Kelly’s homebirth transfer story

location: homebirth transfer -wollongong hospital temporary birth unit

care provider: louise david private midwife at home and wollongong hospital birth unit midwives

After planning a homebirth, Kelly transferred to Wollongong Hospital where she gave birth at the temporary birth unit.

Planning a homebirth can be incredibly exciting. You have a vision for how you’ll set up your space, and how you’ll feel while birthing powerfully within the warm embrace of your own home.

But what happens when it doesn’t go to plan, and you end up in premature labour in hospital?

That’s what happened to Kelly, who birthed her baby at Wollongong Hospital’s temporary birth unit that was in use while the real birth unit was being renovated.

Now, over to Kelly.

PLANNED HOME BIRTH TURNED HOSPITAL BIRTH 

This was a planned home birth. We had hired a private midwife and had everything ready to go at home. When I lost some blood stained mucous plug on the morning of 36+4 weeks gestation, I messaged my midwife, concerned. She reassured me that my body was just starting to do what it should, and that I very well could be pregnant still at 40 weeks. Great! I went about the day.

I did, however, make sure hubby grabbed the last of the birth pool supplies, some fairy lights, made sure everything was in order at home. I must have known! 8pm arrived and I am relaxing on the lounge with my husband and 2.5-year-old daughter when I felt a pop!

I jumped up off the lounge and ran to the toilet yelling at hubby that my waters had just broken. Disbelief from us both made me comment that maybe I just wet myself instead! But no, the fluid kept coming. This was not the plan!

After a phone call to our midwife, we decided that hospital was the best place given the gestation of babe and the probable need for antibiotics. Around 10 minutes after my waters broke, I experienced my first very mild cramp. It was quite obvious that labour was going to start and babe was on the way!

We got to hospital and at 10:30pm I was examined to confirm waters had broken and told I was barely 1cm dilated, and cervix was 2cm thick still. They were happy for me to have a CTG trace to confirm babe happy, and just labour on.

I think the CTG must have gone on around 11pm. Contractions were getting stronger and closer together. I don’t think they were consistent though, although it’s hard to know when you’re in the thick of it. I was feeling a lot of pain. My back felt like it was going to snap in half with each contraction. And some were lasting a lot longer than I was hoping. 

I was upright through this all, pacing the room, leaning over the bed which we had put all the way up, or over the bench. I found the only way to cope through them was to do large circles with my hips as they were happening. It seemed to be the only way to somewhat alleviate the back pain.

I was desperate to get the CTG off and get in the shower. I knew that my only shot at surviving was to get the hot water on my back. So at midnight when the midwife came back in the room I said ‘I need this off, I need to get in the shower’. Despite the bathrooms not being connected to the birthing room, I found it fine – was only about a 10m walk to the bathroom.

I stripped all my clothing off, directed hubby to turn the bathroom lights off and just leave the door slightly ajar for some light and got in the shower. My god, the best feeling in the world!

The feeling of the hot water was absolute heaven! I got down on to my hands and knees and leant over a chair for support. Just rocking back and forth with the hot water over my back. It really helped! 

Whilst my contractions were still almost unbearably painful, it was made so much easier to cope with the feeling of the water taking away some of the back pain. 

I had a few quite strong contractions whilst I was here, and I remember thinking ‘wow, I can FEEL my cervix opening and baby moving down’. It was an amazing feeling as I never felt I was in tune with my body at all in my first labour. I would have been in the shower about 20 minutes when I had a strong contraction and almost pushed. 

I said to hubby ‘I think I’m pushing, something is different’. So he got the midwife who came in to observe me. Another contraction where I somewhat pushed, and felt drawn to bring my hand down to feel. I must have felt there would be a head there or something.

I requested to get back to the bed as I was feeling this was my preferred place to push. I’m not sure why, I think because I pushed on the bed with my daughter and the position I was in took away my back pain. I think I was thinking that I would like to try that again and see if it worked. 

I was also thinking that I must be pushing at only 3cm dilated or something. It had only been 1.5 hours since I was told I was barely 1cm dilated. 

I made it back to the room and on to the bed in an upright sitting position and kept on pushing. His head was there so quickly and that ring of fire was intense! I was VERY vocal, something I later apologised for and was told I actually wasn’t that bad. But my god, it hurt so much. 

During my screaming and pushing I was saying ‘I want him straight on my chest, don’t take him to the open plan, don’t cut his cord’.

I was reassured he would be brought straight to my chest. Isn’t it amazing what our minds are still capable of doing during such a primal act?! I was so aware of advocating for what I really wanted. 

Three contractions and some strong pushing and out came his head, and very shortly after his body. He was put straight on to my chest and I gave him a good rub over as he took a little to take a decent breath. 

Wow, I’d done it! I was in awe of me, of my body, and my baby. How amazing that we worked together to bring him safely in to the world. 

The midwife asked if I wanted the injection to birth the placenta, to which I declined. I think it was out with some gentle cord traction around 15-20 minutes later. Not a single tear or graze, which I was truly shocked to hear after such an intense and quick delivery.

The cord wasn’t cut until 14 minutes when they needed to take him to the open plan. 

Babe was in great condition to start, but unfortunately developed some work of breathing that didn’t go away and we transferred to the NICU at about 2.5 hours of life for some care there.

He stayed in NICU for almost three days with some breathing support then low blood sugars and establishing feeds. This was really tough for me, especially being a neonatal nurse and knowing all the ins and outs.

But it also allowed me to advocate for him, and ultimately, my knowledge of it all and advocating for this was the only reason he was/is exclusively breastfed. 

While this birth did NOT go to plan, and certainly wasn’t the beautiful, peaceful home birth I was envisioning and had been planning for, it was an incredible birth. 

I am so proud of myself, my baby, my husband. We all worked together to birth babe in the place we felt safest at the time. 

Women are incredible! Absolutely incredible.