Baby Zak arrived at 7.38 am on Saturday 9th June, one day after his due date. He weighed 6lb 2oz and is absolutely beautiful
Here is the birth story, I want to write it as I feel it will give first timers planning a home birth a lot of hope!
I felt the first twinges on Friday evening at 11 ish, went to bed as normal but could not get to sleep. I was getting irregular cramps until around 2am when they were getting closer together and more painful, so I went downstairs to watch telly. I stayed down for an hour timing contractions, they were coming around 7 -8 minutes apart and were managable when moving around. I decided to get DH up to attach the TENS. By 4ish I was annoyed with the tens and decided to go in the shower. My waters broke in the shower, at which point I thought it was probably the real thing! DH then dropped the shower on my head in all the excitement, so I headed for dry land again.
The contractions started coming every 4-5 mins and were quite intense, I was ok as long as i was leaning over the sofa and had the fan on full blast in my face! DH started to inflate the birthpool, a well practised procedure! I asked dh to phone the midwife to let her know that things had started but that we were fine. He phoned at around 5, they arrived at around 6am. She tried to examine me but I wouldn't be moved from my position in front of the fan! I asked for gas & air but was told that I should wait and try the birthpool first. The birthpool was being filled by dh at this point, but he wasn't making much progress as I wanted him with me during contractions. Eventually the midwife convinced me to move so she could listen to the heartbeat so I moved to the corner of our living room in amongst DH's golf clubs, a clothes airer and empty boxes
With the new position I got the urge to push much to everyone's surprise, so DH was told to stop filling the birthpool and come and watch his baby being born. Baby Zak arrived around 30 mins later,rather quickly!
The midwives arrived less than 2 hours before he was born, I never got in the pool,I never found out how dilated I was at any stage, I never had any pain relief. We sat and cuddled our new son on our own sofa while the midwives cleaned up. After tea and toast (of course!) dh had time with Zak while I had a bath and the midwife checked me over. Unfortunately, due to Zak's swift entry in to the world, I had a tear requiring stitches too complex for the midwife so after all that we had to go to hospital and I had an epidural for the stitches! We were back home later that evening though, and I feel extremely positive about the homebirth experience
5 days on, we are loving our totally new way of life!