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 planned my home birth meticulously, right down to what snacks I would have on offer for our visiting midwives. An area that I did neglect when putting together my birth plan, however, was breastfeeding. Call me naive or maybe overly optimistic, but with my rose tinted glasses on I half expected our first breastfeed to be like a scene out of Snow White.

When my baby boy arrived in August 2015 at 38 weeks I was presented with the opposite, my beautiful baby just didn’t know what to do and I had very little knowledge to help guide him. The Midwives did their best to help me but nobody could get my baby to latch, and due to some minor concerns surrounding his blood sugars his first ever feed was not from me! Our breastfeeding journey definitely had a rough start but I am pleased to say we went onto breastfeed for over 2 years!

If I were to plan my home birth again, I would definitely dedicate an area on my birth plan to breastfeeding. I would also attend the one off breastfeeding session held at our local hospital (I attended this over a year later as a volunteer and found it so informative!). Another thing I would do is gather information on who can help if required. Looking at our local breastfeeding support there are 3 main types; NHS, Voluntary and Private.

New for 2019! Our monthly meetings are now held at Harrison Park, Hall Road, Hull. HU69DQ. On the 3rd Sunday of each month.

Our face to face meetings are an informal social meet up to discuss the option of giving birth at home. Meetings are often attended by; local families, Doulas, Midwives and other Practitioners related to pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. Attendance numbers can vary.

Children are welcome to attend, the venue is child friendly, on one level and has some toys and changing facilities. There is also a cafe which is open to the public.

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.