My third baby, third birth, first home birth
Coming into this pregnancy and birth after my two previous births, I had a newfound confidence in my body. Having had two vaginal births, both well over 41 weeks, and big 4.3kg+ babies, I believed in the strength and capability that women have to birth physiologically. However with my history of going post-dates with big babies, I knew that if I were to birth at the local hospital, I would be pushed to have more monitoring, more intervention, and an early induction. So my husband and I looked into having a homebirth, knowing we would have more control over what we valued in birth – physiological, waterbirth, minimal intervention, continuity of care.
When we met with Ashleigh, she was warm, knowledgeable, understanding, and was clearly passionate about supporting women in having an empowering birth. I had all my antenatal care in her beautiful and cozy clinic space and then later at home as I was nearing birth – a dream when you have two toddlers to look after as well.
My due date came and went and there was still no sign of this baby making their appearance. Ash continued to check on my own and baby’s health at each appointment and we chatted through a number of ways to naturally help my body prepare for labour. She never pushed any intervention but rather encouraged me to take it easy during this time and have confidence in my body’s timing. As we were approaching 42 weeks, at my request, Ash did a stretch and sweep at our home, as we were very eager to avoid a hospital induction at 42 weeks, which also happened to be Christmas Eve.
The following day things started moving. My husband took the older girls out for the morning whilst I relaxed at home doing something I love - wrapping Christmas presents (hello oxytocin!). Contractions started throughout the morning, but I was determined to ignore them until that was no longer possible. My husband and the girls came home, and we continued our day as normal. By late afternoon my contractions were regular and painful. I was able to message Ash whenever I needed and know she was only a 10-minute drive away.
Ash arrived soon after, along with her second midwife Eliza. They came in quietly, set up, calmly checked on me and baby, and then stood back. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what they were doing for most of my labour because I had zoned in on working through the contractions. But I do know that both my midwives provided me exactly what I needed, when I needed it – a quiet but powerful word of encouragement, a full warm birth pool, plenty of towels at the ready, space for me and my husband (my biggest support), and guidance when labour felt overwhelming.
After labouring with the TENS machine for a long while, I was encouraged to get in the birth pool. The water was such an incredible relief and helped immensely through contractions. I continued labouring in the water and transitioned to pushing. After a while of pushing, Ash and Eliza told me calmly but firmly that I needed to get out of the water and onto the bed as they weren’t happy with baby’s heartrate. This was a very intense moment for me mentally as I had been quite scared to not give birth in the water like I had done with my last baby. But Ash and Eliza were amazing, helping me physically and emotionally. I trusted them to know what would be best for the safety of my baby but also to care and support me through this transition.
It was at this stage on the bed that we all had quite a surprise – baby was breech and coming out bottom first! The ambulance was called just in case, but in the meantime Ash calmly and confidently coached me through the final pushes to safely birth my beautiful baby girl, with Eliza and my husband giving words of encouragement at my side. Baby needed a moment but was happy and healthy. We had skin to skin for the next few hours, birthed the placenta, started breastfeeding, and my husband and I took in that euphoric time post birth with our newest little bundle of joy, all in the comfort of our own bed, whilst Ash and Eliza took care of the clean-up.
My husband and I have both come away from our third birth in awe of how smoothly it went and how blessed we were to have the experience of having our baby in the comfort and peace of our own home. I am so grateful to Ashleigh for bringing this service to our community and for being my midwife for such a special birth.