Disappointing homebirth a week ago [Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[Lookingfortheanswers]

Please be gentle with me. My baby is a week old and I haven’t stopped sobbing.

My husband & I have 4 children; DD14, DS9, DD7 and now baby DS. Children numbers 2 & 3 were born at home with midwives present, all went fine and I know how blessed I am.

We had a homebirth planned again this time and I wanted the children present as they’d been involved in our decision to have one more.

I woke at midnight last Sunday morning to my waters breaking and instant contractions only 2-3 mins apart. We called the Birth Centre to request midwives and were told there were none at the moment but I could go in to Labour Ward, or wait for them to find midwives. They advised to call an ambulance for the birth if still at home with no midwife attendance.

I decided to carry on and my husband got setting things up. We woke the children and they were excited. We also had a tripod set up to film the birth.

90 mins later by 1.30am, it was unbearable and I knew it was close, so we called an ambulance. I had no idea that two would arrive, to cater for me and baby. I had 3 male paramedics and 1 female crowd me in in my living room, all asking me questions during contractions. Naturally, this chaos slowed down contractions and I felt so vulnerable. I could hear my husband making small talk with all 4 paramedics and from watching the video back, our children were invisible to all adults including my husband.

I took myself upstairs to get away from the noise, but they all followed me to my bedroom. At no point did my husband speak to me or the children, just got busy making friends with the paramedics. One was on the phone to Maternity keeping them updated and they were desperately trying to find staff. I could have been transferred in but it was my 4th labour and I felt we wouldn’t make it. I didn’t want to have a baby in an ambulance on my own.

From 2am - 3am when baby was born, I laboured on my bed and was out of it. This goes against everything I wanted for birth- I needed dim lighting, space, quiet and to stay mobile. From watching the video, I was on my bed legs wide open, no underwear on and the big light on. The 3 children were sat beside me on the floor. The 4 paramedics and my husband were stood chatting at the foot of my bed with my vagina on full display. Not one adult thought to ask if I was happy with an audience or to place a towel over me until I began pushing.

As I began pushing, you can hear one paramedic who had gone to fetch something from downstairs, being yelled by the others “Simon!! Quick Simon,
you’re going to miss it!”. I was a zoo animal in a cage on that bed, putting on a show for them all. My husband was still casually asking them how long they’ve been in service etc.

Baby came out safely thank goodness and was eventually passed to me, and 3 midwives arrived 5 mins later. I now had 4 paramedics, 3 midwives, 1 husband and 3 children around my bed during golden hour, watching me feed baby. They all carried on chatting like I wasn’t there and all talking about me but no one to me (except the kids who were darlings).

An hour went by and no placenta- obviously, as I was very stressed. It was the most surreal moment laid there naked with a baby on my chest, with 8 adults stood around my bed like some kind of ritual was about to start. I had to advocate for myself and asked “what is going on?”. A midwife replied that they were waiting for my placenta to come out. I said “do all 8 of you need to watch? Please can you leave me alone?”. Then all except one midwife
went downstairs.

Placenta still didn’t budge even with the injection, so I had to be taken in to hospital by ambulance with my baby in his car seat. It was easily removed by a midwife in a quiet room at hospital and I was then stitched up and allowed to go home.

I can’t stop re-living it and I feel so let down. My husband’s response to me being upset is; “yeah,
I’m such an arsehole, it’s all my fault” and stropping off. He also says I just need to be grateful baby is here and healthy. I don’t want to keep crying in front of my children but I feel so let down and so violated and exploited. One of the young trainee paramedics even exclaimed “woo hoo my first baby catch”.

Is it my fault? Should I have not planned a homebirth? Should I have gone to hospital and risked ambulance birth? Should I have been clearer with my husband? But I couldn’t plan for an eventuality that I didn’t know existed.

This was our last and was supposed to be magical. It was awful. I don’t know I get over it. I keep telling myself far worse things could have happened and I am so lucky to have my children. I know I am.

Has anyone been through similar and could offer some words of solidarity, or give me some perspective so I can stop crying? To add to this, I have bleeding, cracked nipples which is a first for me and isn’t helping my sadness.

Sorry this is long. Thank you so much for anyone who reads and replies.

I’m so sorry you went through this. As for the cracked and bleeding nipples, I used nipple shields - sterilised between feeds. There will be contradictory advice nowadays about whether they’re recommended, but they helped me fairly quickly with nipple pain and healing.

Could you delete the video so you don’t have to keep reliving the birth?

I’m sorry this was your experience.
Id never have a home birth ever. IMO childbirth is a very risky event and I think you’ve been incredibly lucky to have the others so uneventfully- I think maybe this has given you a false sense of security.

It’s understandable at this point you are feeling as you are; I don’t think you can blame anyone really as you decided to have a home birth and not follow the typical advice given to be in a more medically safe setting.

