Jane Mullin’s Birth Story
Do you believe in fate? But funny how things turn out isn’t it? I was about 6 months pregnant and at my lowest point. Banging my head against a system (the NHS) that treated my pregnancy like an illness that had to be dealt with as quickly and swiftly as possible. I had no say in the matter at all it seemed. I had my daughter, now six, in Vancouver, where the system is totally different and mothers to be are treated like first class citizens, where you are made to feel important and everything you said about your pregnancy mattered. It has a good before and after service catering to all concerns. It was very hospital run but still quite good support. To be doing this in England where you are just one of millions came as a very rude shock.
I had been determined to be high risk due to contracting viral meningitis early in my pregnancy but no one was particularly concerned, just put me in high risk and took away my options of doing anything else but going to a high risk hospital. There is no point naming hospitals but you will understand that there are just some places you do not want to go to, healthy, sick and let alone to have a baby in! I wanted a home birth or at the very least a low risk hospital. No one was interested in what I wanted, or even interested in how I felt about any of this. I was slotted into a hole and boy, was I having a hard time digging myself out. I felt powerless, and frustrated, and wretchedly depressed at a time I should have been enjoying an otherwise healthy pregnancy. No one was interested in how I wanted MY pregnancy to happen. It just had to fit into the system. I do have to defend the system a little as I do appreciate how busy these people are, but along the way they have lost all meaning of what it is they are doing and forgotten they are dealing with people with fears and concerns.
So I was at a very low point not knowing what I was going to do when, at a school function that I wasn’t meant to be at, I ran into a fellow parent that I rarely get to see (the fate bit...) who is a midwife and we just stumbled into talking. It all snowballed from there. She mentioned a friend of hers who was an Independent Midwife who she was sure would be happy to just talk to me. Anyway to cut a long story short Liz and I got talking. Liz opened up a totally new world to me. One that I never knew existed to mothers. I was stunned at the rights I had, the choices I could make, and the options available. None of these had been mentioned to me and I was so amazed. I felt such a sense of, I have to say although it might seem extreme, euphoria. But if you can understand I felt so trapped and helpless and to talk to Liz was just so freeing.
After several telephone conversations with Liz, mixed in with a visit to my NHS midwife, I realized that there was no way I could go through the rest of this pregnancy and birth with any one else. I was panic stricken at the thought of doing it with anyone else. So Liz and I met. This meeting reinforced my feelings. In the meantime I finally was made low risk (a three minute conversation with a specialist who barely glanced at me) and so was set my conviction for a homebirth and the go-ahead to work with Liz.
From then on started a wonderful journey into the celebration of motherhood and childbirth. Liz provided me with a font of information. Filled me a sense of purpose and empowerment. We were celebrating this event, not in fear of it. Liz showed me how to enjoy this time, to allow all the feelings that were flowing through me happen, to talk about everything – there was no time limits (my NHS midwife had given me a time limit of 10 minutes to talk about my concerns), nothing I said was too big or too small to discuss. It was all quite a shock and took me a while to relax into this. There was a wonderful warmth to my pregnancy now. I was fearful many of the natural things you fear in the last months of pregnancy, but now I had someone’s unfailing support in it all. The beauty of it was that Liz got to know me as a person. She was brilliant at getting to know me very quickly and so understood me. I never failed to be amazed how Liz would every visit ask me how I was feeling and really want to know! It took a while to actually know it was OK to express myself.
One of the many wonderful things about having an Independent Midwife is that they have time for you, and get to know you. So by the time you get to the actual labour, you know each other and what to expect, which is what Liz and I did. Liz impressed me with her professionalism, as well as her empathy with me. I felt safe – still nervous, but totally trusting that Liz would do her very best for me and my baby. Now having all the stress taken away and being able to plan the birth I wanted for myself and my baby, I could now actually give some thought time to the gift that was inside me - to quietly look at myself and really think about this time and celebrate this miracle.
The time was edging ever closer. Liz was either with me or on the end of the phone. I got it into head that the baby was going to be 2 weeks early and was frustrated when she wasn’t. Liz just took me calmly through this time. She was reassuring and happy. Looking forward to the event helped me through those last anxious days when you want it to happen, but are scared for it as well. My daughter ended up being 4 days late, and started coming when I had finally stopped worrying and decided to just get on with things.
