Here is the story of Lilly’s birth from her fathers point of view. You can also read the mother’s story called Rose and lilly a breech birth. I am now proud to call these people some of my closest friends. I am constantly grateful to all who are willing to share their stories on my blog.

Lilly.

I knew we would be having a homebirth even before I knew when I was going to have children. Lilly’s mum and I met in 2002 she was going to Uni at that stage training to be a midwife. I was 20 and living with my two other brothers and she had just turned 18. Not long after we met we started going out. Before I met Rose I hadn’t thought much about birthing. How? or where they did it. My eldest brother had gotten his girlfriend pregnant a couple years earlier and I had watched one of the standard videos you get from hospital then. (vagina in your face with a big melon of a head coming out and lots of blood) I had just assumed that if you got pregnant you would be going to hospital. Not that I thought it was dangerous I just thought that’s what you did. Anyway fast-forward 7years and a new country. New Zealand!! We had moved to New Zealand so that rose could practice independent midwifery we had been there only 4 months and before I knew it rose was giving me the news that she was pregnant. I was kind of shocked but to be honest I already had a feeling she was pregnant. The pregnancy went well. We started attending antenatal classes and meeting other pregnant couples rose went off eating curries and had a craving for meat pies. we had decided not to tell anyone back home yet. because we were going to head back for a visit when my mum had her 50th this turned out to be a great way of telling people I really enjoyed seeing the happiness on my family’s faces when we told them. When we arrived back in New Zealand we had to start making plans to head back to Australia the months went by pretty fast and before we knew it we had to say good by to the friend we had made and start our new life back in Australia.

This was a pretty stressful time for both of us especially with a bloody pregnant woman on my hands. We were staying at my brother’s house while we were franticly looking for a house of our own. After all you can’t have a homebirth without a home. It took us about two weeks to get a house we liked, during this time rose had been in contact with our new midwife Lisa. We hadn’t met her yet so once we had moved in and had arguments about where the furniture was going to be placed we organized an appointment to see Lisa. I’m not sure what my first impressions of Lisa were I’m writing this story 3 years after Lilly was born. She is a good midwife if a little hard to understand sometimes and she knows her stuff. ticks all my boxes. I know rose has found a solid friend in Lisa someone who will be there for her if (god forbid) anything ever goes wrong during a labor also someone rose can be there for as well.

I think we had a few anti-natal appointments before we were informed by Lisa that the baby was breech. For me hearing the news I didn’t care to much I didn’t see there was any problem. (That could have been my ignorance though) I think rose was a little un-excepting of giving birth to a breach baby and we tried a few things to turn it but we got to a point where she felt a lot more comfortable with it and gave up trying and just accepted it, either way we still were not going to hospital. There was one scary moment for me I was at work and I got a phone call from rose that they had picked up a heart murmur with the baby and were going into hospital for an ultrasound. They asked if I could come in with them.

For some reason this really upset me. At the time I was managing a signwriting store and didn’t know whether I should drop everything and leave or be a dutiful worker and stay I got a bit upset and confused and said I couldn’t come in. When I hang up the phone I was all confused and didn’t know what to do. I had a talk to one of the other guys and he told me to go in so I dropped everything and left. I got upset in the car on the way down and I was thinking how can something which hasn’t been born yet give me such a strong emotional reaction. I wasn’t sobbing with tears or anything but I can’t remember ever being that upset before anyway I got to the hospital we waited around for a while and then we had an ultra sound everything was fine rose and I opted not to look at our baby when he was doing it which I think the doctor found a bit weird. Everything else went pretty smoothly after that.

May 2 2007. Denial

I was working that day. I’m pretty sure rose had some friends over during the day Milli and her mum Jill I’m not sure if anyone else was over. It was a full moon that night and Milli told us later that she had a feeling it was going to happen that night. As they were leaving Milli was trying to convince rose to ring me up to come home as rose was getting some strong Braxton hicks. But rose wasn’t convinced anything was happening I came home not to long after that anyway. We had dinner and did our afternoon stuff and went to bed.

10.00pm I was half asleep half awake and I kind of got the feeling something was going on with rose she was getting contractions but when I asked her if she was all right she said she was fine (denial) she didn’t want me to know about it because she wanted me to get some rest and not be exhausted later on I kind of slept but not very heavily.

