Planning the homebirth

I'm 36 weeks pregnant now. The midwife came round last weekend to talk about having the baby at home. She was meant to arrive between 3.30 and 4pm but she didn't get to us until 6.45pm. I was her twelfth visit. She's a great midwife and looked after me when I was expecting Fington. She's been doing the job for years and is ridiculously experienced and knowledgeable. She really puts me at ease. It's a shame that good people like her are so stretched in their work through lack of support (financial and otherwise). And yet she doesn't moan, she carries on and gets on with her job. When is the midwife shortage going to get addressed I wonder?

Anyway, as husband wrestled the boys into bed, the midwife went through everything I need to know for a homebirth. When I'm in labour and get to the point where I can't talk during contractions then I need to ring the delivery suite and they'll send out the on-call midwife. She'll then get a second midwife or midwife assistant to come out and join her. The only problem is Fington was born very shortly after I got to the 'can't talk' stage. If that happens again we need to call an ambulance.

I'm not going to have a birthing pool as I don't think I'd be fussed about it during labour. So I need to get some plastic sheeting from B&Q and some old sheets. The hospital bag still needs to be packed in case I need to transfer into hospital. There are a number of reasons I might need to go into hospital, they include the labour stalling, meconium in the waters and fetal distress. I'll also need to go in if there aren't enough community midwives on-call. That would be a shame. And I'm bothered that the nearest hospital is 40 minutes drive away, much more if it's rush-hour. That's why Fington was nearly born in the car. Anyway, I could worry about these things too much. If I'd stayed at home with Fington it would have been the perfect homebirth.

The midwives have gas and air with them so I might get hold of a TENS machine too. I had no pain relief with Fington due to the speed of labour, that gives me some comfort as I know how bad the pain can get and how to deal with it. That said, it is of course ridiculously painful and I'm not relishing the thought of it. I'm just hoping for it to be quick again.

We still need to decide what to do with the boys. Various friends can watch them for us but many of them work part-time. I need to work out a rota of who's available when. Husband would like them to be out of the house so they don't get freaked out by me shrieking. I've said I can work on toning down the shrieking and the only reason it was so bad last time was because I was in the back of the car and feeling a bit out of control of the situation.

Earlier in the week I had my first false alarm. I was in quite a bit of pain in the afternoon when I picked Podge up from pre-school and then some painful contractions started when we got home. They never got very regular which is why I didn't worry too much. But it made me decide to pack the hospital bag in case it was the real thing. I can only have a homebirth once I'm full-term. It was tricky packing a hospital bag, breathing through some painful contractions and dealing with two children. Fington is currently obsessed with pushing chairs against the kitchen worktops and then doing dangerous things such as putting the breadknife in the toaster and turning the kettle on. I'm constantly having to get stuff out of his way. I could hear him being dangerous in the kitchen as I was shoving baby clothes into the hospital bag upstairs. Not ideal.

The contractions went on for a couple of hours and then thankfully stopped again. The baby had gone quiet while they were happening but was soon kicking about again in the evening. It's a reminder that everything's going to happen soon. We've got everything out of the loft now such as the baby clothes, car seat and moses basket so we're nearly ready. There's still a lot of Christmas shopping to do though. And Podge has turned four this week! So we've got a party to do at the weekend and the in-laws are coming to stay today (better get doing some housework...) It feels like there's a lot going on!

This post was written by Emily O, a mum of two and living in Berkshire. My third baby is due just before Christmas. My blogs are babyrambles and Mother Knows Best.

Photo credit: Microsoft