My not so perfect homebirth

[HeyJudex]

I'm sitting here bf my beautiful dd3 and I know I should be grateful we're both happy and healthy but I can't stop thinking about the birth.

I now have 4 dc. I had 3 straight forward, fast labours in hospital. No tears or any problems at all. So when I found out I was pg with dc4 all I wanted was a homebirth.

Everything was planned and prepared and I had a very supportive midwife. Went a few days overdue which had never happened before.

So on saturday morning I woke at 4am and was contracting fairly close together but not really painful. Rang dh who works nights and told him to get home. Called the midwife. Set up the living room just how I'd planned.

Everyone turned up and I gave birth at 6:10am to dd3. Dd1 was awake by then and she was brought downstairs to sex the baby as planned, dh cut the cord. Everything was perfect, she latched on and I was so happy.

I was given the injection to deliver the placenta but nothing. I was still contracting but the placenta would not budge. We tried everything to get it out but after an hour it became obvious that it was not going to happen.

So dd3 and I ended up in an ambulance and taken to hospital. Had to have an epidural, theatre, legs up in stirrups so they could remove the placenta manually.

We were stuck in hospital until 7pm when they eventually agreed to let me go armed with loads of iron tablets and injections for a week.

I just had to get it all out. When people ask me about the birth I tend to just mention the birth bit. I'm just totally gutted about what happened after, it wasn't supposed to be like that.

Thanks for listening!!

Congratulations Judex!

I also transferred in from a homebirth - but during labour not after. I feel for you - that special time with your dd immediately after the birth wasn't what you thought and hoped it would be. That's tough.

Hope you feel better soon. I bet when your hb goes up a bit you'll feel less down than you do now.

I can totally sympathize, I had the perfect hb but had to transfer to hospital for stitches (which, it turned out, could have been done at home anyway ). More often than not I just tell the first part of the story.

Sorry it turned out that way but congratulations, hope your recovery goes well .

Meant to add - hope you're having skin to skin BIG TIME now, to make up for what you missed after the birth?

hey, your homebirth WAS perfect!!! it sounds absolutely lovely.

ok, so the blimmin placenta needed bit of help afterwards, but that's nothing compared to birthing your baby :)

i know you're just disappointed that it didn't all go how you wanted it to, or how you expwcted it to, but you got the main bit done how you planned didn't you?
and at least you had a really good reason to have to go into hospital (rather than lack of midwives, or just erring on the side of caution!)

anyway, congratulations on your new baby. and in time i am sure you won't give it any more thought :) (the placenta that is, not the baby)

Thanks! At least its not just me these things happen to! I get the feeling people just think I should have just delivered in hospital in the first place.

On the plus side we had lots of hours in the hospital without the other dc's running around so managed lots of skin to skin and established feeding in peace!

As soon as the epidural went in I just thought great, I've been through all that pain and I had to have this anyway!!

Thanks thisisyesterday. Yeah the birth was perfect. I may just forget the placenta ever existed, it only ended up in the bin anyway!

well exactly. not like you were about to make a delicious pate out of it or anything eh

congratulations :) hope you are feeling ok after all that - and enjoying lots of snuggles with your Newbie.

Thanks! Oh no no pate! Although ds did want to keep the umbilical cord to play with.....

Oh she really is perfect, I can't put her down! Worth everything that happened on saturday.

Congrats. You might not feel this now but the important thing is you and the baby are ok.

This is my first message! Well done on your hb HeyJudex & hopefully horrible memory of hospital will fade. I gave birth to my DD in Feb - had a beautiful hb but following the injection I delivered placenta but started to bleed quite bad. Mw's transferred me in by emergancy ambulance with new baby girl and i had to have retained membrane from placenta removed manually. Only pain relief was gas & air. It was more painful than labor & had to have stitches as precaution :( left me totally traumatised. Glad my doula was there as support. Had to stay in hospital until following afternoon - hubby had to leave when we should have been in our bed snuggling baby!
Sorry to go on but i do feel disappointed after gorgeous hb (had bad experience in hospital with DS1) but im determined to dwell on positive hb now!

Oh poppettuk sorry you had to go through that too.

Guess we can never really plan these things. But we've got our lovely dc's to show for it all.

Oh yeah im loving being at home with my 2 babies! tbh i think the injection played a part in retained membrane so wud def think twice if got pregnant again & go for natural 3rd stage. LOVED hb tho, wud def recommend!!
Enjoy ur babies - all worth it :)

They gave me 2 doses of that injection to try and get it out but it certainly didn't work!

I agree, even with the transfer I would still recommend hb.

So sorry that things didn't work out the way you wanted but you are only 3 days later - hopefully the memories that stick with you are of the birth exactly as you wanted it to be and that the other memories fade. Enjoy your lovely baby.

