Birth Stories and Testimonials

Leanne Jaques

(Leanne and baby Sophia pictured left)

Lynne Minett

January 2011 - Laboured and birthed at home in water

Lynne had a "busy" birth, featuring a female birth partner, a visit from the window cleaner and a man who brews his own beer on sterilising duty.   

Read Baby Hester's birtn story HERE

(Baby Hester pictured left)

Eleanor Barnes

Nov 2010 - Laboured at home in water. Birthed in hospital

After a long and difficult labour, with some complications, Eleanor managed a normal vaginal delivery, despite the threat of forceps. 

Read her account of the arrival of Baby Oliver HERE

(Baby Oliver pictured left)

Janine McFadden

Sept 2010 - Vaginal Delivery (at home in water) after C Section

A must-read for anyone who thinks you can't have a normal, vaginal delivery after a C Section. 

Read Janine's account HERE

Sue Barker - November 2010 : 

began labour at home then transferred to hospital

"My plan was for a home waterbirth. This was my first pregnancy and I wanted more than anything for everything to be natural with minimal intervention and pain relief...."

Unfortunately, things didn't quite go to plan

Helen Russell - July 2010 

A successful VBAC Delivery in Water

"I was really quite traumatised by my first birth, partly because it was so far removed for what I'd wanted.  Second time round I was determined it would be different....."

Read Helen's story HERE

Rachel Ellingham - July 2010

Lilla Tann – July 2010

A very relaxed, 3 day labour at home in the pool where baby Erin was delivered.

Lila shares here her experience of the pool as a comfortable, warm place to be. 

Read Lilla's account HERE

Johanna Rhys-Davies

Polly Wong

 

We setup the pool in our sitting room and I had 2 rubber ducks in it for company.

My labour started around 10pm and I decided to try and go to bed, but couldn’t sleep through the contractions, so I sat up and used some relaxation and HypnoBirthing techniques to manage the tension.  I played cards with my husband for a bit (but I was rather spaced out and had my eyes shut a lot of the time!) and did quite a lot of vocalising (ie moaning!) and squeezing a little ball while I did my visualisations.  I thought I got into the pool around 4 am but Alan says it was more like 2am – weird sense of time!  Once I was in there I only got out to go to the loo a few times, and was very keen to get back to my warm, safe space.  I found the water very supportive and it allowed me to roll gently between positions.

Initially I half sat, half reclined in the pool and Alan talked to me and stroked my hair.  Sadly he was encouraging me to use different visualisations from the ones I was using (!).  Only joking.  I was aware of his presence and support all the time.

I asked him to call the midwife as I was aware that without her I wouldn’t have gas and air option, but I squeezed my rubber ducki half to death and reached a point where I knew I could manage the contractions.

The midwife came around 7am and was a brilliant calm, unobtrusive presence.

The last part of my labour was amazing – very loud (sorry neighbours) during contractions, but they were more spaced out, so I had a lucid period where I was able to come out of myself and talk to Alan, knowing I was about to give birth to our child.  He couldn’t believe I was smiling.  I just felt very calm and very happy, and Nicholas was born in the water just as I hoped. 

He didn’t cry for a very long while after the birth and we sat in the water together for a while. .I stayed in the water for over an hour after the birth but got out to go to the loo and get the placenta moving as I hadn’t had any contractions.

I had the easiest, most wonderful pregnancy, and my labour went better than I could ever have hoped for. I would recommend a waterbirth and self-hypnosis to anyone – I will always remember Nicholas’s birth with joy and some astonishment that it went so smoothly, and I hope his gentle birth, with water, rose oil burning and music, was a good gift for him.  And there was no need for pain relief other than the techniques I’ve mentioned – breathing is the key!

I’d been in and out of hospital with high blood pressure and protein urea for several weeks and had been told I needed to finally submit to being admitted until the baby was born.  I was gutted!  But on the morning I was due to go in, my midwife called to say a consultant had called her to say I didn’t have to go, that I did not have pre-eclampsia and was OK to birth at home.

Within an hour of her call I started having my first contraction at 11am.  By about 4pm I was finding things more difficult and my partner filled the pool.  It felt good to be in the warm water and especially to be weightless and supported by the water.  The midwife took photos of my partner and I in the pool together as I laboured that still make me teary now.  I loved that he could be in there with me; it felt close and intimate and I felt very supported in a way I wouldn’t have were he not in the pool with me.  The midwives eventually asked me to get out of the water to try and move things along a bit, and while I was out of the water (which I didn’t like at all!!!) one of the midwives massaged my feet and ankles with the blended oils from the lovely aromatherapy kit. 

Eventually I went back in the pool, to my huge relief!  And sometime around midnight my body began pushing.  There had been no transition, just straight from first to second stage labour.  I could feel my baby’s head, but the midwives couldn’t see it at all.  I kept saying “baby’s so nearly here” but they couldn’t see anything.  The baby’s heartbeat was beginning to dip between contractions so the lead midwife left the room to call an ambulance to be on standby, but while she was out, my son was born – all of a sudden and all in one go.  He came shooting out into the water!  It was 1.30am and he was 9lb 15oz.