, I wanted to be in the bedroom so we moved from the bathroom and the contractions got closer together.

Jimena and Romy working with me though my contractions, I felt so held. I was kneeling on the floor and had my head on the side of the bed and I could feel his head pushing, I felt like when I closed my eyes I could see his head in my pelvis and I suddenly felt the inescapable feeling of no return, I don’t know if I said it out loud but I couldn’t see how he was going to fit through that space; deep trust in everyone around me and being so held by everyone made me let go of the fear and move beyond this. I remember Romy holding my hand, being right by my side. The power of being mothered and opening to everything that was happening in this moment was magical. I wanted to stand and I held on to Chris and felt the head decending, Chris really held me in this moment, the final few contractions felt so powerful and animal. His head arrived and I put my hand down to hold it before the next contraction came, we had nearly made it, I felt like we were working together and I was talking to him.

As the next contraction came with a gentle push he arrived. Wrapped up in my arms and coughing then crying. Utterly other worldly wonder. 1.30am. We lay on the bed while he was checked over on my body, everyone was so gentle with him and me.

After a while we talked about the placenta coming, I wanted to avoid the injection if possible but was open to it. Jimena gave me some herbs to support the birth of my placenta, we waited a while longer and then I moved to the loo and Chris and I sat with baby Bear on me wrapped in towels until finally the placenta arrived naturally.

Everything was cleaned and I had a warm shower, we got into bed and the wonderful circle of women who had been there with us all said goodbyes. We slept for a few hours before the sun arrived and Otis, our eldest son, came upstairs in the morning to meet his baby brother Bear.

“Another wonderful shared care experience with my good friend and sister birthkeeper Romy Finbow.”

— Jimena from Woomly

Lulu's Freebirth at their beautiful home in E17 Walthamstow, London

At my 10 week appointment the midwife asked me how I wanted my birth to be. And I said ‘I have no idea, it’s not something I’d even thought about?’ I just looked forward to the 12 weeks mark with a healthy baby and to listen to their heartbeat. She said: ‘You have 3 options: in the labour ward, birth centre or a home birth.

At that point I wasn’t even considering having a Homebirth.

The first book that was recommended to me was a book by Red Miller, ‘From fear to love’ which started me on the path to having an alternative non hospitalised birth. And that there is an option of autonomy in the way we birth. The second book I read was given to me to a client Siobhan Miller called ‘practical ways to make your birth better’ which helped me getting in the right head space to do work on myself and be in a better place for birth. This was when Homebirth felt like a real option to me. My baby’s due date was the start of January. And being dragged to the hospital in deepest winter an to most likely go through an unnecessary cascade of interventions didn’t seem like the best option and way more scary!

For me, it felt the better headspace I was in and the calmer the setting the better birth was going to go. The next step was moving house and this new home felt like the right energy for the home birth.

Freebirth made sense

“being dragged to the hospital in deepest winter an to most likely go through an unnecessary cascade of interventions didn’t seem like the best option and way more scary!”

By then I read Ina May Gaskin’s guide to childbirth. Timely evidence of women birthing beautifully on their own without medical interventions. Then we decided to find a doula / birthkeeper to support us on our journey.

After searching and contacting Carly @bestbirthcompany who I knew through friends, but wasn’t available she led us to Jime @woomly

On our first meeting Jime said how she really supported freebirth, and that led me to think that it might be an even better option for me than just a Homebirth since I would have the intervention of the midwifes, and my birth will more likely be totally physiological. I didn’t want someone in my birth space that was risk adverse, purely because of protocols and time frames, so freebirth make sense. I had the back up of a Homebirth team set up, and the hospital is really close, so if a real emergency occurred I could go into the hospital at any point.

The fourth and final book was the one Jime gave me which was ‘Home birth on your own terms’ by Heather Baker. Which really gave me that last bit of confidence to birth at home.

Along with our sessions with her; working through fears, visualisations and affirmations giving myself more preparation. On one of our sessions she read me and my partner the ‘holistic stages of birth’ which was such a beautiful way to see the journey of the birthing woman.

When the day arrived, I’d done so much work on pain relief that I didn’t quite believe that I was on my early stage of labour so me and my partner went shopping and even contemplated going into the pub. I wondered why I had to stop to take some deep breaths as my legs shuddered I went though the canned food shelves.

That evening the surges continued but I still didn’t think they where strong enough to feel like I was in labour. It definitely felt a heavier weight down but not unmanageable. The evening was really chilled, my partner made dinner and we watched a film which we had to stop a few times whilst I breathed through surges. We also messaged our doula and told her it had kind of started and it might be in the next few days.

As the evening progressed more surges came, at 11 my boyfriend ran me a bath and we had beautiful meditation music. I was in the bath for an hour and had 6 surges but they still didn’t feel painful or strong enough to declare that it was actual labour. I did have to breath deeply and concentrate on what my body was doing.

We got into bed and Dave massaged me which felt like such a pressure release. We turned the lights out and thought we’d get as much rest as we could and took a couple of paracetamol. The sleep didn’t come but the surges did! I wasn’t aware of how much time have passed but by around 2 I asked Dave how often and how long where my contractions. He said every 3 mins and lasting about 30/40 seconds, I turned to him and said that that was active labour!

Dave messaged Jime and started setting up the pool whilst I was riding the waves. As Dave was setting up the pool I’d call him back in to hold my hand since the surges started to feel more intense. At this pint I’d mainly had my eyes closed and started to drift into another place. Jime arrived at 3 and I was in the middle of a surge when she arrived. When she came in my bedroom we had a little chat and another surge came. I asked Jime to attach the tens machine which helped getting a little pressure off as things got more intense. As things got more intense rocking back and forth felt like a really good position to be in. The whole time the Indian meditation music was playing in the background and it felt very primal.

After a few particularly strong surges I threw up. I was unaware but Jime was reassuring Dave and saying that it might not be too long to meet Bodhi.

Jime suggested the shower head on my back and as I was getting into the smallest room in house I realised I wasn’t going to get any further and went on one knee. I started to feel really heavy pressure and felt for his head, as well I felt the water sack. From everything I had read if I could delay and steady them coming out it can mean less or no tearing so I said ‘go back up’ and steadied his head which was still in the sac. After two or three surges I was ready and that’s when Bodhi came out, waters breaking as he was coming out. And we heard a huge scream on arrival which was a huge relieve. Since we’ve done all our preparation with resuscitation seen him breath and cry was a relief.

Then I transfer to the bed, had lots of skin to skin time, oxytocin, etc. The next step was having the patience for the placenta to be birthed and for him to feed. After 6.5 hours and some rest Bodhi had his first feed, not long after that the placenta was born. My boyfriend made some placenta prints and Jime gave me my first placenta smoothie. Whilst I stayed in bed marvelled by this amazing creature I just freebirthed.

The sense of achievement after birth was just incredible and mind blowing. I feel so grateful that I got this amazing experience! I’m so happy 😀 all of the things through the pregnancy, the books I read, the advice I chose to listen and not listen to. The unwavering love and support from my partner and the deep meditations we did throughout pregnancy and finally having a beautiful birthkeeper and doula in this journey. They all play their part to give me the strength to have this experience.