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 think there’s a middle ground to be had.

OP didn’t get what she wanted, but what she wanted was unrealistic.

I hope the children are okay, having watched the whole thing and then having their mum spend the week crying.

Fucking hell my kids would have hated it. I think it was poorly conceived and agree that the main thing to think of now is that your baby is here and healthy.

It is not unrealistic to expect your DH to put a tiny bit of focus on you when you're bringing his child into the world. In fact, it is the absolute barest of bare minimums.

And for people saying she should have expected that from paramedics, I know someone who had an unexpected homebirth, there were paramedics but at some point the midwife kicked everyone out and said you need some privacy. The OP did incredibly well to advocate for herself and kick everyone out but frankly they should have managed that basic level of social awareness and professionalism themselves.

Does your husband always shut you down like that?

Look in a way he is right the end result is important and you did build it up BUT you are allowed to have feelings about that without being shut down and making it all about him because in a way he did let you down and I think you need to talk it with him and say that it was both your fault but he needs to accept his role and your feelings in it

You need some validation of your experience . Your husband maybe feels bad he didn’t know what you wanted or needed . Think you need to explain you need to feel validated by him and that he understands how you feel and what he should have done differently . Be a bit cross and then forgive him . Posting on mumsnet is a good step to actualising the feelings and feeling heard from mums who understand how upsetting a difficult birth and the trauma can be

the feelings will fade and you are entitled to be disappointed and upset by how it panned out but don’t let it linger with you indefinitely and risk your happy time with your newborn and your family .

I never understand posters taking time to write such comments. What does ‘this x100’ contribute? Is it just to make me feel crap? Is it to become kindred spirits with the original commenter?

I find the whole thing odd. Why would you want your children to witness that and why would you want to record it. Surely that is a video no one is ever going to watch.
I disagree with home births for this very reason. There is hardly a surplus of paramedics and whilst 4 were with you, because you choose not to go to a hospital, people may very well have died from something that they could have survived if an ambulance reached them sooner. Similarly that would have been 2 spare midwifes for other women delivering in hospital. Yes there is a bigger NHS problem but choices like yours don’t help

Agree 100% I can't actually get past you complaining about your vagina being on display and yet you were content to video the birth.
This shouldn't have been a job for the paramedics, you should have been in hospital or as above paid for a private magical experience.

I think it’s unrealistic, in this day and age, to expect an idyllic home birth where the children are involved and you have a midwife rocking up like an episode of call the midwife. Her gripe is that her husband chatted to the paramedics. Was he meant to ignore them?

What have i just read???

You woke the children up? You had a tripod set up? And when you heard there were no midwives you decided to carry on?

Paramedics did their job - when really you should have gone into the labour ward.

Congratulations though

It`s not hatred some of us just find it odd.

He was meant to be the other parent in the room and a partner to his wife, someone to look out for what she needed. Are you seriously suggesting that he needed to chat to them about how long they'd be working, when his wife was trying to push a baby out? Really?

Lots of us didn't get the birth experience we wanted.
You could offer feedback on the paramedics, i read some of their behaviour as well intentioned if a bit insensitive. They probably were a bit excited given some of the other call outs they go to. Most people find the arrival of a new life quite a moving experience.
Having children at a birth was a bad idea.
Your husband making small talk, well what did you want him to do? If you weren't asking him specifically to support you then he was just keeping the atmosphere light.

Firstly Im sorry you had such a difficult time .Try to get as much rest as you can and enjoy your little one .I do think home births are unpredictable .Your DH was probably as worried as you were really ,and maybe he was trying to make light of it. I think maybe some counselling would help.The NCT has information on their website as well.

I’m suggesting that OP is perhaps a bit clouded by the dream she had, and didn’t realise that she put herself into a situation that became a medical emergency as opposed to her dream scenario.

I wouldn't have put it quite like this, but I somewhat agree. Personally can't fathom why you'd want your other children present during childbirth, but everyone's different I guess.

I have one DC who is still a baby, and the birth was objectively horrific. 4 day labour, botched epidural, got all the way to full dilation ending in EMCS, turfed out the hospital after less than 10 hours. I can either dwell on it or get on with my life and enjoy my gorgeous darling baby. I am so sorry it didn't go how you wanted and I do understand that. But you need to put it to bed and stop going over and over it. Delete the video, forgive your husband – be did his best and men will just never understand.

To be clear I don't blame the paramedics at all for their behaviour - they haven't the first clue because misogyny in the medical system means they get ridiculously poor training and absolutely zero information about how to support vulnerable women. The person who failed spectacularly was the OP's husband - he's not a first time dad, he should have the tiny amount of sense it takes to realise that he should be managing the situation, not completely ignoring his wife.

I think many reflect the fact that 7 (!!) NHS staff were somewhere where they couldn't attend to other people in need of medical attention. 7 to 1 care is astounding when you think about how stretched the NHS is, and in my opinion, selfish.

3 midwives on the labour ward can check on multiple women. 2 ambulances can save multiple lives.

I agree, I think a big part of this is how let down you feel by your DH. I had this with my first birth and it’s a horrible feeling when the person who is supposed to have your back not only fails to advocate for you but almost seems to side with the medical professionals in terms of it being inconvenient to consider you as an actual human with actual feelings. Once the dust has settled, can you and he have a proper conversation about this and about how you feel? I also agree a birth reflections conversation might be helpful. I’m sorry things happened like this for you and your feelings are perfectly valid.

Op your husband should have advocated for you and I don’t understand why some of the entourage couldn’t have left when they saw others had arrived and things were under control with the amount of people already there. It seems a huge waste of services to all be crowding around making small talk while you tried to give birth. I’m sorry this happened to you and I’m sorry your husband is being stroppy about it. He probably knows he could have done more and that’s why he is acting defensive.

I could also help you put things into perspective as you asked but the details would upset you and probably others on this thread. All I’ll say is I didn’t plan to have a home birth, ive never understood why anyone would want one when so many births turn into emergencies that need a hospital setting, however, I had no time and labour started at home and 6 minutes later my baby had arrived. The outcome for my baby born at home was not a good one.

You have your baby here safely and you had people there on hand to assist any eventuality that may have happened. Sort the issue with your husband so that you don’t build resentment and just cuddle that sweet newborn knowing they are safe in your arms. Xx

This annoys me greatly.
the “there are no midwife’s available” but they managed to magic up 3 midwives once they realised you were not planning to oblige and go into a place you hadn’t planned to birth.

And yet there they were, being filmed for TikTok by OP. The mind boggles

As far as I can see the only issue is that the healthcare team defaulted to dh and took his lead, which was to ignore op. So they were at fault for their bias (which is why I banned my dh from the delivery ward so the midwives would actually speak to ME) and dh is at fault for not advocating. But then as a couple you did deliberately complicate it all with the children being a setting they shouldn't be in (what if you'd bled out on the living room floor in front of them?) and having to stage a production. You should have had childcare in place and plans a, b and c for when things went wrong.