"My home birth & aftercare"

I gave birth to my second child, at home as planned in October 2020.

It was a really chilled and lovely experience. After a whole cascade of intervention with my first born, for reasons based solely on the time on a clock - I spent 9 months worrying about the arrival of midwives at my home birth.

On the day, I was sent Susan, and Charlotte.

Both were angels in disguise and couldn't have been more different from what I was worried about. Susan's arrival was just 15-20 minutes before baby was born and she seemed to cast a spell that calmed me down massively and she helped me to refocus on listening to my body and birthing my baby the way I wanted too. She was incredible.

Charlotte's aftercare and the attention she gave me was second to none. Poor woman was following me round with maternity pads and bowls to try and save our carpet!! 

I needed some more complex stitches after the birth and eventually opted to transfer into hospital. The ambulance (on insistence of delivery suite, we were perfectly happy to drive in) took a while, but of course I was a non urgent case and this wasn't a problem.

My lovely midwives met us at the hospital and the continuity of that care was lovely, especially since I was so worried about receiving the stitches.

I was in and out of delivery suite almost within the hour and couldn't have had a better experience over all.

The only thing I would actually change if I could would be to have Susan and Charlotte arrive earlier. Delivery suite told me to ring back for a midwife when my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart consistently, but they never were until within half an hour of my body starting to push. This isn't a negative reflection on delivery suite or the advice I was given as every womans birth is different and I understand many women will labour with contractions 2-3 minutes apart for a long while.