Tell me about your freebirth...

[Tobily]

A bit over a year ago I was working with a mum who was planning a homebirth with her hubby, a midwife and me as doula support. I lived literally two minutes away from the family, the midwife had quite a hike to get there.

As it happened, labour started with a bang just before peak hour - within an hour of her membranes rupturing her hubby was on the phone telling me to get there - NOW - mum was feeling pushy and the midwife had been called but with traffic she was at least an hour away. There wasn't even time for me to get my hubby home to watch our two year old, so I threw him in the car and sped around to her house. Plopped my wide eyed two year old on the couch beside the birth pool, and I took one look at mama and knew the middy wasn't going to make it. I held her hands and sat with her while her hubby caught the baby. Hubby was as calm as could be, so that was good. As soon as his head appeared it was beautiful and pink - in all the births I've been present at, I don't think I've ever seen such a rosy looking babe - and I just knew at that point that everything was going be ok.

A few minutes later the little guy was out and the midwife came running through the door in time for the placenta.

Things certainly didn't go as planned but it all worked out beautifully in the end

[Mildez]

(not speaking from a midwives point of view) A good friend of mine free birthed her DS. She knew she had super fast labours and was 200kms from the nearest birthing hospital (other hospital near by) she woke up at 3am as she felt like she needed to poo and within a minute her DS was out. By the time her partner woke from his sleep bubs head was out and he had time to roll over and catch his body all of a minute from the time my friend got out of bed. Her son was born at the side of the bed whilst she was standing. As he (Daddy) was not expecting it and the slippery little bubba was hard to hold he sort of fell to the floor and the weight of him split the placenta in half so half was torn away and the other half not detached. My friend lost a lot of blood well over 2litres which required a blood transfusion at the hospital nearby before been transferred to the main hospital. I think if it didn't happen the way it did there wouldn't have been a problem with blood loss. Just one of those things.