IMW's are fab if you can afford one!

Thought about having a Doula?

Hi Hun,

I haven't got time to post fully now (as I'm supposed to be working, lol!) but I have had 2 labours like yours - one with a lot of intervention and one so quick blink and you would miss it.  I am also GBS +ve (has a look at the thread a bit lower about GBS as it has my thoughts there)

Mainly - homebirth is something you decide not your midwife.  I think a few of them need to be reminded of that.  They can give you their opinion, they can recommend you don't have a homebirth, but the have to attend a woman in labour and that's that.

Having short labours cuts the risk of GBS hugely, have a look at www.homebirth.org.uk 'you can't have a homebirth because...'  as PP says it covers some GBS homebirths, sample letters, risks etc.  When I saw a consultant about it, she seemed happy that I was informed about the risks and agreed to homebirth (well she said she would let me, at which I gritted my teeth and smiled sweetly and didn't mention that it wasn't her choice to let!)  Anyway, read up and be proactive - you may need to transfer during homebirth with GBS, if medically needed hospital is probably the best place, but if it's a straight forward swift birth and labour the risks are very low. 

Bearing in mind that 33% of the population have GBS and most don't know it we are some of the lucky ones that do as it makes you more aware.

Anyway - for a short post I've rambled on, lol!

TC Sarah

Due in Nov...

Hi hun,

I'm Holly & I have ds1 who is 4 and ds2 who is 12 weeks & my first birth was pretty much the same as your except fortunately I went straight into labour with the first gel! I was in labour for 19 hours, pushing for 2 & ended up with ventouse but tore badly because it was a trainee (which they didn't tell me at the time) who did it & she left him at the widest part of his head after the first contraction with the ventouse so I thought f*ck that & pushed so hard that he came out all in one go

The mw on the ward manhandled him onto my boob and then left me there for 1/2 hour totally clueless as to what to do, luckily he practically slept the whole time I was there but not the point! So needless to say I wasn't keen on having anymore lol! Anyway 3 years later I started to get broody & fell pregnant with ds2 & started thinking about hb, I mentioned it to my mw at 34 weeks who said we don't need to talk about that yet and then said well actually you won't be able to have a hb because you had a retained placenta so you'll have to have a drip in during labour in case it happens again. I was devastated and started to look into hb & retained placenta etc because I was petrified of going into hospital & that's when I decided I was going to have a hb no matter what they said! The registrar couldn't tell me why I was at risk or how much more risk there was & also said you had an epidural last time what makes you think you won't need one this time, some people just have low pain thresholds

It was at this point I started to look into an independent mw because the registrar told me it could quite possibly be my mw who attended if they did agree to a hb, which also petrified me! I ended up paying £2,000 for an imw & although expensive it was well worth the money, the service is thousands of times better than the nhs could ever hope to provide! If you can afford it I would deffo say go that route because it sounds like you are unlucky & live in a an area with a naff maternity service! Check out homebirth.org, there is a section on you can't have a hb because... & there is info & stories on group b strep which should help you decide which way to go & by the way a positive result in the past does not necessarily mean another one in this pg! I realise now I have rambled rather a lot about me, sorry hope I've helped anyway lol! xxx

cont..

in her hair so there i was streaking her hair when i felt like i needed a poo- went to the toilet but couldnt go so went back down to finish hair, 10 mins later felt like i needed a poo again went to loo and nothing this happened again 10 mins later, i had never gone into labour naturally but i knew something was happening, i had to leave my mum with her hair half done and dad took me home to phone hossy, they said to come in so i grabbed my bag and dad took me up the hossy, he dropped me off and went back to mine to get hubby who had been sorting ds and his stuff out and bring him to hossy. by the time hubby arrived i was gowned up and on the bed sucking hard on gas and air i had been on my own in the room since i got there apart from the mw giving me a gown and gas and air, the mw examined me and said i was 7cm and she would come back and check on me in 30 mins so she left me and hubby alone again, about 4 mins after she left the room i said to hubby i can feel the head he took one look and ran to the door shouting the heads coming into the corridor, the mw came back in just as olivia was born at 4.27pm i tore and was stitched up, i had given birth 40 mins after arriving at the hospital and the whole labour had lasted only 90 mins, the only intervention i had was the one internal to check dilation

