‘How I delivered baby no 3 at home’

It’s a scene we often see in movies or TV shows, to great comic effect: There’s no time to get to the hospital and Dad has to deliver the baby.  Wham, bam, thank you Sam, it’s easy and over before the commercial break. But what’s an emergency home delivery like in real life? When we heard about a blogger who actually did it, we couldn’t wait to hear about it. Ideas4Dads blogged about it. Read his story here.

‘I think I want to push’ shrieked High Command as she lay on the bed at home. These are not the words you want to hear when it dawns on you that you are going to unexpectedly have a home birth…especially when the midwife is still 20 minutes away!

I am a great believer in the saying that:

‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy’.

And in my humble experience our kids have been no exception.

For the births of our first two daughters we have been blessed with the good fortune of straight forward and very quick births.

Both were irregular labours, with no set patterns to the contractions. And with High Command having a very high pain threshold, we held on until the last minute to leave for the hospital, as she didn’t want to reach the hospital only to be told she was 0.4cm dilated and should bugger off home.

With the previous two births its been boom, waters breaking, rushing to the hospital and birth shortly after. Our birth plan of aromotherapy and birthing pools didn’t have a look in!

Our eldest, whose four, was born 1 hour 21 minutes after reaching the hospital.

Our 2yo was born with a new PB of 20 minutes after reaching the hospital. No time to park the car properly and I am ashamed to say that I had to slip off straight after the birth to hunt for a baked potato as I had forgotten to eat all day!

So with No3 (another daughter which you can read about my thoughts on having 3 kids here), even though we had been told to not necessarily expect a quick birth as No3’s can be quite different, we were assuming a quick one anyway (you can read about our plan on what to do on the big day here).

The only problem being that we now live out in the countryside and what was an 8 minute journey to the labour suite with the first two had now become a 40 minute journey on a good day.

Throw in rush hour and it could take over an hour……

Home birth I hear you say. Well each to their own but for us we wanted a hospital birth just in case something went wrong.

So the plan was when the time arrived, at the first sign of labour, to bundle the kids off to the grandparents and when the contractions got moderate to hightail it to the hospital.

Simples.

Or so we thought…

Now with No1 and No2 being 3 and 9 days overdue we had also planned for another late arrival.

Oh how wrong we were to be!

Another of my favourite sayings is that:

‘Assumption is the mother of all f@#k ups’

So with me assuming that baby would not be joining us for at least another couple of weeks, together with the fact we were more laid back with being old hands at this, to say that it was a surprise when the initial contractions started would be somewhat of an understatement.

Initial pains began Saturday afternoon so the Grandparent Evac was requested to bundle off No1 & No2.

When High Command burst into the room at midnight on the Saturday saying we needed to get to the hospital, I thought this was it!

Our drive to the hossie could have been quicker (read here about my 8 tips to getting to hospital on time) but we got to the hospital in one piece and with no baby born in the car.

Given we were a ‘Rapid Birth’ risk we were ushered quickly into a delivery room and examined.

High Command was only 3cm dilated….

In our fear of getting caught short we had jumped the gun!

Gutted didn’t even come close.

What we had always feared would happen with first two had actually happened with No3.

Oh and the irregular contractions stopped as soon as we walked into the labour suite….

After an hour of bouncing up and down on a birthing ball another examination confirmed there was no change in dilation.

By this time it was 3am.

And then the dilemma was presented to us, given that we needed to free up the delivery room.

Do we stay at the hospital with High Command moving up to the labour ward, where there would be zero chance of getting any sleep, or do we go back home?

We chose to go home on the basis that High Command could rest in relative peace.

We arrived home at 3.30am and, with neither of us not being morning people, we were hanging out of our proverbials.

It was at this point High Command mentioned going for a home birth on the basis she wasn’t sure she could do a 40-minute journey in the car with serious contractions.

I thought it would be a good idea to ring the community midwife (aka Mission Control) to alert them of the possibility of a home birth, keep them posted and then we headed to bed.

But even with the above, I still thought we would make it to the hospital by hook or by crook.

