Pregnancy & Birth
When my wife Catherine suggested we had a home birth the idea some what terrified me.
I was half decent at whispering reassuring words and holding Catherine’s hand when our first child, James, was born. But the prospect of perhaps delivering the baby filled me with dread.
With a bit of persuasion from Catherine and our lovely midwife Louise, that it would be less stressful than a hospital birth, we took the plunge - quite literally. Never known to do things by halves we decided a birthing pool would be the best option. When James was born, Catherine spent a long period of her labour in a pool in Ormskirk, and found it much more comfortable than being on a bed.
Most birth pools come with a liner and a pump to empty the pool out after the birth, which is handy if you’re squeamish like I am. So the birth pool arrived in the post and all we had to do was wait for the big day. About a week before Grace was actually born we had a false alarm and inflated the pool in the middle of the night, filled it with warm water, but to no avail. After Catherine had spent a few hours in the pool and a midwife had visited in the morning it was obvious Grace would be waiting a little while longer.
A week later and Catherine woke me just after midnight and suggested with some urgency that I start filling the pool. It takes about half an hour to fill the pool: air pump to inflate it, hose from the kitchen tap, and thermometer to check the temperate. Given our dry run I was an old hand, and getting the pool ready went like clockwork.
“You had better call Louise,” Catherine called over to me literally moments after getting into the pool in our front room. I phoned Louise, who very reassuringly told me not to worry,
that she would head over - from her home, a 30 minute drive from our house. About two minutes later Catherine told me to call Louise again as she was finding it impossible not to push. “Ring 999, I’m on my way,” Louise urged me.
“I can do this,” I thought to myself, “I can deliver the baby if I have to”. Thankfully I didn’t have to. The ambulance was here in about five minutes, and our two paramedics were brilliant. Soon Catherine had gas and air, and less than quarter of an hour later Louise arrived.
While the male paramedic was helping Louise bring her equipment in, Grace made her entry into the world. Had we opted for a hospital birth, I have no doubt that Grace would have been delivered on the side of the road, such was the speed with which she arrived.
This is the unvarnished story of how Grace was born, and I can honestly say it was much less stressful than a hospital birth.Strangely we both felt in much more control of the situation. Being in the intimacy of your own home for such an important event is very soothing.
By 5.30am we were back in bed with Grace sleeping in a cot next to our mattress. Just as we were nodding off to sleep a congratulation card landed on our doormat from the paramedics who had delivered Grace just a few hours earlier and, when he woke, in crept our son James to welcome his baby sister to the world.
Our Birth Story
David Bartlett shares his experience of his daughter being born at home.
""I was half decent at whispering reassuring words and holding Catherine's hand when our first child, James, was born. But the prospect of perhaps delivering the baby filled me with dread."