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Homebirth Story

Baby#1 = homebirth but merconium in waters, ambulance called, encouraged to push like crazy, baby fine but i had 3rd degree tear, so ambulance to hospital, waited frigging ages for theater slot, terribly dehydrated by then, awful night on ward, blah blah!

Baby#2 = planned homebirth ......

Due date = Christmas day ....but pleased baby didn't put in an appearance!

Woke at about 5am on Sunday 29th (40+4) with dull aches / the odd tightening. Wasn't sure if this was "it" as been getting loads of braxton hicks for weeks & weeks - which i never did with baby#1. Put all the braxton hicks down to baby being OP (back-to-back) since going head down at 32weeks.

7am rolls around and i decide that maybe something might be happening as they seemed to coming just over 10mins apart - so woke H to sort out the TENs for me. His first words? Couldn't baby wait till he was feeling better? (He has a cold ... umm sorry man-flu since xmas). Men!!  Lucy also woke at this point, so i ended up getting up and pottering about with her - changing her poo-y nappies <rolls eyes> breakfast etc.

The contractions weren't particularly painful - more like a nuisance. Then all of a sudden - approx half 9am - they went to 4mins apart. Had to practically force H to start filling the birthpool as he had been faffing round all morning. He couldnt get the liner to fit (should have really test-run that!) so just filled pool (would have to clean/sterilize it after the event instead). I phoned the delivery suite who said the on-call community midwife would phone me back - i got the impression I wasn't in "enough" pain to be phoning them! A midwife called Linda called me within a few minutes, said she wasn't far away and would pop by and see me.

At this point my H decided he was feeling "so terrible" he was going to our local Tesco express for lemsip. I suggested paracetamol (as we had some in the house but no, not good enough apparently) so off he went, leaving me alone to amuse toddler. Seriously!!

The midwife arrived whilst he was out. She checked BP, baby's heartrate, read notes, birthplan etc, and then she offered a VE (i wasnt planning on having any but i did want want to know if anything was happening so i agreed). 
It was 10am by now (and H had returned). Turns out i was 3cm but the contractions had dropped off to 5mins apart. We chatted about the fact that baby was OP and initial contractions would probably be 'turning him' into a better position for birth rather than dilating my cervix. She suggested she go off on her rounds and onto her clinic at local health center from 11-1 and she would phone me at 1pm to see how i was getting on, this sounded okay especially as the contractions i was getting weren't particularly painful nor lasting more than 30seconds - and I was feeling quite relaxed.

After this my timings are a bit hazy (apologies) but i swear the minute the midwife stepped out the door, the contractions ramped up to 3mins apart and were gradually getting more tough to breath/TENs my way through. I had to keep walking away from Lucy as i didnt want her to see me in pain, it felt like H was running back+forth between me and her and I decided we should call my friend Clare to collect Lucy. She lives round the corner but typically she was out walking her dog and it took her 35minutes to arrive. Contractions were now 2mins apart, lasting a good 40-50seconds.

As soon as Clare and Lucy left the contractions ramped up again, i have to say despite feeling relaxed and in control, they were very intense and painful, i was beginning to ponde

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