birth story. Bubba.

Born on a showery winter day

We were expecting our latest addition baby number three on the 29th of June. This was the one pregnancy I was happy to let go overtime. I had had a busy semester studying and was looking forward to some lying on the couch and relaxing time. However at around 6am on the 24th June I woke up to leaking waters. At first I thought Oh no...its going to be the same as last time, leaking waters for 48 hours and no contractions. Not cool! But the contractions started soon after that. Yes today is the day!
We hadn't really decided on exactly where we were going to do this birth, home or hospital but I was leaning toward the home..hubby was more keen on the hospital. We decided to go with the flow. I called the midwife to let her know what was going on but she was already at the hospital delivering twins, but assured me she should be able to make over soon.
We called grandma to come and pick up the older kids.
Another call to the midwife at around 830am. Another one of her patients was in labour and she couldn't make it so she called her back up partner. That's fine, I thought. I've met her, shes just as good. A call back from my midwife, sorry...but Marys stuck in theater doing a cesarean, I'm going to have to send over someone else. Someone else?? Not long after a new midwife (who I hadn't met before) arrived ready to help with our birth. Okay this is a bit weird my hubby and I thought. We decided we were quite happy where we were and all going to plan we would go for a home birth...our first one. It seemed so weird and so comfortable at the same time. Here I am making my midwife a coffee and stopping for a couple of contractions to breath through it. So bizarre! I loved having the kitchen counter top to hold on to during the contraction.
The baby's nursery was set up for the delivery. I had a spare Single bed in there and plastic sheets were laid everywhere. When I saw the changing table had the oxygen mask ready to go it it hit me...I hope bubba won't be needing that!
I continued to walk around the house during the contractions until it felt time to push. The back up midwife was called...Another one we didn't know! I felt so embarrassed, I was in no mood to be meeting someone new. No hand shake or hi whats your name...more like how long has she been going and how much is she dilated. I kept thinking...this is not how I imagined my home birth to be... but what the heck...lets just get this baby outta here safe and sound. The pushing commenced and after a few good pushes our little bubba was born at 1045am. He was placed on to my chest and cried straight away. Yes a great sound!
After the placenta was delivered, the midwives examined it. "Oh my!" and "wow" They kept saying..."take a picture!!" "Look at the cord, it has three knots". Apparently that was super rare. And as one of them put it "this baby was meant to be" We took a picture of it, not thinking too much more about it.
After goggling it later on, I found that one true knot happens in 1-3% of births..I couldn't find anything on more than one knot though. This scared me. The knots could have gotten tight during labour...the what ifs flooded me. Was he getting enough nutrition? Should we have even done a home birth?
In the end we got our lovely baby safe and sound. And I can only thank God that everything worked out perfectly fine. This little fella was meant to be and maybe he needed to come earlier than planned to make it out before something could have gone wrong.

After debriefing with my midwife days later she said she was really sorry she couldn't be there for us and that she has never had three of her patients ready to deliver in one day before..ever.

In hindsight,would I do a home birth again? Possibly not. The question I asked myself is do I need to be comfortable during labour to the detriment of the baby's safety?
Another lesson learned was always go with the flow...you never know what time labour may start or who might be there to deliver it!

day one