Elgin's unassisted homebirth
I was pregnant with my third child. One was born in hospital, one was born at home with a midwife - both in Germany. As I was looking for a midwife for homebirth in Malaysia I came across Hypnobirth. By that time I was already persuaded about birth being natural and normal and nothing to worry about. But both my husband and me thought : why not learn something new? Attending the course gave me more strength in my believes and it was the first time that I heard birth can be even painless! I didnt doubt that and then there came that night.
I was restless, could not sleep and did this and that while my two kids and my husband were sleeping already. I did not know weather I am going to give birth since there have been many days before where I had real surges and none of these days ended in labour. Around 4 am I woke my husband up to ask him to prepare the bedroom with me together. We slept in a different room since we have been cleaning the bedroom and turning everything upside down. I said : no matter what, I want to have a good rest now and sleeping with two kids on one little bed did not give me any rest at all. Afterwards I was still not sure if this was going to be the birthing day since I didnt have real surges. But we just layed down, listened to music and relaxed holding each other. It was great and I was happy. Around 6 am our kids woke up and not much later I felt like the baby wants to come out. I went down from bed and called a friend nearby to come and give breakfast to our kids. By then I had surges where I was breathing not to push and all was peaceful and gentle and my brain started working : everybody is saying that waterbirth is so great - let me try that. We have a rainwater tank outside the house and the water was not warm early in the morning but not that cold aswell. Since we have no warm water in the house - and the rainwater seems to be cleaner than the tab water - I wanted to try that out. I could not even walk to the tank without going down to breath the surges in the third stage away. But all was still gentle and not scary at all. The baby was already prepared to come out! Then I went into the water and WOW! it was really relaxing and feeling so good! My husband boild at least 60 liters of water - but it was not enough. Our friends came, looked after the kids and I was thinking : THE BABY IS COMING, THE BABY IS COMING! We didnt have any midwife around. First we couldnt find one and later on we found it more peaceful to be amongst ourselves. More peace when the kids are not scared of a stranger and when the dogs are not restless and barking cause of a stranger in the house. After two hours we decided to send our friends aways since the surges had almost stopped. I went out of the water and my body was totally exhausted and cooled down. The water was relaxing but too cold for birth and no sleep on top of that made me be really tired. I went back to bed, slipped under a thick blanket and then the most painful surges ever started. I was falling asleep all the time but having surges very short after each other. I guess my body tried to warm up again, getting the mussles wide again and had really hard work to do with that task. I didnt worry any second, I was not scared that anything dangerouse would happen. I was just exhausted and my body cold. After some time one child fell asleep next to me and one child was bored.So we called another friend to come and play with our child(ren). Another hour later (our sleeping child was awake and playing by then aswell) I was fed up and just wanted to have birth done. I got up - feeling very weak - and started singing for my baby to come out. I got down from bed (getting my babys on the knees usually) and was happy when the surges for the baby to come out started again. The waterbag broke just one surge before the babyʻs head came out. I didnt give it too much time to breath the baby out. It was not as peaceful as I KNOW birth can be but I was just happy and had more energy again when I was holding my little son in the arms around 12.20 lunch time. One of the greatest moments during labour was when my husband was screaming : THE HEAD IS OUT! THE HEAD IS OUT! (me thinking : yes, I know). Then : THE BODY IS COMING! THE BODY IS COMING! (me feeling like laughing and thinking : I can feel that.) It was so great having an excited and happy husband around and it also gave me energy to continue. After our boy came out my husband passed him on to me (being very happy to have caught his first baby by himself) and the baby started crying immediately. Our first two kids came from the next room looking at their new brother. Then I got onto the bed again (we had it prepared with plastic and old bedsheets) and we had lunch together. Mjam! The plazenta never wanted to come out and after birthing my baby I didnt feel like putting a lot of effort into getting the plazenta out. I thought it wont be stuck inside forever. Like that I was laying with our little son in the arms in bed and in the evening everyone came and slept aswell. Next morning 4 am I got up and there we go, the plazenta was already waiting for me to breath it out. No hazzle at all! Though I must admit that I was confused for the plazenta not to come out immediately. We decided to do a Lotus birth (not cutting the cord) and one day after birthing the plazenta out we washed it and powdered it with rosemary. To our surprise the very same day the cord fell off and until now we still have a lot of rosemary in the house... . The birth of our son Lukanyo Elias was in the end not as gentle as I wished it to be but I could feel the truth of a painless birth during the whole labour and I guess one day I have to birth another baby to make my brain shut up and breath the baby out the time it wants to come :-) |