Welcoming Our Second Daughter - part 1

I suppose it's about time I talked about M properly. She was born at home in mid-November. It was a planned homebirth, despite being against 'medical advice' - I'm too fat to give birth outside of a hospital, and I had gestational diabetes. However, I fully researched and the hubby and I felt the risks were small. We had such awful experiences with the consultants at the hospital, that I did not feel safe delivering there.

I am so overjoyed that I got to birth at home. It turned that M was back to back, despite being the right way just three days earlier! I didn't know at the time. I just felt much more pain, and a bit panicky that it was more painful than with B. This made it tougher to push her out, and when meconium was seen in my waters, the paramedics were called out. I believe that if I had been in hospital a number of interventions would have been pushed, and I am so glad I escaped that. Once her head was out, I needed a bit of a rest, but the midwives were hurrying me, telling me that I would have to go to hospital if I didn't get the baby out now. I wasn't worried. I also wondered how they intended to get me downstairs with a baby's head between my legs!! My mum said the paramedics were wondering the same thing out in the hallway. 

However, I pushed her out - with no tears - and she was put straight on my chest, grabbing the hubby's finger on her way. I got my physiological third stage and her cord wasn't cut until after I'd birthed the placenta - which we saved to get made into pills. 

I used Natal Hypnotherapy again, along with a Tens machine and gas & air. No pethidine this time, which I have mixed feelings about! However, I think I prayed much more this time around, particularly asking Mary to pray for me - she knew what I was going through after all. 

B was downstairs with my dad the whole time and she was fine. When the paramedics arrived they made her some balloon animals, and when we left for M and me to spend a night in hospital for two hourly obs, they gave B a mask from the oxygen tank to put in her medical kit that M had bought her!

M latched on pretty quickly, and appeared to feed well, though I could tell straight away that she had a tongue tie, as I could feel a bit of pain. She fed and slept that night, waking for feeds and settling well. And she did two meconium poos in the night. I was hopeful that breastfeeding would be different this time around, as B didn't poo until much later on. Clearly M was getting more colostrum than B did, so I was either making more, or her ability to transfer was better than B's was. She slept with me on the hospital bed, and I felt pretty rested when the hubby arrived the next morning. 

To be continued...