First time home birthers and their support squad

[jollyjoanne]

Not a homebirther personally but wanting to offer support to Boobz and others who are going for a home birth . . .

good luck girls, hope those babies make an appearance soon, it's so crap going overdue even without the worry about induction and losing the hoped for homebirth, I was 40+10 when DS finally appeared

How is it going KT? Are you still pregnant ?

I'm now 40+11 and getting a bit fed up - your comment about thinking you might crack and ask for an induction before the consultant insists on one made me smile. I really really don't want to do that but with on average 2 calls a day plus texts asking me what's going to happen next I'm starting to feel under pressure from bloody relatives and friends to get the baby out any old how, just to ease their discomfort with the situation!

Poor DH had to plan his 'paternity leave' time off work in advance as he is self-employed and is now half way through with nothing to show for it except for a very tidy garage and cellar, clean windows and quite a few spare items onto e-bay... all good stuff but not what we had in mind for these few weeks!

Hi learningfast, thanks for the mention. All well here, I have the mw coming around for the home visit on Thursday, so will be able to go through thrash out my birth plan then

Still at work - only four weeks to go now, hoorah!

Congratulations Jennifer, glad the bf going well - please share your story when you've got your head round it

Hi LearningFast, yes I'm still pregnant - 40+9 by my dates and 40+16 by the scan. Going in for monitoring again tomorrow so hopefully everything will be fine - fingers x. I know exactly what you mean about the phonecalls, texts, facebook etc. My standard response is now "yes I had it 3 weeks ago, but decided not to bother telling YOU" :o

Oops, posted before I'd finished...

Your poor DH, must be really hard for both of you, especially as I guess that means you won't have much time together with the baby when it finally does arrive. Sending labour vibes your way

Well it looks like I'm destined to be a homebirth failure! After three nights of contractions too painful to sleep through, about every 10 mins, that stop the second I got up to walk around, bounce on ball etc, I've given in and am going in to have my waters broken tomorrow. I've had 4 sweeps in the last week and am 5 cm dilated (which apparently the mw can easily stretch to 9 cm!!!). The mw says she can't understand how it's not coming and threatened to pull it out by its ears :o I'm 40+13 by my dates and 40 +20 by the scan dates and have sooo had enough of being pregnant.

what a shame KT....

i look forward to your next post (which i hope is) about the safe arrival of your new little person.

Wishing you all the very best and hope it goes well.

Hi Boobz All good here. Don't get online much. Will try and catch up soon.

I'm sitting with my four month old baby sleeping on my lap and watching the video of my hypnobirthing-almost-homebirth (did the last 5 mins in hospital where I went after my contractions slowed right down during state 2 due to exhaustion)

Tis awesome watching it (for the first time) 4 months on as I was really out of it. It's very calm and peaceful. So glad I did most of it at home and looking forward to completing no. 2 at home.

Wishing all of you heading into your HB the very best. It's truly an awesome experience!

Just read the thread through. Some great ladies on here :)

Going to watch Dr Who now......

Percival Ernest George born on his EDD 7th June in our sitting room. Will provide a birth story later.

how lovely soandsosmum - glad it was so calm and peaceful. this is exactly what I'm hoping for!

and looking forward to your birth story motherofsnortpigs

ok... today is my (hospital) due date.....

i think i had a show yesturday and a bit of one the day before....
have been getting a few "pains" (but not really painful) and this morning my bump has been tightening (with no pain at all) about every half hour or so....

it may be a while off but im thinking that it might be starting soon ish...

(Really dont want baby on Tuesday, (my birthday,my real due date by me), but i have a feeling baby might have different ideas)

we will see what happens.

Good luck nannyl

Edwin James was born yesterday at 17.09 following a two hour labour and, brace yourselves, weighs a HUGE 11lb7 !!!!!!!!

I went into hospital and had my waters broken at about 1pm. after monitoring for about 45 mins etc we were told to go for a walk for an hour or so to try and get my contractions going. I had my first proper contraction at 3.15 just as we were getting back to the car park. Very quickly I was getting really strong contractions every 2-3 mins and for a little while I struggled to cope with the intensity with just my tens because they started so quickly. I was very sick and hot so decided to try the birth pool, which helped, but I missed the distraction of my booster button. Then I felt the urge to push so asked for gas and air which really helped and Edwin was born in the water. His cord was round his neck twice which was a little scary but other than that all ok. The mw had to check his weight twice and get a second opinion :o

We got home at around 10pm (I discharged us rather than wait for the pediatricion checks - my GP will do them tomorrow). So now we are bf every hour or so as he is a hungry little chap and I think we are both looking forward to my milk coming in :)

Not quite the homebirth I was hoping for but the next best thing I think. The birth center mws were brilliantly supportive even when I was stretching the policies to the max :) . And after 4 days of pre-labour, stop-startin I really couldnt wait any longer.

