Well, my lovely daughter arrived on Sunday at 5pm, weighing 8lb 9oz . It was quite exciting.
I'd woken up on Saturday night with a few sharp contractions but very irregular and I slept between them. Nothing on Sunday morning.
Around 3pm had a few more contractions but was able to carry on with what I was doing. at 3.50 decided I needed to go upstairs and be quiet, and thought I should start timing them so I could decide whether to call the hospital and ask them to get my antibiotics ready. Also wanted to make sure the birthing pool was free.
Ran a warm bath and climbed in.
First timed contractions were 15 minutes apart lasting 90 seconds. Then straight into 2 mins apart. At 4.20 asked DH to arrange for the children to be collected. Called doula to say I thought things were happening. Got out of bath to put on a top before doula arrived and thought "if I still care about that I can't be in proper labour". Got back in bath.
4.30 realised I couldn't get out of the bath, let alone into a car. Called midwife.
4.40 midwife arrived, followed a minute later by 2nd midwife. Started on gas & air.
4.44 waters broke in the bath.
Heard them ask DH to start boiling water for hot water bottles, and get towels and blankets ready.
Heard a midwife say "is that a foot?".
Heard midwife ask DH to call 999 wtih blue light.
Asked to get out of bath. Breech baby delivered on bathroom floor at 4.49pm. She cried straightaway and her apgar at 1 minute was 8.
They left the cord for 15 minutes and then advised me to have syntometrine.
We transferred to hospital for 24 hours so she could have her GBS obs.
As well as being an unplanned homebirth and undiagnosed breech, there was a true knot in her umbilical cord, so we are truly blessed that she is fine. We've called her Theodora (which means gift from God).
The midwives were incredible. They've been doing homebirths together for 20 years and have joked that they've never had an undiagnosed breech homebirth. The v nice but tactless one delivered the baby, and the one who I know well looked after me. Everything she did was exactly what I needed at that moment. I was very spaced out on gas & air and stopped listening to them, and she got into the bath with me to get me to change position. Even when she asked DH to call 999 she did it in such a calm way that I never doubted that the baby and I were safe. It's the first labour in which I haven't panicked. I was able to breathe her out gently and have just a small 1st degree tear - no stitches (hurrah!)
I had my hypnosis music on and that was very helpful, and the breathing techniques were excellent. I hadn't realised how fast everything had been until I looked at my notes in hospital and saw they said the 1st stage was 15 mins and the 2nd stage 9 mins