I woke up not long after that and started seeing what I could do to help her. I got her out of bed and I put a waterproof sheet on the bed and on the ground. Rose positioned herself with her knees on the ground while leaning forward on the bed, that’s when she broke her waters I asked her whether we should ring Lisa and tell her but she said no. she would be in labor for a long time yet. (Denial) Me I had a feeling that this was going to be a quick labor I’m not sure why it wasn’t based on any expert knowledge I just had a feeling the baby was going to come a lot faster than rose thought it was.

10.30-11.00pm after rose broke her waters she wanted to go to the toilet. When she was wiping her vagina there was blood with some meconium on the paper. She had her show. I suggested maybe we should ring Lisa up now she said no. she didn’t think she was far enough along yet (Denial).

We went up into the kitchen and rose was in heavy labor walking around huffing and puffing getting contractions all the time. We had a tens machine which we got out to see if it would help with the pain but only one pad was working so we could only use one. I stuck the pads onto her lower back and it seemed to help her with the contractions I suggested again about ringing up Lisa she said she didn’t think she was far along enough (denial)

It’s not that rose didn’t want to be in labor it’s just she knows what it’s like for a midwife when a woman rings up at 2 in the morning convinced that she’s about to have a baby and she only has one contraction in the half hour they are talking on the phone she didn’t want to ring Lisa up to early.

I asked if she wanted a drink of water she said I don’t know, I asked if she wanted me to massage her back she said I don’t know, I asked if she wanted to lean on me she said I don’t know. I found out later this was called transition. I decided to ring up kathryn one of our support people who was also a midwife rose agreed to this. When I rang Kathryn up she could hear rose in the background and told me to ring Lisa up as well. Once I had done that I thought for a minute and remembered that when rose was pregnant she used to lay belly first on the beanbags while watching TV. She had told me at the time she was comfortable like this, so I didn’t ask her weather she wanted to lay on the bean bags I told her to lay down on the bean bags and she layed on the bean bags and that’s where she stayed for the rest of the birth. About 40 minutes later kathryn showed up. At this point I was expecting something to happen I’m not sure what, a rush of activity or something someone telling me what to do. I wasn’t freaking out or anything but It would have been nice if someone just gave me a direct order. Sit with rose or pat her on the back or maybe boil some water (I’m good at that) and I was feeling a little out of my depth. Not long after Kathryn arrived Lisa also arrived. She had run two red light cameras to get here (she later got them overturned) by the time Lisa had gotten here you could see Lilly’s foot. I think the contractions stopped for about five minutes and rose and baby were sitting there then rose got some more contractions and she pushed out the rest of the leg. After a little while longer maybe about another five minutes some more contractions started up and rose pushed out the other leg she let out a little squeal doing this. I was at roses head watching, I could have watched Lilly come out but I thought It might be nicer if we both saw our daughter at the same time. Once the legs came out Lilly’s head just flew out and Lisa handed our daughter to rose through her legs. Rose started crying and said you look just like in my dreams. She un wound the cord from around Lilly’s neck and cuddled her for a while and then We got rose and baby up onto the couch. From when Lisa got there to Lilly arriving took ½hour of pushing. I’m not quite sure but I think half an hour after that rose birthed the placenta then I cut the cord. We are going to have a lotus birth for our next baby but at the time of Lilly’s birth I didn’t see any reason why we should.

What were my feelings during and after labor?

While rose was in labor I was a bit nervous but not too bad, I just wanted to ring someone up to let someone else know rose was in labor other than me. I wish I could say I had overwhelming waves of love and excitement and instant awe at the first sighting of my baby, but I didn’t. I was happy but I was also feeling guilty that I wasn’t getting overwhelming waves of love and excitement and instant awe. I have heard some guys say that watching your child being born into this world changes you forever but it didn’t. Being a father has changed me forever. Don’t get me wrong you would find it pretty hard to keep me out of the room that my wife is having our child in. But for me I fell in love with Lilly at about 2 or 3 O clock in the morning some weeks later trying to rock her to sleep in my arms while singing her a song it was a magical night just her and me together I knew it didn’t matter what she did I would always be there for her.

This is a poem I thought up in my head while staring down at her in my arms that night.

Golden hair

and big blue eyes

a tummy full of butterflies

wiggly ears and button nose

I wish I had some of those

Bright red cheeks and a soft round chin

All the better to show off that big bright grin