Congratulations on your baby. I had DD1 in hospital, but the same thing happened. I had a waterbirth, the birth went smoothly, and then I ended up in theatre with an epidural and legs in the air to have the placenta removed. So I know how dazed I felt after everything suddenly became so medicalised.

But 3 years on I really don't think about the placenta bit, and I was very relieved that when I had DD2 the placenta literally fell out by itself - just in case you are considering popping out a 5th!

You can't predict what your placenta will do.

I have to confess to always feeling really sorry for the 'natural labour' or 'homebirth' Mums who end up in theatre for placenta removal or sutures.

Natures way of saying "don't mess with me" I guess.

One of my (medical) friends had to have a manual removal of placenta after her uncomplicated midwife led unit delivery of her DC4 and gave my anaesthetic colleague hell because she was so pissed off about the situation.

She had to send flowers to apologise as she was so embarrased in retrospect (they know each other IRL). So you are not alone.

"I have to confess to always feeling really sorry for the 'natural labour' or 'homebirth' Mums who end up in theatre for placenta removal or sutures."

I personally feel vastly more sorry for the legions of women giving birth in hospital every year in the UK who end up in theatre having an emergency c/s, forceps delivery or perineal damage they may well have dodged had they stayed at home to have their baby.

Most postnatal wards are full of intrinsically healthy women who look like the walking wounded following their brush with maternity services.

spudulika I hear you - I wish that I'd have followed my instincts and stuck with hb and not gone in for induction and the myriad of interventions that came with that.

OP - So pleased you got your homebirth - I do hope that in time the end of it doesn't colour the whole experience for you. I'm definitely not one of those people who think you should have just gone in and done the whole lot in hospital!

What a frustrating thing to have happen. My placenta was a bit stubborn at my homebirth and I was starting to wonder if they'd start suggesting I go in. Thankfully it never reached that point.

Maybe one way of looking at it is that you had a great birth (wonderful, calm, at home, etc) and a bit of a rubbish third stage, but if you'd been at hospital you might have ended up with rubbish everything!

I'm sorry things didn't go as you hoped :(

DD1 was a lovely HB - until I stood up and it turned up that my tear, which hadn't seemed to bad at first inspection, had caught a vein and was still bleeding. Cue me turning an interesting shade of grey, sitting back down in a hurry and an ambulance being called for transfer.

By the time I got there the bleeding had stopped, but I got stitched up for good measure (and they possibly did a better job with very good lighting and stirrups, etc, than the MWs would have been able to do at home - although that might be me trying to put a positive spin on it).

I also was a bit anaemic following what happened, and was offered a transfusion. I felt really wobbly for days and struggled when the hormones kicked in a few days after the birth. Fortunately DH did a wonderful job of doing all the nappy changing, cooking, walking-up-the-stairs-behind-me-so-I-felt-safe and after a few more days I did improve. I think it took a good couple of weeks before I was anywhere near to back up and running, though, and I can only try and imagine how much harder it must be with 3 older children to take care of as well.

In an ideal world its not what I would have chosen, and it certainly wasn't the first day with our new baby that DH and I had planned. But I'd still choose to have the peaceful, calm HB with the hospital bit tacked on the end if required than a planned hospital birth from the start.

Really hope your iron levels come back up and you start to feel a bit better soon :)

(As an aside, my MW recommended Spatone or Floradix instead of ferrous sulphate tablets. If the pills are giving you digestive issues you might want to try and track some down).

You had a great homebirth, just marred by a complication at the end. Be grateful. Hope you're feeling better soon.
It could have been far worse you know. Luckily i was adamant about being in hospital and being induced to control speed of labour with DC5. I have em really fast!!!
I ended up seizing with sudden onset eclampsia and DD's cord was twisted and coiled and wrapped around her neck 3 times. If i hadn't have been in there and them not seen dips in her too fast heartbeat both of us may have died. Only 30mins from spotting a problem till a real obstetric emergency that couldn't have been predicted.
Hospitals aren't all bad you know, pretty sure mine saved both our lives!

I had a totally different experience, i developed pre-eclampsia around 33weeks and was induced at 35 weeks. DD was a mini 3lb12oz and spent two weeks in special care. After delivery i had retained placenta and ended up with a general anaesthetic and a blood transfusion. After spending a few days in hospital i was physically quite well and sent home, however, i had the same disappointed feelings and kept wishing things could have been different.
Time is a great healer and now i'm just grateful everything worked out ok in the end. In a few days time you'll be feeling much better and all will be well in the world! Plus be proud of yourself, you did all the hard work and have a gorgeous baby to show for it!!!