The current c-section rate in South Africa is at high of 2 out of 3 babies. Some hospitals has a rate of 90%. It is very rare to hear of a woman who have had a vaginal birth and if you do they usually had an epidural. Me on the other hand didn’t want to be one of the women who have had a c-section or an epidural or any kind of medicine. I feel God made us a certain way and we were built to have babies. The woman’s body is fantastic!
I’ve had 3 vaginal births, two in a small old hospital, abandoned by the doctors and only run by nurses and nurse-midwives. Because we are now a third world country (we used to be a first world country), the hygiene is terrible and if you want better you have to go to a private hospital (which is very expensive and has a higher c-sec rate) and my last a home birth (sort of unassisted, had a lady from church there who used to be nurse but is now retired) with my husband.
Here follows my story…
With my first I didn’t know better than that birth is a painful, traumatic experience, but “if you want a baby, handle it or have a c-section!” I didn’t know about home birth except that my mother-in-law had one with her fourth baby and I probably would have been too afraid to have a home birth at that time. I did know that I wanted a vaginal birth with no pain medication (didn’t have more knowledge except that it felt right and I was too afraid of being cut open). We had a beautiful baby girl at this small abandoned hospital with no medication, but I felt traumatised after 18 hours of on/off labour, a nurse telling me, “When you feel that you’re about to die, then you’ll have your baby.” A nurse telling me not to push when my body is doing it by itself and to push when my body is actually resting for the birth, an episiotomy without my consent, an injection in my thigh and fainting because they forced my placenta out. But at least I had my baby.
A year and half later we wanted a friend for our little girl and tried for a second baby. I fell pregnant almost immediately. I had a terrible pregnancy and dreaded the thought of birth and labour. My sister-in-law lives in the US and had her second at home and got me thinking. But I could not find a midwife in my area and unassisted birth was too strange for me at that point. This forced me to this small hospital again (still better than any other hospital), with a nurse doing painful internal checks like clock work, the nurse being there when you don’t need them and not being there when they should (my husband was minutes away of catching the baby himself, because they didn’t believe him when he told them the baby was coming). I ended up lying flat on my back and trying to push a baby out with a nurse shouting “push, push” the whole time. I felt robbed, how could something so beautiful as having a baby be so terrible and traumatic. Is this really the only normal way? But at least I had my baby.
Normal? Yes. Natural? No.
I met a wonderful lady on a social media home-school group, she runs a vbac group in SA and she inspired me to have my home-birth. We tried for a third. I fell pregnant again. I started doing my research, I learned a lot! From unassisted birth to water birth to how to have a breech baby. I read birth stories, I read Gregory White’s “Emergency Birth” (Great book for any pregnant mommy and daddy), I read many websites, took out books from the library and watched a few birth videos. I searched for a midwife but there were still no midwives in my area (they are still very rare in SA). But my husband and I decided if we don’t find one we will birth unassisted, there was no way I was going back to a hospital or any type of medical institute. I believe hospitals are for sick people, why go there if your perfectly healthy and no, pregnancy is not an illness even though it sometimes feels like it. The doctor can’t take away the nausea, he can’t take away the back pain, he will only give you medicine that will make you believe he has done something. There is actually a lot of natural remedies that will ease the discomforts (and will cost a fraction of the price) and massage does wonders for a back pain.
We go to a small home church group and I told them what we were going to do (there are 3 nurses, one retired and the other two still in business) wow did I get it, “It so dangerous. Do you have a back up doctor? You might die. You were lucky to have had two good births.” and on it went. But I just gave them the facts. The lady which is retired saw this as a challenge and volunteered her services to me as a midwife, even though she has only assisted 20 normal hospitals births back in her varsity years. I agreed, it made it easier for people when you tell them your going to have a home birth.
39 weeks and 2 days:
I felt very sick the night before and was nesting like crazy for the last two weeks. I felt this baby was going to come at 36 weeks. I carry very small (8 weeks smaller than what “they” say I should be), the baby felt cramped in there, she was low for weeks with painful braxton hicks, and on top of that I had spd (not extreme but enough to make me cry sometimes) from around 16 weeks. The day she actually came was the first day from 36 weeks I thought she was not going to come, it’s quite funny! We went to church the morning and everyone asking the usual questions. I had braxton hicks all day but ignored it due to having had it for weeks. My sister-in-law even came for lunch at my house after church. The braxton hicks started getting painful but I still ignored it. My husband and I had a late afternoon nap and spent some time with the kids. At 8 o’clock that night my husband said I was going to have this baby tonight, but I just said it is braxton hicks (but thought it might be labour). We called my in-laws to come and pick up the kids at round 9 o’clock. My husband informed the lady from church (my midwife) but we told her that it might still be a while (even though my contractions were already 3-4 minutes apart but we didn’t really time them) and started setting up the pool. I knew it was labour now but thought it was still hours away. After the girls were gone I could really start concentrating on my contractions. I found sitting on the couch upright swaying back and forth very helpful. One time I went to lie down on the bed to rest because I thought I had hours to go, I had the most painful contraction ever and knew that was why my previous labours was so painful, I was lying down most of the time. Trust me ladies “DON’T LIE DOWN” try to stay upright and swaying really works. My husband wanted the midwife to come but I said it will still be hours and didn’t want people around me because they might take me out of my relaxed mood. After a while I agreed she could come. My sister-in-law brought the midwife, we didn’t plan for my sister-in-law to stay but she did and I was glad she did, she was a great help. The “midwife” asked one of the other nurses from church to come with, I didn’t know she was coming, my husband actually asked me if he should ask her to leave. I decided she could stay, it is one of those things you don’t plan but which is part of God’s plan. (She went from total anti-home birth to very pro-home birth.)