Congratultaions KT

what a whopper , and well done for doing it all by yourself

I second what nannyl said, well done! Cool name too!

well by last night i was having (non painful) bump tightenings / Braxton hicks every 10 mins....
but it all stopped over night..... i really thought it might kick off but im still well and truley pregnant!

Wow wow wow KT Very well done!

Happy birthday nannyl (yours, not you baby's)

thank you mother of snort pigs

baby seems to like playing contractions in the day followed by sleeping /nothing at night!
Im off to aquanatal today so wonder if i will bounce her into coming out?

at this moment in time i think me birthday will be only my (but am now fed up being pg and she is welcome to come from tomorrow, asap please!!!!)

Hi everyone. I've just spent a lovely hour when i should have been working reading this thread

I'm expecting DC3 in March, and we're planning a home birth for the very first time. I was hoping to join you, if you have room for another not-so-small one?

Ladies,
I had a home birth back in May this year. I live in Fife in Scotland. NHS Fife are considering stopping home birth permanently. I'm part of a group which is campaigning to keep this service (it makes no financial sense as it costs the Trust £800 for a home birth and £1155 for a straight forward hospital birth). Please join the Facebook campaign:
www.facebook.com/groups/homebirthfife/?id=265776033453004
If NHS Fife are successful in closing the service then this will start cascading throughout the UK. We can encourage them to keep it open permanently if we get enough support behind us. Please ask your friends and family to join the Facebook group. Even if you never even plan to have a home birth then this closure will have the result of the NHS being able to influence birth in an almost Orwellian way.

Congratulations KT!

Hey NFC welcome

architien have you thought about setting up an e-petition? I don't know how it works in Scotland post-devolution but I've signed a few in England that have really made a difference to governmental policy, for instance about NHS matters and environmental stuff. The website I'm thinking of is here

architen i have liked it

agree with redhead, get an e-petition, ill sign that too.

Dont we all have a right to a home-birth anyway? or is it that they dont have enough midwives? In which case they need more midwives, not to stop homebirths.... [hmmm]

welcome NFC

Welcome NFC So, a birth story. The brief version of DS1's birth is half way down p11 of this thread. The long version, is here

So, on to DS2....
I'd had a few false starts, notably at 32 weeks when I went into premature labour because I was so horribly undernourished. Thankfully lots of sitting about doing nothing (no mean feat with 3 small children) and copious quantities of bodybuilders supplement meant that I made it to 40 weeks. On the eve of my due date, I finished dinner and as I stood up to tidy away the plates, my waters broke (9.15pm). I phoned the MW straight away as DS1 arrived very speedily and got into the bath that DH ran as soon as he realised we were game on. I got through stage one in about 2 hours and at transition I had a reallly, really good cry. I just couldn't get in a good position for pushing, so I got out of the bath and leaned over the sofa. I am not a night owl and I was aware of myself snoring between contractions. It just went on and on with lots of pain and little progress. After about 2 hours of this DH and I were dispatched to the bathroom where I sat on the loo and banged my head against the wall (I was in so much pain and couldn't be bothered with the G&A any more). Then the MW came through and suggested that because the baby hadn't descended maybe we should consider a hospital transfer. I agreed, so DH called our emergency child care. At that same moment as I was crouching over the loo I had a contraction that actually felt like it achieved something. I was helped back to the sitting room where I lay on my left. DH was right by me telling me to do 'horse lips' and within a few pushes DS2 had arrived (1.16am). He was completely back to back - I have never known pain like it! When my friend arrived all she had to do was make coffee and toast. Thanks to DH's relaxation suggestions as the baby crowned, I didn't even tear. I was so relieved not to have to go to hospital. The DDs came in to see their new baby and to discover he was a boy. We left DS1 in bed. But his first 2 word phrase ever occured the following morning: 'new baby'. Poor Percy's nose kept going white for a few days because of the amount it had been pressed against me as he was being born. He is now 3 months old and so cute and lovely.

Looking forward to reading some more stories.