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.

This 100%.

I'm sorry you are disappointed but you had unrealistic expectations and you took a risk with a home birth. You had been lucky with your others but surely you knew there was a risk with the state of the NHS that you would not get the staff needed.

As for the video at the end of the bed, I'm speechless.

I think I would have gone into hospital at the point they said there were no community midwifes available- as there may have been no ambulances free either.

There should be a midwife specialist in trauma linked to your hospital please ask them for support- also do your other children need anyone to talk too?

Firstly, massive congratulations on your new arrival. I bet they’re absolutely scrumptious.

Gently, I think perhaps having 2 lovely home births has perhaps given you expectations that just couldn't be followed this time. We all want, in an ideal world, a calm, quiet, dim-lighted birth. My youngest is only a few months old and my last birth was supposed to be the same. I even won the lottery of having a pool available for my birth. Everything went wrong including the support of a birth partner. I completely understand how you feel. At one point I had 12 or 13 people in the room and a trainee dared to make a joke about the noise I was making. Being in agony, they got it both barrels. I also lost so much blood I had to have a transfusion. It was awful.

That said, I’ve realised that it doesn’t matter. What matters is the beautiful little baby I got to take home and I get to love forever. That is my focus.

My hurt with a birth partner still exists - as I can see you’re understandably still hurt. I think perhaps, deep down, your husband knows he fucked up. Are you able to leave it a week or so, until the dust has settled and sit him down for a frank discussion?

I would also raise a complaint with your local Midwifery service - the crux of this entire mess is that no midwives were available. That is absolutely unacceptable and, from my brief involvements ‘on the other side’ of the service, this would have been actioned on.

I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. Congratulations again xx

How is planning a homebirth an unrealistic expectation???
Many women film their births, and many women have their children present. It’s really not that unusual.

Also reading the post above about the paramedics having a good day - maybe that is also a nice way to try to reframe it. You've brought joy to people that spend their time daily dealing with people at their darkest moments. You and your baby- unwillingly, which of course you have the right to be upset about and to grieve - have brought light into their days which may mean that they are more attentive and caring with the next patient because they are further away from the burnout many first responders are feeling. Do complain and request further training for sure, but hopefully that is a nice thing that is a silver lining to your dark cloud.

It sounds awful.I wouldn't talk about it with your husband as he is probably cross with himself , maybe the health visitor or GP can advise you on some therapy if you need it.
Your husband didn't deal.with it correctly, he should have made sure that the children were downstairs or with a friend or relative.
I think you should have gone to hospital when there were no midwives available and things were not going to plan.

I'm so sorry that you had a horrible birth experience - unfortunately things don't always go according to plan and it sounds like your husband should have advocated for you much more in this situation. I can only assume that he was totally thrown by the turn of events and wasn't able to think rationally in the moment. He's probably being stroppy now because he secretly feels a bit cross with himself that he didn't deal with the situation well.

Your choices to have the children there, and film the birth are yours alone - whether or not other posters would have made those choices is neither here nor there. Birth plans can go awry and it's often forgotten that problems can result in life threatening situations for mother and baby quite quickly. I had a homebirth with my 3rd baby that resulted in a haemorrhage and blue lighted dash to hospital, followed by blood transfusions and an unplanned stay in hospital - it was scary at the time but I'm so grateful that the midwives and paramedics were there and saved my life.

I would talk to your GP and see if he can refer you for some counselling - talking through the trauma is important and family and friends can be unsympathetic and expect you to just be grateful you've got a healthy baby, which doesn't really take account of the trauma you've suffered.

So I commented upthread about not having the birth I hoped for.

It was useful at the time to vent my frustration but I think being encouraged to see the other point of view actually helped me move on emotionally. I could have made an official complaint but ultimately there was no clinical issue to deal with, only my own hurt feelings and disappointment so it would have just drawn the process out during the precious early days with baby number two.

Maybe try and reframe it a bit
There were no home midwives available, but even with a creaking nhs you had plenty of medical staff on hand. They were a bit overexcited to be there and followed you round the house so not to miss the vital moment. They weren't miserable and grumpy to be called to a birth.

Your husband did try to support your birth wishes, with the camera and the kids about.

There was an issue with the placenta, promptly dealt with.

Until now, I assume you had three straightforward births, very fortunate

They did! They were on cloud 9 and this is what my mum says too- speak of the positives now and enjoy the baby so they don’t take any negativity from it. This is what I needed to hear, thank you. The birth was my third homebirth and I’ve been incredibly lucky to not have anything go wrong medically, so there was no high drama or screaming. Just me being zoned out and wincing in pain, which they’d had explained to them and seen videos of beforehand.
You (and many other kind posters) have spurred me
on to stop dwelling and have a shower and get out today.

Congratulations on your baby.
Just concentrate on getting through the first few weeks with your little one, and don't worry about the birth not being what you planned. They rarely are.
I had three and none of them were what I though. In fact for #3 they asked if I had a birth plan and I said, "no. They didn't work the last two times, so I didn't bother."
Although when pregnant with one of them I did have a dream about giving birth to a ticket (like you get in a shop with a queueing system) and you then had to go to the shop to pick up your baby with the ticket. In my dream, I thought what a great idea this was.

But for anyone reading this and wondering about having their children there:

Don't. It's for you, not for them. The people I've known who saw siblings being born found it traumatic - Mum being in pain, feeling out out of control etc.
It didn't stop them being afraid about giving birth; it made them much more afraid to a point that a good proportion of them decided not to have children due to that.

The problem with the SM generation is they see the edited film of the baby being gently breathed out born and the beautifully presented children sitting next to Mum with love in their eyes... but they haven't seen the bits edited out which show the reality.

