Birth stories - Midwife-assisted birth at birth house

Birth stories - Midwife-assisted birth at birth house ^Featured

Erika de Lange (30) was fascinated with the idea of a homebirth, even though it freaked her out.

She loved the idea of the caring support of a midwife and when she fell pregnant, it felt natural to contact a midwife. Erika gave birth at a birth house and says words cannot describe how empowering her birth experience was. “For the first time in my life, I was glad to be a woman. And I felt sorry for all men because they will never know the secret of what childbirth is like.”

Before Erika fell pregnant, she found an old book in her local library by Ina May Gaskin. “If I remember correctly, it was called Homebirth. I read that book from cover to cover and stared at the pictures for ages. This was about three years before I even fell pregnant, so it was really just out of interest in the concept. The thought of having a homebirth myself started to grow on me very gradually after that. The statistics of outcomes are very clear that it is much safer than an elective c-section, provided that you have a low risk pregnancy. And hospitals make it very hard to have natural births. For a first time pregnancy, the outcomes are the same whether you have a natural birth in a hospital or not. But the percentage of people able to birth naturally in hospital is not good.”

Liked the idea of midwives

A year later, a friend of hers fell pregnant and wanted to birth with a midwife. “At the time the midwives were still working from a birthing unit at a hospital, so not really home births. But I liked the idea of a midwife rather than the traditional gynae that most women in SA have. My friend ended up needing an emergency c-section. The midwife was the one who picked up that something was wrong before the labour even started. She also went with my friend into the theatre, and in the recovery room she had a big argument with the staff to keep the baby with the mom in skin to skin. The baby was fine, full term, it was just standard procedure to put them in incubators after a c-section. I loved the idea of that kind of support, regardless of whether it was a natural birth or not.”

Hospital or birth house

"When I fell pregnant a few years later, I contacted the same midwife. They had just bought a house where they could do home births. For most of my pregnancy I wasn't sure if I wanted to give birth in the hospital birthing unit or in the birth house, and in the end it turned out that my medical aid paid more for the birth house. I was delighted, because by that time I had fallen in love with the birth house. We had our ante-natal classes and our monthly check-ups there, so it was a familiar space.

This was it

Erika had braxton hicks for weeks before the birth, so when she woke up one morning at 03:00, she didn’t think much of it. “The braxton hicks got a bit rough, so I ran a bath and figured that if that didn't stop it then maybe this was it. I woke my hubby up around 03:30 and told him I thought this was the day. We phoned the midwife around 04:30. The contractions were very short, but they were on top of each other and my muscles weren't relaxing in between. After the bath my hubby and I tried to relax and rest a bit, because we knew it would be a while before we had to go. I did get a bit of a break, the contractions eased up just enough for me to doze and hour or two. By 07:00 I wanted to see my midwife and go to the birth house. I was worried that it would be too sore to drive much later because sitting was very uncomfortable. We arrived at the birth house, and I was already 4 cm dilated. There was a reflexologist there, but I became very tactile defensive and in the end she couldn't do much more than press on pressure points in my hands.”

During labour

“I spent some time on a gym ball, I threw up, I moved around, drank loads of apple juice. I went into the water when I was about 8 cm and went to 10 cm in about 15 minutes. The water helped a lot to relax my muscles between contractions. My midwife became nervous about my stamina and wanted to break my water to move the process along, but it was very important to me to break them naturally. About 20 minutes after I got into the bath my waters broke, and the pushing started shortly after that. That's when it got hard, because I just couldn't get the head out. This was around 14:00. We tried different positions, different pushing techniques, I just couldn't get him out. I was only thinking about how to get through the next contraction, and the next. I focused on relaxing all the muscles in my pelvis, and listening to my body for tips on position. In the end when I struggled to get the head out, my midwife was a rock of support. And my husband, I couldn't have done it without him."

"In the end the midwife called some back-up and he was born with fundal pressure. It was a tight fit, he was almost too big for my rather delicate frame but we made it. He didn't turn after his head came out, so the midwife had to turn him during the final contraction. I ended up with a 2nd degree tear from that move, but didn't even feel it.”

Incredibly empowering

"In a nutshell, it was the hardest, most wonderful experience of my life and I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was incredibly empowering. Yes, it was very painful, but the fact that there is pain is almost irrelevant in the moment. It’s a working muscle pain, like climbing a mountain. My muscles were working harder than ever before. It’s not a broken bone kind of pain. And my hormones carried me through it. I didn't take anything for pain.

"I was both very vulnerable and very strong, but the support around me was amazing and I felt safe. If anybody had been even slightly mean to me, I would have crumbled because there was no ‘fight’ in me. Normally I'm very assertive, so it was a weird feeling, but I think it had to do with hormones and everything focusing on the birth and trusting the support network I had gathered for the event to keep me safe and treat me right. But I now understand how the medical system gets away with treating woman so poorly during childbirth. It's the most vulnerable day in a woman's life. But words cannot describe how empowering it is. I gained great respect for my body that day.”

To her, the antenatal classes they did with their midwife before the birth were fantastic preparation. “At the actual birth, there were four people in the room, apart from my husband. I knew exactly who they all were and why they were there. I had met them all during the course of my pregnancy, and it gave me great comfort to not have any strangers there. The only thing that annoyed her slightly, was that the junior midwife was chirping the senior midwife. “It was driving me nuts. I almost chased her out of the room, and had I been myself I probably would have. But on the day I didn't have enough fight in me. It wasn't even that serious, but it was messing with the peaceful environment around me and I didn't want to have to deal with her nonsense during my labour.” – Jana Engelbrecht

Baby’s weight: 3.6 kg @ 40 weeks

Labour lasted: 12 hours

Birth date: 14 May 2013

Birth stories - Midwife-assisted birth at birth house Featured

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Birth stories - Midwife-assisted birth at birth house ^Featured