Birth Stories: The home birth of baby Orabella

You know, not all births happen exactly how we plan them, but it doesn't make them less wonderfull or less empowering.

Rachel planned to birth her fourth baby at home. She and her lovely husband, Ryan, planned and prepared for the birth and designed a wonderful birth space, with everything you can think of!

"You will need to come quickly, once my water go they shoot out" she said to me.

I was on high alert mode.

Finally after two nights of contractions that didn't really develop to an active birth, and me being super on call and prepared for action, I finally got the call mid-day to come.

It really was a wonderful birth space.

And Rachel really was in active labour.

But something happened. Between the midwifes in the other room, Rachel's toddler who was overwhelmed and excited, and the slow punkcher of the birth pool... Something happened...

Rachel got into the warm water, like she planned to, but everything that was going on around her stressed her.

She started to worry that like in the previous few nights, her contractions will stop. Stress hormone took over the oxytocin and her contractions did slow down. She really did all she could to relax and get them going again.

We tried some EFT.

And we tried some aromatherapy.

We tried to leave her to it.