My waters broke, just a trickle really, at 2am and the contractions started pretty much straight away. Not painful but persistent. Lots but not regularly. I phoned Liz. She was her ever reassuring self, told me to rest and time the contractions and call her if anything changed, or if I just needed to chat to her. After 6 years you forget certain things but, once those contractions start, it soon comes back to you and boy, you know there is no going back. I had planned all sorts of things for my daughter and my mother (who was staying with us), as I wanted to be alone with my husband in the house when I had the baby. So I spent the rest of the morning working things out. The contractions were still persistent but do-able. My daughter woke her normal time around 7am and I told her the baby was its way and she had to get ready for school. After several phone calls, I had my mother at a friend’s for the day, my daughter at school and my husband driving them all, and heading off to work. Once I finally had the house to myself – I remember it was 8.30 – I felt a huge relief and set to things. I tidied the house, did a load of washing, made soup and a cake, as you do.
In the middle of this Liz had phoned back, asked a few questions and said she was heading over. I didn’t feel as if I needed her and was just planning the day to myself, thinking it would be like my 6 yrs old when I laboured for the day before having her late that night, anyway Liz arrived at 9.30 am. I was still making the soup, in between being on all fours on the floor as the contractions had taken hold. I remember Liz saying I’d like to have a look at you now and listen to the baby and me saying just one more carrot! Well, the soup got made, the wash got hung out and the cake cooled. Liz said, “I think we should get your husband home.” I was fairly cracking into it by now. My husband got home and I was feeling OK. Surprised by how much it was hurting but OK. I had my homeopathic pregnancy kit and my Rescue Remedy, water, boiled sweets.
Liz was brilliant at reading my husband and I, and I remember thinking afterwards that she knew exactly when to leave us alone, and when to leave me alone. She just let me get on with what was working for me and allowing me to just act as my body was calling for me to respond. It was so unlike being in the hospital. She would check the baby every 5 minutes or so. I felt safe with her and trusted her totally. Things were hotting up and I felt scared as I was getting tired, managing things now, but not sure how long I had in me if things continued on like this. I took some Aconite from the kit and I think that helped.
Liz and my husband got the lounge room ready as Liz thought things were going along pretty quickly. I liked the fact that she never once did an internal examination. She would have, if I wanted it, but I didn’t, and she didn’t feel the need for it. We were just going along with my body, and didn’t need to actually be inside to know how things were going. We tried the birthing chair, which we had looked at before, but on all fours was just working for me, pressing against my husband through each contraction.
It was different than my first child. I felt more in control, even if scared, but Liz was helping me to listen to my body. Open it up; welcome what was happening as each contraction was bringing me closer to my baby. I was willing it all on. Afraid of the pain and my strength and my ability to do this but at the same time saying come on let’s do it, let’s get on with this. All the time this is going on I was so aware that I was in my home doing this. I guess homebirth hadn’t really thrilled me up till then. It was just that I didn’t want to go to the hospital even more. But now in my own lounge room with the curtains drawn on a rainy Tuesday morning, with 2 people I trusted more than anything I was having my baby. This I found totally amazing. At first it felt weird just having my husband and Liz there. You expect loads of nurses and others would be mothers and Doctors and noise and just stuff. To be in my quiet home with the smell of soup, and cake, with just 2 people was almost spooky but then you relax into it and realize just how perfect this is, how natural and amazing – in your home doing your own thing. I loved it.
I didn’t love the pushing. I was ready, felt so ready and just wanted the baby now. Liz said it was time to push and I did for what felt like 10 hrs (apparently it was about 10mins), but I just couldn’t get that baby out. I begged that baby to come out but really felt I would never do it. It was really hard. How to describe that time? You are beyond scared, just putting all your energy into this. Liz was ever constant yet never intrusive, knowing when I needed help and when I needed to be left. I felt her and my husband’s support from afar and felt safe to just do what I had to do. I don’t remember feeling that feeling with my first daughter.
Well I wanted that baby out and, of course, she came out and this time I felt relief that it was over, which is all I had with my first child, but this time I felt love for that baby lying on my lounge room floor – a few seconds silence and a big angry yell for us all to enjoy. I felt the moment was just for us – not surrounded by bright lights and tin objects and machinery. I know odd images but that is what I remember from my first birth experience and it wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but there was so many things around and going on. Whereas this time all I remember is my husband and I and our precious baby. Liz was there but so much a part of us that it didn’t even feel like she was there. Moments must have past and I just lay and enjoyed our baby.
