On Saturday 10th March 18 I woke up at 6.45 am having a few niggly pains. I asked hubby to take the girls downstairs so I could have time alone to see what came of them. I was 40+8 and hour later I knew this was definitely labour. Hubby took kids to grandmas and I phoned my independent midwife (who is over an hour away) . I know my body pretty well now and always go into urinary retention in labour which slows me down and distress me. I got in bath to relax then when got out put in my tens machine. Debs my midwife got here around 10.30 . She helped me get some urine out and checked I was 6cm. Pool was ready now and I got in . It was heaven. I love being in water.

The rest of the amazing Yorkshire Storks midwives turned up . Then at 12.03 twin A Tobias was born at home weighing a healthy 8lbs 3oz It was a surreal and fantastic experience. We had some skin to skin in the pool , our first breastfeed and waited for cord to stop pulsing, I was still getting contractions for twin 2 and felt quite conflicted on what to concentrate on. So cord was cut and he went to daddy for skin to skin.

“Our first child Finley, was born in hospital “

Our first child Finley, was born in hospital and without going into too much detail, and on reflection it appeared to us to be mostly unnecessary and an overwhelming complex way to achieve a “natural” birth. We therefore decided to strive for our second child, Isla, to be born at home.

In hindsight had we done the research and I had a bit more courage we would have done this with our first born also. After all medicalised births are a relatively new thing… doing the research will show you that unless there are good reasons to be at hospital, you should do what you believe is the best for you.

I woke up around 1.50am with tummy ache, assumed it was the kebab from the night before so popped off to the toilet, I was in there a good half an hour before I realised the pains I was getting were actually pretty regular and figured I should time them. After an hour I decided yes they are contractions, yes I’m in labour! I went downstairs and woke up my OH who’d been sent to the sofa when our daughter took over the bed! I told him calmly “we’re getting our baby today”. I gave him the option of going up to bed or helping me set up the living room with the birth pool, he helped, and made LOTS of tea !!

By 5am everything was ready and the pool was full, contractions were getting pretty painful now so I decided to jump in. Bad idea.
My labour all but stopped, contractions became extremely weak and went from 2 mins apart to 6-7 mins. Darcie was up now and wanting to get in the water. She paced the room with me and we did bounces, anything to kick things back up again. We decided my OH should go to work as it seemed nothing was happening. 8.34 my mum turned up and made me ring the midwives. Contractions were about 3 mins apart and super intense, I rang for a midwife and text the OH to come back from work.

We were so pleased to welcome this little man on Wednesday, 6 days late but at home.

It was a slow start and I spent the morning watching Netflix and eating bacon butties (beats tea and toast).
My contractions were of no real pattern but one warm bath later they increased and intensified so it was a call to the community midwives. They arrived at 3pm, all relaxed and we chatted as they monitored the contractions from a far. I knew it was time to go in the pool then at 5:40pm he arrived.