at every appointment i have had with this baby i have told the mw i want a homebirth, i always got the impression she wasnt keen and she always says we'll talk about it nearer the time, well at the last appointment she said something about when i go into hospital and i said no im having a homebirth she goes you cant you had group b strep with your 1st baby well this is the first i have heard of it i said i remember goin to hossy cos of bleeding when i was 36 weeks preg but i was told it was a urine infection she said yes thats when it was detected, well as i say this is the 1st i have ever heard of it and i certainly wasnt checked for it or given anything with olivia, she went onto say i will have to go into hospital to give birth and she said i need to remind HER to swab me at 38 weeks as she will forget she said dont forget it your responsibilty to remind me- why do i need to remind her A MIDWIFE???

i just want my homebirth the maternity care i have received so far has been pretty rubbish and i soooooo dont want to go into hospital to give birth

oh no its cut off half my text wen it took me ages to write!! i will have to finish it later now i dont have time

duh noticed a typo already lol i was taken in 31st december with ds not 31st jan he was born 1st jan lmao

hi ladies this could be long....

i am expecting baby number 3 (a blue bump) and due december 10th i am really really wanting a homebirth but i feel the midwives are trying to put me off

the baby is due quite close to xmas and i usually go overdue with my babies so i really dont want to leave my hubby and other two kids to go into hospital so close to xmas, also i would love them all there to bond with the baby as soon as he is born, not have hubby sent home and me be left on my own with a new baby and them come back at visiting hours iykwim

heres my labour backgrounds-

DS- 01-01-2003-

after going 2 weeks overdue i was taken in to be induced on 31st jan 2002 i was taken in at 8am and around 10am they gave me pessary followed by gel then more gel  and more gel but nothing much was happening so they broke my waters at 5pm this made things painful but nothing much happened, i was allowed an epidural at 8pm which took the anaesthitist 8 attempts to get in right it was the most painful bit, i was starving to i had been allowed toast and tea for brekkie but they had said i could only have water since then, plus i kept throwing up (may have been because of the gas and air i had b4 epi) tried to get some sleep and remember watching the new years eve fireworks going off at midnight through the window, i was examined and fiddled with countless time through the night and morning, at 9am they said cervix was almost fully dilated but was still a tiny bit closed and that i would have to start pushing, they said i had an hour to get baby out, so off we go with pushing nothing happening, mw tells me im not pushing hard enough i was pretty exhausted i remember i was still pushing at 10:30am and she goes you cant do it im gona get the doctor, they were pretty mean and huffy with me doctor comes and is not very nice cuts me and uses forceps and ventouse to pull him out whilst getting huffy and saying push woman! my son was born at 11.03am 1 jan 2003 he had a huge big bloody mas on his head which was all fleshy  and scabby and raw from the ventouse cup, after his birth i was stitched up and given a bed bath and then the mw said to my hubby that her and another mw were going to lift me to a wheelchair from the bed adding ' if she falls she falls we aint breaking our backs to catch her' my hubby said i dont think so she has just had a baby i will left her, to which he did. on the ward i found the mw's horrid i buzzed and asked one if they could pass ds out of the cot to me as i was still numb from eidural and he was screaming, she huffed 'you dont have to pick him up everytime he cries you know' the poor baby mustve had a right headache with the big fleshy lump on his head which they caused then after when i buzzed and asked for a bottle they literally threw it at me and huffed off, next day i went home and was soooooo glad to be out of that place, absolutely horrid it was!

DD- 03-04-2004

this was so quick i dont really remember all the details, it was a saturday morning and i was overdue i was due to be induced on the following monday which i really wasnt looking forward to cos of previous induction my mum had asked me to put streaks