We were both awoken at 8am by our midwife phoning. She had just happened to have come on shift that morning and seen our name on “The List”. She’s been a great support throughout the pregnancy and is the one who introduced us to a fake fanny during an antenatal class.

Although High Command had been contracting all night, she wasn’t in too much pain and there was no regular pattern to the contractions. We were still undecided on a home birth vs a hospital birth.

So we did what any couple would do when contemplating whether to go for a home birth when in early labour. We cracked on with watching another episode of The West Wing (only 65 episodes to go).

It was after another snooze that things began to happen very, very quickly.

It was now 9.50am Sunday morning.

High Command shouted that she needed some pain relief and didn’t think she could do the journey to the hospital and be able to deal with the contractions sitting in the car.

Decision made. Home birth it was then.

It was 9.55am.

I rang Midwife Mission Control and was told a midwife would be with us within 40 minutes.

“OK but please be as quick as you can,” I pleaded.

It was at that point I heard those fateful words “I think I want to push,” mumbled from the next room….

Then, “False alarm, it’s just a poo!”

And relax.

It was now 10.02am.

I started gathering towels into the bedroom.

Lots of towels. My Mother-in-Law is a big advocate in that you can never have enough towels, and on this occasion this held true as the photo below attests.

“I really need to push,” High Command said.

It was now 10.17am.

“Just try to cross your legs, the midwife won’t be long,” I lied.

I have to declare it was at this point three things dawned on me:

• There’s no way the midwife was going to get there in time and I was going to have to deliver this baby
• I really, really, REALLY didn’t want to see anything that would put me off ever having intercourse with High Command again.
• I WAS SOILING MYSELF (figuratively speaking).

So I did what any bloke in this situation would do and literally rolled up my sleeves, took my wedding ring off and scrubbed up like they do on Holby City.

I then rang Midwife Mission Control and asked if someone could talk me through how to deliver a baby.

It was now 10.22am.

I don’t think Midwife Mission Control thought it would happen so quickly and they were trying to fob me off with the fact that the midwife would be there shortly.

Just as I was pleading to speak to someone who could talk me through, High Command took her trousers off and asked me if I would have a look downstairs.

If the truth be told, at that point I would rather have licked mayonnaise out of a sweaty armpit, but  I heard myself saying, “Of course, I will, darling, but the midwife will be here in a minute….”

And all I can say is from that point on, it was all a bit of a blur.

Legs open.

One minute nothing apart from a vagina.

Then whoa, what looked like a grapefruit appeared out of nowhere (which I have come to know was the amniotic sac as the waters hadn’t broken) and then I had baby’s head in my hand.

The waters broke.

All the time, I am looking into my beloved eyes telling her that everything would be OK.

All the time, I am seeking reassurance from the midwife on the phone:

“Can a baby be born without the waters breaking?”

“Yes.”

“The baby is a very deep purple. Is this normal?”

“Yes.”

“Can I leave the chord and placenta for the midwives en route to deal with when they arrive?”

“Yes.”

“Should I place baby on Mummy’s tummy when she’s out.”

“Yes.”

I think it took 4 or 5 pushes for baby to come out.

Thankfully, she began crying immediately and I was able to free the chord from around her neck and plonk her on Mum’s tum.

Talk about seat of the underpants stuff.

I then regularly checked High Command’s lady garden to make sure she wasn’t bleeding to death (thankfully she wasn’t/didn’t).

I then rang my neighbour to stand in the road to flag the midwife in as sat nav tends to send people round the corner.

The midwife on the phone had the birth at 10.27am.

The first of the two midwives en route arrived at 10.45am and proceeded to deal with chord, check baby, deliver placenta….

 

Thankfully, apart from a few grazes High Command was fine and No3 weighed in at a healthy 8lbs 0ozs. And what was really nice was I got a mention in dispatches in the paperwork, which you can see above.

So there you go. All in the line of duty and having reflected on it all, a great experience and something we will be talking about for years to come :-).

A little part of me can’t help but think in 5 minutes I have stolen High Command’s 9-months’ of glory.

Oh, and apparently I shouldn’t have used the white towels 🙂

As always would love to read your comments 🙂

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