Charlotte & Jeremy’s birth story
Read Charlottes account of the birth of her beautiful baby boy Winston.
My birth story didn’t exactly play out the way I “planned” but I look back on it with only the most beautiful memories.
We had planned for a home water birth, with only gas & air on standby if needed. With regular home visits & little listen ins to my baby’s heartbeat, I felt super prepared and confident in myself and my body. I was in pre labor for around 3 days with on and off regular but painless contractions. On the third day around 6pm, contractions became a little more intense and our midwife Debbie advised me to go take a relaxing bath and made her way over to us in anticipation of established labor!
As the night (& contractions) progressed I got into the birthing pool, we had candles and music, a lavender diffuser … we had created the most peaceful home environment to make me feel calm & relaxed. I used the Freya app which helped a lot with breathing and staying focused. My husband and Debbie made me feel safe and gave me energy throughout - being kept constantly informed of what was happening in my body and all the time just super excited to meet my baby.
I laboured at home for around 10 hours but started to have back to back contractions with very high intensity & no breaks in between, after a few hours at this level I opted for an internal exam to see how far along we were but at only 3cm dilated (first baby!) we decided to head into hospital for some pain relief.
As fate would have it my waters broke as we arrived and were heavy in meconium, so being in the hospital was fortunate as we would have been travelling here once my waters broke anyway! Turns out my baby was moving positions hence the back to back contractions, I opted for an epidural and seemed to dilate very fast over the next hour or so. My baby boy was born naturally, assisted with forceps, 14 hours after I went into established labour.
Hearing that little cry and finally meeting our baby was the most magical thing I’ve ever felt. Though this birth wasn’t what I had prepared for, I would absolutely do the same all over again & try for a home birth again in the future 🤍
