Hampshire Home Birth with the Blossom & Bloom Team

We moved house when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Albert. I had two older boys, one about to turn 4 and start school and a 2.5 year old. We had been trying to move for a good six months but things kept falling through and it was getting closer and closer to my due date and my eldest starting school. I remember turning up to our new doctor’s surgery to fill out the registration forms once we had exchanged and being told that it would take a couple of weeks for the forms to be processed before I could then get booked in with the midwives - I wasn’t sure I had a couple of weeks to spare! They were also very keen for me to put my weight on the form which I refused to do as it would have looked as though I was very overweight!

a second home birth

I knew I wanted another home birth and tried not to think about what I would do if I wasn’t ‘allowed’ one after transferring over to the midwife team so late in my pregnancy. But all was good - I was booked in with the home birth midwives (the Blossom & Bloom team look after home births for the Hampshire Hospitals). We had a Sunday morning tour of the maternity unit in Basingstoke Hospital as well, just in case things didn’t go to plan. Changing areas and hospitals so late on didn’t help with having continuity of care during pregnancy or getting to know my midwives but that didn’t feel so important third time round.

the blur of labour

I was due on the Friday - that day came and went without any signs of labour. We spent the weekend keeping ourselves and our older two children occupied - a trip to Beale Park one day and swimming the other - and went to bed as usual on Sunday evening. I woke up at about 2am on Monday morning with cramps and the desire to go to the toilet many many times, my body was definitely doing its best to empty itself ready for birth. I did my best to ignore the cramps just in case it was going to be a long labour like my first baby had been but, by 2.30am, I had to wake my husband so he could help put the pads for the TENS machine on my back. I know people have different opinions about TENS machines but I found it really helped during my labours. My youngest came a little early so the TENS machine I had hired hadn’t arrived and I was really disappointed (in hindsight, having four babies, I should have just bought my own!).

I don’t remember a huge amount about my labour with Albert, probably in part because it wasn’t that long. We still had some packing boxes in our room from the move and I can remember leaning over them next to my bed rotating through each contraction while we had the usual debate about whether or not to phone the midwives. We had been told to phone sooner rather than later because they hadn’t made it in time for the birth of my second son. I was worried about phoning them too soon only for them to turn up and tell me I had hours to go - that would be very disheartening. We did phone them - it took a little while to get through in the early hours of the morning and then a while for them to arrive so they didn’t get here much before Albert!

As they arrived and things got a bit busier in the house I remember thinking that I had an hour or so to have this baby before the bigger two would start waking up. Mark had messaged his parents in the early hours asking them to come over and collect the boys at 7am, thinking that would be before Albert arrived. As things moved on he then spent a while worrying that he was going to miss the birth because he would be looking after them himself!

born ‘en caul’

I ended up on all fours at the end of our bed - the whole thing took less than four hours and I didn’t leave our bedroom during that time. All fours has always felt like a very natural position for me during birth - maybe it’s all the Daisy Birthing classes I did during each pregnancy but being on all fours, moving and breathing through each contraction, felt very safe and secure. I learnt three breathing techniques in my Birthing classes - one for early labour, one for when contractions become more intense and the Out Breath, when baby is descending through the birth canal - and I used all three for this birth.

Albert was born at about 5.30 on Monday morning, ‘en caul’ (the midwife accidentally broke the amniotic sac when it caught on her wristwatch) and with the placenta following close behind. By 7.30am, the bigger two had met their baby brother and been picked up by the grandparents, I had been stitched up, the midwives had left and the three of us were enjoying tea, toast and a cuddle in bed.

Albert’s birth was definitely the closest I came to my ‘ideal birth’ - I felt in control, I used all my breathing techniques and I didn’t have to leave home. His was the most straight-forward on paper as well - I know not everyone finds that their labours get shorter and easier as they have each baby but I was lucky as this was the case for me with Albert. I also grew in confidence with each birth, trusting that my body knew how to birth my babies, and I’m sure that makes a difference.