All the ladies were there somewhere between 22:00 and 22:30. We ran out of hot water and my husband started boiling pots on the stove.
He was so great with the pool and birth, every time I had a contraction he would hurry to me to rub my back and then went back to filling the pool. We used a kiddies pool (which we bought for R500 with the pump to blow it up), my husband used a type of silver roof insulation to cover the pool to keep it warm (this worked great and we got it for free!), we put cardboard boxes underneath (we have a tile floor, we still had the boxes because we moved three months ago so that was free as well) and monitored the water temperature with this cute turtle water thermometer which cost me R30. All of the medical stuff like scissors and cord clamp was provided by my midwife and my sister-in-law made a herbal concoction to drink and bath in. Oh and I bought concentrated sports drink (this is also very helpful). In total my birth didn’t cost me more than R600 and I already sold the swimming pool for R400, so not more than R200!
Okay back to the story…..
The nurses didn’t know anything about home birth, this was their first ever! And the last time they assisted a normal birth was in their varsity years. They came in the house quite loud and chatting, I thought this might distract me, but I was so far away in my own world that I hardly noticed them. My husband and sister-in-law on the other hand understood the natural birth process very well and was very quiet, bringing me drinks and stuff. Contractions stepped up a gear (or two!) and I longed for the water, it looked so inviting and warm but it was not even half way yet! But decided I’m getting in anyway, wow was that amazing! I could handle contractions a lot better, not that I didn’t handle them before. Just before I got in the pool, for a split second the thought came to mind that I couldn’t handle this any more, then I told myself that is crazy I’m handling everything perfect! (This was probably transition but I did not realise it). Did I mention how great home birth is? Anyway the midwife started pouring water on my back and stomach, again amazing! And at this point I didn’t know who was giving me back rubs any more but it helped a lot. I needed to wee but every time I stood up the contractions were too painful and I would just sit down again. The contractions was about 1 minute to 1 and half apart now, not sure, the second nurse did time them and gave time out loud, but I wasn’t listening. After a while I stood up and went to the toilet, I had a terrible contraction on the toilet and noticed my body was pushing slightly without me doing anything. I didn’t tell anyone, didn’t want nurses telling me not to push. After I got back in the pool with the next contraction my waters broke and I knew instantly the baby was coming now. I told them my waters broke, the midwife asked if she could give me an internal to check for the cord (I felt it was unnecessary but agreed just to let the nurses feel more at ease. This whole experience was a little weird for them already), this was the only internal I had. The midwife said I was not fully dilated and not to push yet. My husband on the other hand told me do what feels right for me and to follow my body. Well I didn’t push but my body did, my body knows what it’s doing. I didn’t really pay attention to what the nurses were saying. Well the next moment I felt the baby move down and just said she’s coming. It happened so fast. I wanted to birth kneeling or on all fours but ended up with this weird position almost hovering in the air and floating on the water (it was actually quite comfortable, I could bent my back in different ways), the pool was only half way and my husband was suppose to catch the baby but the midwife did (when our baby came we forgot about it). And my poor sister-in-law was holding me underneath the arms, wow what strength she has. And there she was (the baby) two minutes past midnight, our beautiful third little girl looking almost exactly like her oldest sister did when she was born except she didn’t have swelling in her face or any weird shapes due to pushing, she was perfect! And I was feeling great and proud! My labour was only 4 hours! Did I mention how great home birth is? I almost forgot to mention, in the pushing stage the second nurse, not knowing anything about water birth, kept pouring water over me. We actually told her she could stop. My baby had a water birth in the air! It was so funny!
The nurses wanted to clamp the cord, but me, my husband and sister-in-law shouted NO at almost the same time. We did delayed cord clamping, which made her pink up very quickly, we could actually see her pink up in less than a minute. I started getting cold and was afraid baby would get cold and decided to cut the cord to get out (it was white by then). I tried nursing in the pool but she only sniffled at my breast and stared around. On the bed, we put a tarpaulin on the bed, with newspapers on the tarp and an old sheet on the newspapers before hand, she started nursing. The second nurse left telling the first to remember the placenta shouldn’t take more than half an hour to release, well I didn’t listen. But I started getting a little worried after an hour and a half. We tried all natural methods we could think of and even googled for more but after more than 3 hours the “midwife” was stressing and I was tired. We read that Cytotec would do the job. We got some Cytotec tablets and I took two, 5 or 10 minutes later the “midwife” looked, gave it a slight tug and it came loose. I started shivering like crazy (my husband thinks that my body only realised after the placenta was out that I was not pregnant any more and went into shock) but after a warm cup of Rooibos tea and some extra blankets it stopped. My sister-in-law and the “midwife” left around 4 o’clock that morning leaving my husband, me and our new baby girl alone. We were all tucked into bed. It took us while to fall asleep but we did.
When we woke up later that day, I took a nice herbal and essential oil bath and phoned my mother-in-law to bring the children to meet their new baby sister. They fell in love with her instantly. Instead of mommy going away and they not knowing where she is, they left mommy at home, went for a visit at “ouma”(granny) and came back home to find mommy at home with their new baby sister. No stress, anxiety or tears from them, just happiness and excitement. Why do it any other way?
It was still painful but no fear. I was in my own environment with no time limit. There was no panic just bliss and an amazing experience.
There is so much more to tell you but I will type forever. All I can say is, that God intended birth to be at home in your own nest and that being calm, without fear and in a position that comes normal to you, you will cope and have a positive experience. And put your focus on God and ask him to let it go the way He intended it to go, then you will end up with the feeling of fulfillment.
Thank you for reading my birth story/essay!!!
Semco Mama