Written in her own words:

"I had always envisioned homebirth as the way I wanted to have my babies. I’m not one for clinical settings, having experienced them as a patient, visitor and worker. I had read many years before about the cascade of intervention that can occur in hospitals. I also tend to go against the grain and question systems and authority!

When I met Lauren, I knew she was the doula I wanted to have by my side because she was supportive of my vision to have a homebirth, and shared with me with a wealth of clinical knowledge and evidence-based research that supported it too. She is also such a warm and friendly person and I knew I would be comfortable inviting her into my life during pregnancy, as well as my homebirth environment!

Fortunately, my pregnancy was considered low risk and I had managed to get into the local district hospital’s midwifery group program (MGP) where homebirth was offered. My midwife, Chloe, was also incredibly supportive of my vision and I could see that she and Lauren would work well together.

At 40+6 days, I went into labour around 3pm. It unfolded slowly and gently at first, allowing me to do some last minute nesting and food prep! My partner came home a few hours later and finished setting up our space. I believe the way we set up our home influenced the way labour unfolded. I had a playlist going that I’d carefully curated throughout pregnancy, beautiful handmade labour candles burning, as well as fairy lights and affirmations hung around the room. I felt comfortable and relaxed.

By about 8:30pm things had kicked up a notch and I began labouring in the bathroom with the TENS machine on. With every contraction I tuned into affirmations like “it’s only one minute” and “I am safe, my baby is safe”. Lauren arrived at about 10:30pm and encouraged me into the lounge room to do some optimal maternal positioning (OMP). This slowed things a little bit but also got me moving in ways that would support bub to descend. Then, during some lift and tucks, I felt a strong urge to squat and with that I was back to the bathroom where I stayed.

I was beginning to feel full-on intense pressure and my waters broke in the toilet around this time but my contractions were still not coming that often. Lauren rang Chloe to ask her to come, and at this time Chloe wanted to listen to me manage through a contraction. Reflecting back, it was at this point that I was in “Transition”, but it certainly didn’t look like the textbook picture with contractions coming regularly every 2-3 minutes. But I think this was my body’s natural way of pausing and conserving energy, and getting ready for the big pushing effort. Once the next contraction finally came 9 minutes later, Chloe, still on the phone, heard my low gutteral grunting sounds, and knew it was time to come. She had Lauren call the paramedics just in case they could arrive faster than she could, as she felt baby was coming fast.

Meanwhile my partner, Rafa, was getting the birth pool ready but the tap adaptor burst off when he tried to turn the water on from the bath, where I was labouring on all fours. The water sprayed Lauren and me in the face! I’m told he was a bit panicked at that point and he and my friend/photographer, Elle, then started filling the pool with buckets. But I wasn’t allowed to get in without Chloe anyway and at that point decided to just stay put, kneeling on all fours over the bath. I was comfortable and in the zone there where I’d been most of the night!

Chloe and two other midwives, as well as the paramedics, all arrived at the same time but as the paramedics weren’t needed, they promptly left.

Chloe got down on the floor with me, and relieved Lauren who had been reminding me to breathe through the intense pressure of each contraction, while holding warm compresses to my perineum. Lauren then grabbed Rafa, and all four of us were now together in my tiny bathroom.

Just nine minutes later at 1:59 a.m., Luca was born, with Chloe catching him and lifting him through my legs to my chest. Everyone was crying tears of joy, it was so magical!! I turned to everyone and said ‘that was amazing’!

After some time we managed to stand up and walk out to the lounge room to complete the 3rd stage totally physiologically. The placenta easily came out 10 minutes later. We all basked in the high of the moment, and marvelled at Luca as he did his instinctual breast crawl.

I can’t thank Lauren enough for believing in me and supporting this first time mama through pregnancy, birth and beyond with postpartum support! It truly made all the difference to my experience to have her as the doula by my side."

*Story and photos shared with permission
Photo credit to Elle Mackay. You can see her other amazing work @framedbyelle on instagram.