It sounded awful but your original plan also sounded terrible (in my opinion). Filming it and having small kids there? Though I have no idea why 4 paramedics needed to stay in the room with you. Why did you call them? I thought you only needed a midwife/ doula. Your husband sounds clueless, what an idiot.

Hope you will be able to laugh about it at some point later on! And congratulations on your new baby.

Why on earth would you put your children through that?! I imagine they’ll definitely need counselling after seeing their mum out of it and in that much pain! I cannot imagine why you and your husband ever thought watching you give birth would be a good idea, regardless of the chaos that ensued?!

While I can see you’re upset and disappointed because you didn’t get your picture perfect birth, you’re trying to place blame on professionals where there isn’t any. You chose paramedics over going to hospital. They arrived, monitored you, kept you safe and birthed your baby. Thats their job and that’s what they did.

Your husband was a complete arse and should have been more thoughtful and supportive but he wasn’t. Did you discuss him advocating for you prior to the birth and talk through scenarios if a midwife wasn’t available, or did you just have the one ideal scenario? I’d be more angry that he wasn’t supporting your children through all this tbh.

I think we are too quick to call people ungrateful and entitled as if life is just about accepting what comes your way whether you like it or not.

Because we are entitled, entitled to have certain expectations of how we want things to go and life to be and entitled to when that doesn’t go the way we want to be upset to have and show emotions about it.

We aren’t entitled no to have our rights and wants and needs placed above everyone elses but we allowed to have wants and needs.

The OP was entitled to have a go at the birth she wanted and be upset it didn’t happen. yes she should be grateful her and the baby are ok but again being upset and having emotions it didn’t go right doesn’t make her ungrateful it makes her human

and if her DH isn’t allowing her to voice these and sulk then that is an issue

Some people need to understand that just because they personally wouldn't do certain things do not mean they're crazy choices.
I wouldn't film my birth but who cares if someone else would. That's up to them and it certainly doesn't mean she consented to having four seemingly inexperienced (in birth qt least) paramedics gawking. They could have used their heads and thought is this how I would want to give birth/would j like to lie half naked while four strangers were looking at me excitedly.

Op I don't think you're unreasonable and I think a lot of replies here have q nasty get in line and do it how is convenient for other people kind of air.
Women are allowed dignity and respect even in birth and your husband should really have known how to advocate for you after 3 prior babies.

I think your expectations were high for something that can’t be predicted. You called for an ambulance and they helped to deliver your baby safely, I’m not really sure what the complaint is other than it wasn’t magical.

This makes the issue even more confusing!

you wanted:
kids there, not sidelined - you got that. Not sure what more anyone could do to make them centre of attention at a birth?
husband there for kids - you got that. Maybe you’re not happy with how he interacted with them?
midwives for you - you were warned and chose the four paramedics at home over the midwives at hospital. Totally up to you.
friendly paramedics as a second option - they were!

i hope this shows you that it wasn’t as bad as you think. You just wanted your kids to be more important in the process but how?!

All of this. 👏🏼

I don't think there's anything particularly beautiful in children watching their mother be in huge pain for hours and being naked on the bed legs spread with no underwear is just part of the "beauty" of giving birth isn't it? It's not a particular dignified occasion.

I took myself upstairs to get away from the noise, but they all followed me to my bedroom.
Is it possible they thought they were doing what they should do and staying with both - potential - patients?
They could have buggered off otherwise and helped someone else.

I believe triage told her to call them as no midwife was available.

Sorry you are feeling upset op, just try and accept it happened and move on. Everyone was doing what they thought was right and the outcome regarding health of you and baby was positive.

Anyone planning a home birth reading this do take note. Midwives aren't readily available on demand and if hell bent on a home birth women should pay privately imo. The nhs doesn't usually accommodate home care unless the patient is very ill which obviously isn't the case here.

A midwife led unit would have been as relaxed as a home birth. More inconvenient perhaps.

Have your kids had any kind of support or counselling?

I’n not entirely sure what you want from this thread, you asked a question and it has been answered, by posters with differing opinions. It seems to me that you’re angry with your husband, and he may have got things wrong, but I think you’re more angry with yourself, because you know your expectations were unreasonable, it was never going to turn out how you envisaged it, and you need to accept that, try to put your disappointment behind you and be thankful that you have a beautiful, healthy baby.

This is also DHs take! DH is a police officer and I was too for 15 years. We know too well the awful things they have to see and do, so it did make their night to witness the birth itself just before midwives arrived. They did thank us for having them be part of our special night, so my
bad feeling isn’t on them as individuals, just the whole scenario and
my
DH forgetting everything he knew about labour (even just turn the big light off!). Ultimately I’m angry with myself for not being realistic about the possible eventualities. It was my 4th and last, and first one with the children present, and I got tunnel visioned on that ideal scenario. I do wish I went to hospital but really didn’t think I’d make the journey as labour went from 0-60.

So he's a police officer - I wonder if your husband was reacting in work mode. I understand that, as I'm a lawyer in a fast-paced environment and when very ill with sepsis reacted to it in various lawyerly ways rather than like the average patient. Your previous two home births were attended, and if he was thrown and disoriented by the fact that midwives were unavailable, I can see exactly why his brain would retreat to the familiar.

Like others, I think you left yourself open to great disappointment (for example, a doula could probably have transformed this experience for you), but I'm very sorry it was disappointing, and hope you and your family are doing ok. Best wishes to you and your baby.

Gosh, what a waste of NHS resources! I'm sorry OP, but you should have had a private back up plan if you were so firm on your ideal birth plan.

As for having your children present, but now are upset they they were not able to be involved. Did they actually want that in the first place? A 14 year old boy included.

It is hardly your husband's fault. You declined the option to go to hospital, and in doing so made him primary care for you until the ambulances (plural I assume 😆) arrived. Did he even agree to that ?