My home birth story

Officially one month ago, I worked my ass off to have a successful and efficient home birth. I thought I’d share the steps that made it easier and simpler for anyone curious about the whole process!

I went into labour at 39 weeks and 2 days and delivered the next day, which was a whole 27 hours later. I began drinking red raspberry leaf tea at around 26 weeks, eating 5-6 dates in the form of a banana-peanut-butter-almond-milk smoothie at about 29 to 30 weeks, and taking 4 tablets of evening primrose oil (two by mouth in the morning and two vaginally in the evening) at 37 to 38 weeks. I was walking on average twice a day for an hour at a time. I did the ball bouncing, lunges, and assisted squats-thang. That was my birth prep. Now onto the story!

It was Friday night creeping into Saturday, just passing midnight when I went into labour. Before that, I had a cervical stretch and sweep earlier that afternoon. By the evening, I had my first glass of Sicilian moscato in 9 months (no one jump off their couch - it was 5% alcohol level). I even jazzed it up with some mangoes and raspberries while watching Promising Young Woman with my partner. We thought we’d have a relaxing weekend, baby-free, and just waiting for 40 weeks to come since I was only dilated to 1 centimetre anyways. The moscato definitely took the edge off the anticipation anxiety I had been feeling and lulled me right to sleep. Meanwhile, my husband decided to dick around on the computer, play his Nintendo switch, and had zero sleep because I woke him up about 20 minutes into his sleep.

I am one of those “lucky girls” who never had period cramps so when I started getting them, I knew they were not Braxton Hicks contractions anymore. I brushed off the first one.

5 minutes later, cue the second contraction.

7 minutes later, the next one came and it rocked between those two lengths of time for a very, very long time. They were only lasting 30-45 seconds. As a health care practitioner myself, I did not want to wake up my midwife at midnight with contractions that were not 5 minutes apart for a minute long each (also known as the 5-1-1 rule of labour).

So no, I didn’t have contractions 30 minutes apart. It kind of came on more abruptly than I was prepared for but I rocked with it anyways (literally rocking and swaying often to cope with the pain). However, knowing that labour was going to come, I took a Tylenol for the pain and a Gravol to sleep as my midwife had directed me when we were planning my labour in the previous weeks.

I managed to get a few hours in but the pain from the contractions made it difficult to fall into a deep sleep. Eventually the Gravol wore off and I woke up. The contractions were coming in more frequently and I patiently waited until about 7AM to page my midwife and let her know what was happening since my contractions were finally coming every 5 minutes and lasting about 45-60 seconds long. At this point, I had rated the pain of each contraction about 4 to 5 out of 10. My midwife continued to have me take Gravol and Tylenol as I needed.

Why?

Eating, sleeping, and balancing activity and rest are crucial during pregnancy and even more so when labour is impending! Nothing compares to it but I’d imagine it to be like a marathon. Nope, I’ve never attempted a marathon and if you haven’t either, I would highly suggest you get that EAT, SLEEP, AND STAY ACTIVE/REST game down pat. With that said, I continued to bounce on my yoga ball, lunge, assisted squats with my partner, and take Tylenol and Gravol to help me rest.

As Saturday progressed, my contractions were waning and I’d have to actively push them along. That’s when I paged my midwife to update her on what was happening. My midwife very wisely told me not to force the contractions to come and rest instead. The reason for this is because the way you train your body to tell the contractions to come is exactly how your body will respond when the contractions are over and you need to recover. What I had translated this into was something like a bell curve; the steeper the curve, the more of a “crash” there will be. My midwife was trying to create a stable bell curve that was more “even keel” with the hopes that recovery will reflect that same steady pattern.

I continued to try and rest but only had an hour or two of sleep before I woke up with even more intense contractions. By this time, the evening had rolled around and my contractions were a pain rating of 6 or 7 out of 10. The contractions were coming every 3 to 4 minutes lasting at least a minute long each. My wrists and knees were really sore because I was rocking myself in this position through every contraction. On the bright side, my water didn't break yet so I knew I had time and there was no rush for labour, which I felt really reassured about despite the pain.

I paged my midwife, and about an hour later, she came to visit me at home. During my cervical check, she found out I was about 4 to 5 centimetres dilated and my baby was low enough. My baby’s position was fine but we wanted it to be better so we did The Miles Circuit to put her into the most favourable position for labour possible. About 90 minutes after that, I couldn’t continue because the contractions had intensified so my midwife performed another cervical check. My baby moved into a more optimal position which was great and I had progressed another whole centimetre.

My midwife wanted me to get some more rest, which felt impossible, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway so she gave me an intramuscular dose of Gravol. I also tried to take a warm bath to cope with the contractions. MY GOODNESS, that made things a million times worse! My nervous system was not prepared to cope with the pang of cold air that hit me when I came out of the shower. The contractions kept coming one after another and I couldn’t even hop out of the tub. My partner assisted me out and helped me get dressed. I decided to wear my Beyonce Formation concert tee to really channel those Queen Bee vibes (anything that helps, right?)

