This is my home birth story. I wanted to make this; as whilst planning my own home birth, it surprised me how many women don’t know that this is an option for them too. My goal is not to belittle hospital births in any way, as I had a hospital birth of my own. If a woman wants or needs to have a hospital birth, then that is certainly the perfect place for her to be. My hope is just for women to know they have the capabilities of making the choices they wish. Every single pregnancy is different, so this is just my experience.

I am not promoting the act of going against medical advice, but rather listening to the advice given by your medical professionals, and understanding it is still your choice to make. It is always advised to do as much research as possible to support the decisions you make throughout your pregnancy.

On 24th August at 2.25am my second little boy was born into the world weighing 9lb 1oz. His birth was not what I had planned or envisioned in my head, however I feel it’s an important story on how to deal with changes to birth plans ‘in action’.

I had written a very simple birth plan with the following wishes:

• Home Birth
• Water Birth
• Active Birth
• Able to move around
• Calm environment
• Support & Reassurance that I can do this
• No offer of pain relief unless I ask
• Husband to cut cord & tell me the sex
• Physiological delivery of the placenta

At 10 days overdue I was getting very fed up and trying not to focus on the impending induction I was booked in for. All week I had been getting lots of Braxton Hicks and twice thought I was in labour but things just stopped. Very frustrating! Especially when everyone is giving advice as to how I could ‘get things going’.

Birth story whilst it’s fresh in my mind …apologies for the length!!

Woke up on Friday morning and felt different. Had an urge to really deep clean the house (I’m clean-the-house obsessed anyway, but this was a whole new level!!), had eyebrows threaded, washed hair and painted nails, lovely meal with husband. I had mild cramps all day and felt a bit achy, but since Darcey was 12 days post dates, I had convinced myself this baby would be too.

We watched some Only Fools & Horses then went to bed about 10pm. John read me a hypnoscript for helping baby come out!

Then the drama started! Darcey (our 3 year old) started shouting for us. We went in and she had vomited everywhere. I then spent the next 4 hours changing sheets, washing mattress, getting us both showered and hair washed, into our bed…same thing happened so back up again. In the mist of all this, the cramping I had, disappeared.

I started getting pains at about 11pm on Friday, but after having a bit of a false start on Wednesday I decided it was nothing, took paracetamol and went to bed for a bit. I woke up at half 2 and contractions were every 10 minutes and getting painful, I ran the bath and Gary rang my mum as my little boy was stirring in bed and I needed other half to fill the pool.

Mum got here about 3am, at that point contractions were every 5 minutes. Midwife got here at 4am and I was 7cm (I requested to be examined as still wasn’t convinced I was in labour 😂, she rang the other midwife and I got in the pool.