Welcome gorgeous Nellie

This story of Nellie's birth is one that I loved receiving, I remember Summer messaging me when she was born just so overwhelmed at how amazing it was. And I remember thinking YES! This is why I do what I do, so that at the end of birth women say it was AMAZING!! Enjoy this one... Nic x

Nellie’s Birth

When I was 14 I read an article in my big sisters Marie Claire magazine about homebirth and I pretty much made the decision then that I would be having a homebirth. I think this early decision in my life steered me toward my career as a midwife.

When I fell pregnant 21yrs later at 35, I had no doubts a home birth was what I wanted. Stewart went along willing and trusting.

Together we attended the invaluable mind,bump & birth hypnobirthing classes by Nicole. I was more fearful of the possibility of needing a hospital admission or a caesarean than the labour and birth. After completing the hypnobirth I felt prepared for any outcome.

The anticipation of labour was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Every day after 37 weeks I was saying, any day now. 40+3 was my lucky day.

I woke up to pee around 1am and went back to sleep. Up to pee again at 1:30am which I thought was weird but whatever. I couldn’t get back to sleep and at 2am I had back pain and I started to wonder if maybe it had started.

At 3am I was doing a bit of heavy breathing and stewart woke up to ask what’s wrong? I said I’m in labour, to which he replied “so does that mean I’m not going fishing today?”.

My plan was to set up the pool while I was in early labour, I thought it would be a good distraction and keep me active, but by 4am I was confined to the shower because the contractions were coming hard and fast. That left stew to set up the pool, I told him to watch the utube video for instructions which he completely dismissed, because in his words “blowing up a pool is not rocket science Summer”

20 min later he sticks his head in the shower to ask if he was supposed to put the liner in before filling it. OMG….YESSSSSSS!!!

Take 2- he had to empty the pool and insert the liner. 20m later my shower was cold from filling up the pool twice so I ventured out to see what was taking so long. To my horror he had mistakenly used some random plastic sheets instead of the actual pool liner.

Take 3- empty the pool again, only this time he managed to flood the entire kitchen, I’m sure if I had not been in so much pain it would of been funny HaHa. Third time lucky the liner went in and the pool was filled. I remember getting in and thinking its not working, it still hurts so bad, not just with the contractions but all the time.

I was reluctant to call my midwife, I was watching the clock, I knew she wasn’t back on until after 8am and was sure I would have a long day of labour ahead of me. At 0730 I was really in the throws of labour and stew didn’t know quite what to do, he rang the midwife and asked her to come, when he told me she was on her way I was so grateful he had made the right judgement.

Im not going to lie I was adding up in my head how long it would take me to get to hospital, get seen and get some pethidine. I asked for a VE because I knew if I was still only in early labour I wasn’t going to last.

The VE was 7-8cm better than I expected but I really wanted to hear the words fully dilated. Still it was a relief to know that something was happening, positive thoughts and focus could only keep me going for so long, I needed more, I needed to know it was working and it would be over sooner rather than later. With the support and reassurance from my midwife I made the decision to stay home and keep going.

I amped up the positive thoughts I had posters of affirmations on the walls and I was reading them in my head over and over, I was breathing and counting. I was in the pool but I was moving forwards, backwards, around, nothing seemed to help but that didn’t stop me trying everything. Stew was by my side the entire time to keep me steady and strong.

My body was pushing, I had no control over it, it was breathtakingly strong and unstoppable. Moments later I could feel something, I put my hand down and I could feel the head, I looked up wide eyed at my midwife and said there’s head!!!!

A few more pushes and the head was crowning I was trying not to push, I wanted my peri to have time to stretch but my body was overcome with the urge. I was not expecting or prepared to feel everything, I felt the tear happen, I felt the head pass through, the shoulders, and even the knees. I delivered her myself, in the pool. Less than an hour after my midwife arrived our baby was born at 0920. IT’S A GIRL, truly the biggest surprise, I even had to check twice. We named her Nellie after her 102yr old great grandmother. I could not have asked for a better birth experience, later that day Stew even managed to go fishing.