Hello Baby!

When your client is your friend, a midwife herself and it’s your third baby together, then all rules seem to go out the window.

Boy have I been waiting for this birth, in more ways than one. My midwife mates and I were so excited. This was going to be the ideal situation, a great no fuss birthing mama to watch and be inspired by, who also happens to have the nickname Martha after Martha Stewart, so we were expecting very good munchies and basically just a good catch up. Her lovely mum was to be there too and we all would get to hang out together again for another awesome birth. This time we had the added delight of seeing the 2 and 3 year old girls react to the baby being born as well. Oh and dad - very outnumbered amongst that oestrogen fest, but he usually holds his own 😉.

So I delivered the pool what feels like months ago, as her baby’s normally come a bit early and we have been waiting ever since. Normally when waiting on a baby one does this with the pretence of patience and a ‘what will be will be’ attitude. You would never dream of checking in with a client to see if they were getting any niggles. We ask them to respect our space as midwives and only ring in an emergency, so can’t exactly bother the client out of curiosity - no matter how much we want to plan our day! This courtesy doesn’t seem to apply for a client who is a friend and worse a midwife friend, which seemed to mean she should know exactly when the baby was coming (in our defence she was right to the exact day for the last two).

So we have all been checking in often and applying the pressure and being generally unprofessional. For weeks. More like annoying aunties than patient wise women midwives 😂. As a result she cooked this baby for two weeks longer than her first. Our punishment probably.

But then it was finally the day. A long day of knowing something was happening but waiting on the call. Which came at 8.30 from her man. She was still insisting it wasn’t time. We ignored her and listened to him, he’s seen this twice already. He knows.

So an hour and fifteen minutes drive for me and another midwife friend, our other colleague would get there half an hour before us as she lives closer.

Halfway there it looked like we were going to miss it and I almost cried. Not the third one! The first was an unplanned breech, the second was a beautiful water birth at my house. This was their last baby, I was even more gutted than I had expected that I was going to miss it.

But no, she waited. I don’t know why really - she didn’t need us. Probably just that we were her ‘team’, it wouldn’t be right without us.

After sitting calmly, doing my documentation (but really drinking tea and eating lemon slice) for about twenty minutes I then pushed on some pressure points that help the last of the cervix to go, but really I was only of use for exactly three minutes of advice and encouragement when the baby was crowning. I did hold the ice cream container still for the placenta to plop into, but really any mug can do that. Otherwise she caught her own baby, latched her own baby and checked her own perineum using her iPad camera in the shower - now that’s gold.

I did however throw a stick for the

Mad dog out the ranch slider door while she was pushing - the whining was getting too hard to ignore. I also saved the two year old from drinking the post baby pool water from her sippy cup. We six adults however, managed to completely miss the same toddler rolling head first into the birth pool and going completely under. We did pluck her out pretty quick, but still - not a good look. Post birth there is a fair bit of different bodily fluids in the pool and given that this kids hair reminds me of Tina Turner’s it was a great moment 🤣.

Talking to a colleague today who does a lot of homebirths, she commented that she’d had a rabbit - yes an actual live rabbit - dive in and rip the pool on the way out, but never a toddler.

I wasn’t expecting that 😂. For those of you who’ve been at water births - what’s the weirdest thing you’ve had in the pool?

So anyway, dad sat beside the pool and read Hello Baby to his toddlers as mum stood like a warrior woman and birthed her placenta, while baby continued to feed and she held him in her arms. A pretty cool moment. Hello Baby is a wonderful book that I had given my friend, it talks about a baby being birthed at home from a siblings perspective. The dad was changing all the names and inserting ours to help his girls understand. Pretty special.

The girls then helped baby be checked over and had lots of opinions on dressing him. Then we all scoffed some tea, toast and lemon slice and slipped out the door into the night so the family could snuggle down...

Beautiful.

The second much more selfish way I have been waiting on this birth is because I’ve been ready for it for a month. I couldn’t miss that moment, so no weekends off whilst waiting has taken its toll. I am so VERY ready to not always be thinking of back up plans for family logistics!

Such relaxing relief.

So lunchtime today I turned my phone over to my midwifery partner, then phoned her to hand over my clients. Her hello was very groggy and grumpy. She’s got a migraine poor thing. My relaxation had lasted exactly five minutes. My tired self wanted to cry as I turned my phone back again. SHIT. I’ve given myself the hard word and got over myself now, but that’s not to say I’m not hoping for her quick recovery - for her sake of course 😉.