The birth of my second child was an incredible and wonderful experience.
My first birth and the birth of my daughter Zoe was quite a normal hospital textbook birth, but something made me feel traumatised and unable to think back to her birth without feeling sick. I felt extremely exhausted throughout her birth and felt like I wasn't listened to by a Doctor.
In the end, we had a good hospital vaginal birth with no major intervention, and she was a very healthy baby, but something inside me felt traumatised. I knew that if we had more children, I would love to attempt a home birth!
We were extremely lucky that we were able to fall pregnant quite easily 18 months later, and we found out at 20 weeks we were having a boy! We were both shocked as we were certain it would be another girl. We had hired the most incredible private midwives to assist in the home birth, and they did home checks throughout my pregnancy. My pregnancy was great. I felt physically well, a touch more morning sickness than with my first but on the whole, great! I went into spontaneous labour in the morning of 39+6, which I was very excited about as I had gone over by four days with my first, and those four days felt like weeks.
I lost my mucus plug in the early morning and had a couple of light contractions overnight. My husband went to work, and I told him that I thought today was the day! We were living with my parents as we had just sold our house and needed somewhere to live before moving into our next house. So my husband left home around 7:30 am, and I went to work, so I told my parents that I thought it was happening. I also let our midwives know that I thought today was the day!
One of the midwives popped around to set up the birth pool in our lounge room and check me over. We had a plan for my parents to take Zoe to my sister's place for the day until we called when the baby was born to come back home.
By 10:30 am, I had a couple of painful contractions about 20 mins apart, so I called my husband to come home as I was unsure how quickly it would all happen. At 11 am my parents left with my daughter after we cuddled and prayed with her and told her what was happening.
She was very excited! My husband and I kept our midwives up to date and decided to take a walk on the beach to see if the contractions would ramp up. By 2 pm they were intense so we called our midwives and they arrived at 3. We started to fill the birth pool up, and as soon as I hopped in, it was instant pain relief. For the next 2 hours, my contractions became intense but not as crazy as I remembered with my first. At around 5 pm, I remember saying that I couldn't do it anymore, and I knew at that moment I was transitioning.
About 10 minutes later, I felt the urge to push, and after a few pushes, his head came out. I didn't believe my midwife that his head was out until I reached down and felt it myself! He came out a few pushes later. I pushed for only 7 minutes. He was born at 5:16 pm so calmly in the water and was 9pound 6 of pure delight!
I was worried throughout my pregnancy that I would need stitches as I did with my first, and having a home birth and needing stitches meant I would have to go to the hospital, and I didn't want that. Luckily I didn't need any, and I felt incredible after!
I was in awe of my body and what it had just done. An hour later, I was in my own bed eating salty chips and grapes, feeding my beautiful little boy Max!