Harsh as it sounds, birth can be life or death for all involved. You are both alive which is a success. I’d try my best to forget the rest and remember that fact. You could complain about the paramedics bed side manner if you feel it will help you move on.

Best of luck and congratulations xox

I'm really struggling to believe someone would genuinely set up a tripod and invite 3 children to witness a birth. This sounds horrendous before you even got going 😳

I wonder if they saw the tripod/phone and imagined you were recording to put on social media?

My daughter is a midwife and she said home births go very rarely to plan. Her unit is so short staffed at the moment they've stopped all home births as they just can't spare the staff. In hindsight, you should have gone into the birthing unit the moment you were told a MW wasn't available - but you and your baby are both here, alive and well. There are positives. And I would be ripping your DH a second arsehole for allowing all of this - he was your advocate when you were vulnerable.

Totally understand why you are so upset; it was not at all the birth you had planned or expected. And I get that you probably feel angry that what was meant to be a family affair became 'an operation' for a team of paramedics.

At least you and the baby are fine and I think you need to start looking forward and enjoying your baby. I know that sounds easier than it is - I was totally traumatised by my first birth and spent several weeks crying constantly, but it did get better. (My trauma was I couldn't push him out, only on gas and air because they couldn't get the needle in my back, ventouse didn't work, no theatre available for emergency c-section and eventually a surgeon cut me, pushed his hands apart so I ripped from passage to passage and the baby kind of fell out). Birth trauma is hard, but focusig on the baby and getting out of the house for nice walks in nature definitely helps.

I agree with others that it sounds like you had a perfect birth planned in your head. With the NHS as is it, there was always a massive risk that a midwife wouldn’t be available. The paramedics had to be there with you, they couldn’t have all sat downstairs.
my birth wasn’t what I wanted either. I know you’re upset, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it now. Agree with others, I’d delete the video.

It sounds awful. But, childbirth is a risky and unpredictable businesss - if you choose to do it away from the provided support services, at a time when NHS provision is extremely stretched and a MW might not be able to get away to be with you, with 3 children who need looking after, and a man who clearly isn't bought into the idea, there was always a high probability that things might go wrong. If I were a midwife there's no way I'd want to attend that sort of a birth. What were you thinking not going to the birth centre when no midwives were available to come to you?

So yes, I think the answers to your questions are that it wasn't a well planned homebirth, and that your husband clearly didn't understand your expectations of him. Delete the video (I can't understand why anyone would ever want to video a delivery) and move on, see if your local midwifery team will do a debrief session.

I'm so sorry you had this experience, but hospitals are set up with trained midwives, paramedics are not well-equipped for this. In hindsight hospital would have been the best place when you realised midwives were not available. And I can't fathom having children present, that sounds very traumatic for them. I think your husband needs to take blame here, he could have handled and managed this much better. I hope you can move on and enjoy your baby.

I think you need to talk this through with a midwife in a birth reflections meeting, although they probably won’t have any write up of what happened, there is the video and you can talk it through.

I think one of the problems with birth is that going into it you have a vision of what it is going to be like and if it doesn’t happen like that it can be quite traumatic.

paramedics, your husband they have no idea how you will have been feeling in that moment and the adrenaline flying around for everyone, I think means you could cut them some slack.

I say this as someone who had an impromptu home birth, completely unexpected, my husband thought I was going to die, the paramedics made it with 1 minute to spare and had never delivered a baby before. Frankly as a personal perspective now looking back is all that matters is that myself and the baby were safe and well.

Has watching the video made you more aware of how the birth was (you said you were ‘out of it’)?

Tbh I wouldn't watch it. I'm sure even the most straight forward birth is ‘messy’ to say the least, when watching it back. I suspect things that happened during the birth of my second DS. I certainly don't want graphic shots and an ongoing reminder.

Should I have not planned a homebirth? Should I have gone to hospital and risked ambulance birth? Should I have been clearer with my husband? But I couldn’t plan for an eventuality that I didn’t know existed.

It's sad that you're struggling but with hindsight, you could/should have seen that this scenario was an eventuality that could have existed, and your post should be a reflective opportunity for any other women considering/planning home births.

A home birthing plan needs a plan b and a plan c like ant other birthing plan, and that includes what decision you will make if there are no midwives available and what the consequences of remaining at home might be an ambulance led delivery, and what that might look like. Or worse, birthing with no medical support at all, as many ambulances services are on their knees due to delays offloading at hospital.

The majority of paramedic training on maternity is theoretical with a single week of placement as a student paramedic. The male paramedics may have had little to no opportunity on this short placement to even see a birth depending on patient preference. Any of the 'paramedics' who were in actual fact EMTs or ECAs will have done no midwifery placement. It is not ideal, but our scope of practice is massive, and maternity jobs are a tiny amount of our workload.

