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Home Birth - a nervous father's story

I have to confess that at first I really didn't like the idea. Now, looking back, I am really glad we did it. In between, was something of an emotional roller-coaster. I learned a lot along the way ...

Reservations

My wife and I had already had three children. I know this affects the story, because my opinions of childbirth changed with each one. Before we'd had children I hadn't the foggiest idea what to expect. After the first I thought I knew what to expect. After the second I realised that we had only experienced part of the story. After the third I understood that each experience is unique. In our case, to make matters worse, these three children were born by caesarian section. Popular opinion meant that a fourth ceasarean was a foregone conclusion in the eyes of the medical staff. No other course was really offered, as anything else would be "dangerous".

Jenny, my wife, was by this time a trained antenatal teacher for the National Childbirth Trust with some years' experience. She had never been happy with the fact that she had been denied the experience of natural child birth. With more knowledge and the advantage of hidsight, she was sure that one or two - if not all - of our children could have been born naturally. We had fallen into an inevitable trap which snares so many women these days: a "failure to progress" is addressed by one of a number of interventions - all of which increase pain and reduce the likelihood of unaided success. This time she was determined to "do it right". That is when we first started discussing having a home birth.

Water

Somehow, home birth says water birth. I don't know whether this is now because of our experience, of whether it just seemed the logical choice. We had already become familiar with the idea of water birth. We had intended our third child to be born with the aid of a water birthing pool. We had been agents of a company hiring out birth pools.

What unnerved me, however, was the idea that we should attempt to have our fourth chld outside the "safety" of hospital. All the "what ifs" ran around my head. How would we cope without the machine-that-goes-ping? Jenny tried to reassure me that she knew enough to be certain that this was a sensible choice. A safe choice. The right choice. I could tell that she was a little nervous about the idea, however, and it took a lot of courage and conviction for us both to decide that this was how we were going to do it. I'm so glad we did. There were a lot of unanswered questions still, and taking control of our destiny meant that we were now responsible for everything. I held on to the belief that we were doing the right thing. I needn't have worried: help was at hand.

Support

As conventional medicine was unsure of our decision at best, we realised that we would need to hire a private midwife. A professional who didn't believe in what we were doing would have been no support at all. Under other circumstances, midwives provided by the hospital to support our home birth would have been fine.

I cannot imagine more supportive midwives than those we had. The two midwives who attended were thoughtful, efficient and highly reassuring. They were with us through the whole experience without making us feel they were intruding. They were supportive without trying to control. I realised that they would be there to offer advice, to understand what was hapenning and would know what to do. We weren't on our own after all.

The long wait

Convention has it that human babies are born after a 38 week gestation. The usual calculation is 40 weeks from the start of the menstrual cycle (first day of a period). This is, of course, a guess - based on statistics. As is inevitable with legislating to statistical evidence, only some cases fall within the predictions. The doctors start getting twitchy if the baby has not been born by the end of the 42nd week. By inducing women who are still pregnant at 42 weeks, there is no possibility of research into the real average and standard deviation of human gestation.

In our case, Fergus was born some three and a half weeks "late". By this point, the medical profession would have been hassling us daily I imagine. As it was, our respective parents phoned pretty much every day to see whether we'd come to our senses yet. I don't mean to say that they were totally unsupportive, but conventional wisdom runs pretty deep. I think they were unconvinced that we knew what we were doing, but respected our "brave decision".

On the day

The day started with Jenny saying she was having regular, strong contractions. She was sure that we would have our fourth child by lunchtime. I didn't believe her. All of the previous labours had lasted many hours. We saw the children off to school and to relatives, anyway and focussed on the task in hand. This was really it!

The pool had been set up in our dining room for the past few weeks. We had used it for relaxation and got used to getting the water at the right temperature and clambering in and out. It was great: I look forward to having a spa pool one day (when I've won the lottery and bought a house large enough). Everything said about the relaxing and pain reducing affects of being immersed in warm water is true. (It's also great for sex in pregnancy!)

The midwives came quickly, but by the time they came, Jenny was already pacing round the lounge breathing hard and stroking her belly. I think we were offered the opportunity to get in the pool. I can't believe we were still waiting for permission after all the decisions we'd taken on our own! (I think the midwives were a little puzzled, too.) It all seemed to happen very quickly. I suppose it must have been a couple of hours, maybe. Jenny was in the pool, mostly on all fours. She wanted to hold my hand. The myth of women screaming obsenities at their husbands is unfounded in my experience. Jenny can be pretty miffed with me at times; this wasn't one of them. She was rubbing her forehead against my forearm. This was reassuring, apparently; it also bloody hurt - but I was happy to be helping. All of those little things we'd planned: the music and the aromatherapy was forgotten. Soon, Jenny was saying she wanted to push and the midwives were checking that everything looked to be OK.

Suddenly one of the midwives was saying "There's the head". Jenny didn't want to look, and I couldn't move. There was a short pause while the cord was unwrapped from round his head. A couple more pushes there he was! I was told to some and hold the head. There, in the water, was our baby. I held his head above water, while something busy went on behind me. At some point one of the midwives had hooked her little finger into his mouth to clear his airways. He hadn't made a sound. His eyes were open and looking into my face (the lights are usually too bright in hospital). He looked so calm and relaxed. Years earlier we had attended a waterbirth workshop. Some wierdo had given a talk on "rebirthing". He had twittered on about how the moment of birth affected your whole outlook on life. I think I know what he was talking about, now.

Did I want to cut the cord? Um .. did I? I can't remember what I'd said. I was't going to miss the opportunity, though. All in all it wasn't as messy an affair as I had expected. The pool needed emptying and cleaning, of course, but with the exception of one towel there were no permanent stains.

By midday Jenny was sat on our sofa nursing our new baby. The midwives had wished us well and gone home. Later that afternoon the kids would come home and meet their new brother. For a few hours, though, we could be alone to get to know our new child.

Looking back

I cannot stress enough how strongly I believe that this was the right choice for us. I also believe that it is very much how it is supposed to be and should be considered a sensible option. The little hippie in me feels that we stuck it to the man and took control of our lives for once. We are happy in the knowledge that we achieved something wonderful. Most importantly, Fergus is a happy, loving and smart boy.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 July 2007 )