What was so wonderful about having a home birth was there was no sense of rushing – no one had to be anywhere. We chatted and enjoyed the baby. Liz and my husband made me comfortable, still on the floor and Liz just busied herself with the necessary things she had to do to see if the baby and I were all well but I didn’t really notice any of it. I felt so calm and happy and just sucked in every part of my new baby. Any new mother will know the feeling of relief that the pain bit is over, and some that instant love, but how many are blessed with feelings of such tranquillity and peace and reassurance that comes with a home birth and care of a good midwife. I so wish that for every mother. It is such a treasured moment but so personal and I think sometimes you lose that in a hospital, as so much else is going on, and they have so much to do, and other women are just out that door. But this time was my time. A time that I would never have again and I really felt that Liz had given us that – by doing the homebirth and by being the kind of person that she is we were able to experience it on our level and our way. Every person is different but, I felt that Liz was able to feel in tune with us, and just allow us to be, and I cannot tell you how special that made this time.
I could feel the magic in my home and the power of motherhood. I know that may sound over the top, but what a feeling of empowerment to be able to do the most natural thing in the world as naturally as you like. Wow what a great feeling that I did this! We were celebrating and not just getting it over with and getting on with life. We just lay and enjoyed the moments. I had chosen not to have the Vitamin K for my baby and not to have the injection to move the placenta along. It just happened when it was ready.
I finally relinquished my hold on our daughter to her father, where he fell under her spell. Liz sorted out me and helped me into my own bathroom (Heaven! Not some hospital shower shared by thousands) and while I enjoyed that they turned our lounge room back into a lounge room. I came down to found out that I had given birth to a 9lb baby (ouch!) and we all sat down together – the 4 of us!- to the soup I had made earlier like it was the most normal everyday thing to give birth. My daughter felt as if she had always been with us and I hadn’t moved out of my home! It was so wonderful to sit with Liz and my husband and chat and share the morning we had just spent. Laugh and delight at how wonderful it had been, how I had felt during it, how hard it was to get her out! Liz did all her necessary paperwork and made sure all was OK and with instructions to call her during the night if I needed to and that she would be back in the morning. She had arrived at our place 9.30 that morning and left about 5ish. How lucky was I to have such attention?
My daughter arrived home to find her new baby sister waiting for her. What a lovely thing to come home to. The four of us spent a fairly sleepless night altogether in the one bed just wanting to be together and delight in our new addition.
Of course the care didn’t stop there. Liz came everyday for the first week. And I needed that. I just needed her. I needed her reassurance everything was OK. I was glowing with love for my baby, but after a few days the old anxiousness I had got with my first child set in and took hold a bit. Thankfully this time I had Liz in my home everyday and at the end of the phone line. I didn’t have to leave my home for help, which in itself is stressful enough. Liz helped us with all the practical stuff as well: how to register the birth, national insurance number and all that stuff. I had daily support on getting the breast-feeding right and knew that all I had to do was try and get through that day until she came back. Because I don’t know about you but those first couple of weeks feel like a lifetime and each day a year. Liz never made me feel foolish for my fears and anxieties- was professional, but a friend whose shoulder I could cry on as well. She knew her stuff, which reassured me. And I delighted in sharing my baby with her each day, which she seemed to enjoy nearly as much as I did.
It was hard for a while. I was very fearful but got such support that I did relax and was able to enjoy this baby. I had to wean myself off Liz and was aware that I needed to do this myself. But always knew that even after she discharged me from her care that she was only a phone call away. Liz knew me on such a personal level and gave us such a gift that we can never repay her. We think of her everyday and we cannot look at our daughter without thinking of the wonderful start she had in life. She is named Clancy Elizabeth after the wonderful woman who helped bring this miracle to our lives. And Clancy is such a wonderful calm happy baby. And every one comments on how calm and peaceful and relaxed she is. Such was her entry to the world. A homebirth with someone you trust has to be one of the most wonderful things a woman can experience.
Oh but might I add that my husband thought it wonderful too!
Brian’s feedback on Jane’s Care
My wife Jane and Liz soon established a great working relationship in the first consultations which gave Jane the confidence to look forward to as happy a birth experience as she could.
Liz answered all of our questions, providing information, discussing with us the options available at any given moment on every aspect of the process without being overbearing.
When the time came Liz, Jane and I got together and got on with it, Jane and I kept informed at every step of the way.
Liz’s genuinely compassionate, calm, good humoured and experienced attitude helped make the whole experience beautiful and happy, we had a wonderful baby girl, Clancy Elizabeth and, before we knew it, we were lunching on soup and cake that Jane had made earlier in the morning and celebrating a wonderful experience.
We will always be grateful for the contribution Liz made to what we wanted to be a proper and healthy as possible welcome into the world for Clancy Elizabeth and we'll always remember Liz and her professionalism for making it possible.