I had a bit of food in my tummy, chugged a bunch of Gatorade, and tried to sleep it off.

Mistake number 3? 4? Who knows.

I was drowsy and having contractions that were fiercely coming in. By midnight on Sunday, I was no longer drowsy from the Gravol but insanely “drunk” feeling from the overwhelming and immense pain my body was trying to cope with. The pain level was at least an 8 or 9 out of 10 at this point. Quite honestly, this “drunk” feeling I had made a lot of this last part blurry. Was I drunk in love like Bey said?

My partner told me my contractions were coming every 2 minutes and lasting about 60-90 seconds each and the pain rating at this point was like an 11 out of 10. If you do that math there, I barely had time to breathe and get a break from pain. It was out of this world. My partner was giving me hip squeezes (picture his hands on my hips and squeezing in towards my butt) but his pecs were giving in since he had been doing this all evening, and he had to take breaks frequently too. It was my only relief from pain though! Coping without the hip squeezes was rough.

In the meantime, we completely forgot about the birth pool. My partner tried to set that up while I was moaning in the background in so much pain, only to find out that there was a tonne of condensation that collected beneath the birth pool! No birth pool for me… and he had to deliver the bad news.

Fast forward to one of my last cervical checks where I had blasted through a few more centimetres in a span of 4 hours and boom! I was 10 centimetres and ready to push. We tried a few practice pushes on my back, which was exactly what I didn’t want. But it happened. The practice pushes turned into real pushes because I felt that I needed to push so badly.

The difference between being in hospital with medication and so on, is that you are hooked onto monitors and IV fluids so you push when the nurse tells you to push based on the monitors. Meanwhile at home, you push when you feel a contraction coming and are completely in control of your own body.

I finally felt some relief being able to push, even though the pushing was hard to get a grasp of. My sister told me that there were moments where my lips had turned blue from pushing! Truly, as much as I didn’t want to be on my back pushing because it was soooo incredibly unnatural to me, I needed the relief from my hands and knees which I had been on since the late afternoon the day before.

Before I knew it, I heard the words, “we need to push this cervical lip out of the way”, spewing out of my midwife’s mouth. I was instantly worried because I associated that with a potential to tear my perineum but I tried my best to stay stress free because I knew the increase in my cortisol levels would be a barrier to a successful labour.

I kept on telling myself, “every contraction is one step closer to holding my baby”. This was key for me - I kept on telling myself this mantra throughout my contractions in order to cope with them. It was definitely a mind over matter experience for me personally.

Later on, my midwife had asked my partner to grab the olive oil. I couldn’t feel a thing (ironically the pain was also numbing) but I knew she was dousing my vagina with olive oil. Voila! She managed to pull the cervical lip out of the way and things moved fast. Cue 1.5 hours of pushing later, and I finally got to hold my baby right away. I didn’t cry or anything but I was just completely elated. Yes, I am fast forwarding through the intense burning sensation my vagina felt when my baby’s head was just lodged in my vagina but not quite out. I’m fast forwarding through the deep pressure that my vagina felt before, after, and during every push. And I’m also fast forwarding through the fact that I almost birthed my own bag of water! It had only broken during one of my pushes. This isn’t because these details aren’t important, but because it really was an entirely mind over matter experience for me. There was never a moment I wanted pain medication because I trusted my body.

I have spent the last 7 years of my bipolar life living an entirely medicalized experience, from being hospitalized twice for suicide attempts and ideations, to being trialed with over a dozen medications to find the “right fit” for me, and lived through 3 different sick leaves at work. I trusted my body to do what it was biologically built to do.

If it wasn’t for the mantra I kept telling myself, which was “every contraction is one step closer to holding my baby”, I don’t think I could’ve done it. Moreover, I couldn’t have successfully and efficiently birthed this baby without the help of my partner providing me with endless hip squeezes until his pecs and shoulders gave in. And I couldn’t have done it all without my sister coaching me through each push. Side note: the perk of being at home through the pandemic was that I was allowed to have a few support individuals that I needed there.

27 hours laters, I held my baby. I had my moment with my partner and sister beside me that I waited for after 9 months of carrying her in my belly. The whole experience wasn’t everything I imagined it would be, but perfection isn’t real anyways. It was near-perfect and I couldn’t be happier with it!

1 month later, my partner and I are sleeping in spurts of 2 to 3 hours stretches. We’ve lived through 2 growth spurts with our baby at 10 days and also that 3 to 4 week mark, which was rough because our baby was an eating machine! Our baby continues to do well and is packing on those rolls in her neck, arms, and legs with a pot belly to show off too! At the same time, we also live with our challenges breastfeeding and all, but overall, there are no concerns or complaints beyond what is expected with a newborn baby.

Edit: in true first time mom fashion, this post is extra late and partially finished but it's out there now. Baby is crying now. The end.

xoxo,

Joanne