I’m so sorry you went through that. I’m finding the comments along the lines of “you didn’t get the birth you expected” so invalidating. Of course no one “expects” trauma or being treated so poorly by other humans but it’s not the “expectation” that’s to blame. Whether you gave birth at home, in an ambulance, or in hospital you should be entitled to care, empathy, and kindness from those around you. It sounds like your husband and paramedics were stressed and dealt with that by ignoring you and having chit chat to try and normalise what was happening. Depressing that paramedics aren’t given basic training on childbirth around the importance of facilitating a calm environment for the birthing mother. In hindsight you’d have been better birthing alone and waiting for the midwives but there is a risk with that and of course huge stigma.

I'm so so sorry for your experience. Your husband is to blame here throughout. He didn't advocate for you, he didn't look after your existing children, he didn't consider your needs like low lighting and calm. The worst part is that he's not taking responsibility and is invalidating your feelings now.

I don't know how you feel better about it - time I guess - but you're not unreasonable to feel let down.

Your husband seems to be proving his point:Hes behaving like an arsehole

There’s such a belief around childbirth being this wonderful thing. I’m sure if you recorded all your other ones you’d be traumatised. I’m so sorry this happened to you. But birth isn’t beautiful. It’s scary and traumatising. I could sit here and tell you how awful my 3 births were. But the fact is you’re not alone. With time it will pass…but please be kind to yourself. You have 4 amazing children.

Thank you so much for all your replies. Yes- totally more annoyed at myself and would have planned differently and made better decisions in hindsight, but I can’t now, so need to make peace with it all somehow.

To be clear on midwife attendance, 3 arrived together once baby was 5 minutes old. Only the 4 paramedics were present during labour and birth. I know paramedics are good people doing their jobs, I just don’t feel 4 needed to be present in the room watching me labour. As a PP said, hers waited outside until needed. I don’t know why my husband didn’t just show 2 of them the kitchen and tell them to make themselves at home / have coffee etc. I have asked DH and he thought it didn’t matter because I was zoned out. I get they are used to being with the patient at all times, but I wasn’t an emergency situation, I was having a normal labour and birth.

Of course I told them I was filming the birth. I told them it’s a private video just for us and we are not social media posters. They were all fine with it and one of the paramedics moved the tripod from the living room to upstairs when I moved, which I’m grateful for. I’m not sure what is wanky or Mills & Boon about filming a really special life event, for our own viewing in future. It captured a really sweet moment with just our children in the room having last minute guesses of boy or girl. It also captured the children coming to kiss me and the baby once he was born. I knew I couldn’t rely on my DH to take any such photos, so can now screenshot from the video. Filming myself in my own home is hardly live streaming on TikTok.

The children needing someone here wasn’t an issue.
The 14 year old is very mature and more than capable of sitting with the others. If a hospital trip was needed, we had neighbours happy to help.

Thank you to PP requesting a move to Childbirth.
I stupidly only looked for Birth and decided Pregnancy was the next best thing. I haven’t posted on here for years.

The paramedics are not specialists in managing births, and their training probably tells them to stay with you

I was going to say this. They won’t have the knowledge, training and experience of a midwife so maybe won’t have that sense of “I’ve checked her, and because of what I observed, I can leave her with her husband for a bit before checking again” (this is what happened at my homebirth - the midwives were downstairs on their own for chunks of time). But paramedics might be more “we’d better stay right there in case something happens” - their job probably doesn’t involve much sitting downstairs with the patient upstairs.

Not that that means I don’t understand how you must have felt of course. But I think it’s probably what happens if paramedics attend a birth.

Was part of the problem that you wanted all three of your children there to watch, but you didn't actually like that they were there watching when it came to it (but no-one realised that, so they stayed as per your prior wishes)?
Or was it more that you wanted them to have active roles but they got sidelined by the adults (obviously a paramedic would do the direct care once they arrived rather than talking a 14yr old through it etc)?

This x100

All I can think of are your other kids ok? I think you set this all up to be something it’s not without planning for any variables, and at times you haven’t helped yourself either. You didn’t do anything wrong per se but your refusal to go to the labour ward and stay at home didn’t seem like a good choice. Just take it for what it is, you stick to your guys and your husband did his best as did the medical team as well. It totally worth sharing your experience so staff can be better trained too

I know I’ve already commented but I had to reread the original post as it’s a whole new level of batshit to me.
Your husband was probably trying to deal with the tired children you both woke up, whilst also making sure no one knocked the tripod over. I assume after you went upstairs he was the one that had to take down the camera and tripod and reposition it upstairs? Also was he opening the door to the paramedics?

if any of your story is true, you have serious main character syndrome.

A 14yo watched his mum give birth! I think you need to get him some therapy.

You can't change your choices, neither can your DH. What do you want from him now?

Little to no training in birth is not an excuse for treating a patient like an exciting learning opportunity. She’s not a Resusci Anne. There is zero excuse for the way she was treated. Zero.

I 100% agree. You seem to have had a view in your head about the birth with you in the main role. The whole thing sound bonkers.