On the full moon, on February 12, I had the incredible honour of witnessing the beautiful birth story of of the absolute goddess that is Lucy Rose & her little boy, Pippin. Lucy Rose is a a local doula so if you are looking for a doula in the future please do visit her website and message her to get on her waiting list, you will be so looked after and supported in your own journey. She  also has such a gift with words and has so beautifully shared her birth story below. 

" I keep trying to start writing my birth story, but struggling with where to start. It’s reminding me of something I have come to understand, which is that everything is entwined. What we carry into and through pregnancy informs our birth, and our birth informs our postpartum and motherhood. 

Birth is not a standalone event.

One of the things I grappled with early on was whether to engage with NHS care. I knew I only wanted familiar people in my birth space, so needed to decide whether to make a strong case for continuity via the NHS, or freebirth. Neither option felt right and I grappled with that too. Why, when I support freebirth, did it not feel right for me? I offered myself grace and reminded myself that I support people to discover what makes them feel safe and held with their unique circumstances and so I dug into what that was for me. I wanted women around me I trusted, women who knew birth, women who could step in if needed and would allow me to dial down my own vigilance. I wanted independent midwifery care and I was so incredibly lucky that it was gifted to me by my dad.

There’s so much throughout pregnancy and around it that I could unpick here, but then I’d never get to my actual birth! What I will say is that my midwives truly were gifts in the form of wise women. I remember meeting Erika and thinking she felt more like my experience of doulas than any previous experience of midwifery care. Totally unphased by the idea of unexpected breech birth, by me declining standard monitoring (or any monitoring), by anything in fact. And totally focussed on relationship and understanding what I needed from my birth. The first time I met Rachel I was not long home from a freebirth and her reaction when I told her was the biggest smile ever and absolute delight that a woman had reclaimed her birth in that way. They sat on my sofa and we put the world to rights and I knew these were women who could, and would, hold my birth as sacred. My circle of wise women didn’t end there. I knew my dear friend and talented photographer Ann would be joining us to capture my birth and we spoke extensively about how I wanted it documenting no matter how it unfolded and the importance of showing the reality of birth. She offered me such steadfast faith that all would unfold as it should. My mum was also an important part of creating the safety I needed to birth. Knowing my boys had their favourite person in the world around if they needed her and knowing I had someone who loves me in the way I love my boys, felt even more important this time.

Two days before I gave birth, my blood pressure spiked. It had spiked earlier in pregnancy and by increasing my protein had come back within normal ranges, but this time it was too high. I was faced with the possibility that my plans may have to change. I’m quite comfortable with the ‘risk factors’ I have (utter bollocks) but high blood pressure isn’t something I’m comfortable putting to one side. I think this was amplified by a sense that I felt less physically resilient this time for many reasons. I grappled with really intense anxiety also, often experiencing a washing machine brain that was a lot less enjoyable than my washing machine belly.

While I was comfortable declining induction and/or hospitalisation to monitor my blood pressure, I felt that my best chance of birth in my space, in the way I felt best for everyone, was to take blood pressure medication. I was also incredibly grateful to have Erika with me while I navigated all of this, feeding me homeopathic remedies and sandwiches and chatting birth, while also doing all the clinical bits so I had minimal engagement with anyone I didn’t know. For me this is the perfect example of where medical and natural approaches can coexist. It’s also a beautiful example of the way birth offers us lessons - for me this one was about accepting compromise, accepting what felt like imperfection, perhaps even the first step in surrender.

Back home I was even more on edge and after waking with what was either a panic attack, low blood sugar, or both, at 3am and calling both my mum and Erika (lesson two, asking for help and reassurance when needed, even if pressing call at such a ridiculous hour was almost physically painful), I made a plan for mum to take the boys the next day and went back to bed. I cancelled most plans bar a close friend coming over and I actually said yes when she offered to pick up my remedies so I didn’t need to leave the house. I had a strong feeling that I didn’t want to leave home and a little niggle in the back of my mind said labour was near. 

That evening my usual Braxton Hicks started up but with more regularity and clarity than usual. In my bones I felt it was labour, but I wasn’t ready to get invested. I went to bed and whispered to my baby “please be ready, please let this be labour. I need you to come now”. I woke at 1am and 2am, with a sleepy thought of ‘still having Braxton Hicks’. At 3am I woke with a strong ‘Braxton Hick’ and went to the loo. I realised I was losing my plug. I let myself acknowledge these contractions were not my uterus ‘practicing’, but my uterus pulling open, and I went downstairs, because it’s easier to think clearly downstairs for some reason. I called my mum - “third baby and it’s still dark- he might come this morning, he might come tomorrow night, but I would feel better if you came now”. 

My blood pressure was fairly high so I took my dose of medication several hours early thinking ‘absolutely no bloody way I am ending up in hospital now’.  My (then) youngest appeared downstairs and I took him back to bed. Trying to feed him set off contractions and I decided I ought to let Erika and Ann know labour had started. I couldn’t stand being upstairs and my son showed no signs of going back to sleep, so we both went downstairs. On our way down I woke Joe and asked him to set the pool up.

Mum arrived and I started to feel baby was coming sooner rather than later. I handed her my phone as I went to the loo - unable to decide whether it was time to invite everyone in. I was glad when I came out and she said Erika was heading over.  Around 5am Erika, Rachel, and Ann all turned up within minutes of each other and all gave me massive hugs. At some point my son disappeared upstairs with Joe and I just remember a period where everyone was sat in a circle drinking tea and Erika saying it felt like a sleepover.

I had an internal dialogue running through most of my labour which was really interesting to notice. I was leaning back and making long open sounds through each contraction and I found it really interesting that I was choosing such a reclined position, but I instinctively knew that moving would change things (more pressure on my cervix for one) and I wasn’t ready for that. Someone told me the pool was full for when I wanted it and I said I wasn’t ready for things to change and that I’d stay where I was for a bit longer. I needed a wee and I remember looking at the bathroom and the pool thinking ‘if I go to the loo, that’s it, I have to crack on’. 

And I did.

I went to the loo and went with the intense openings within my body, leaning against the wall as they moved through me. I stripped and stepped into the pool, trying to find a comfortable position. 
Settling with leaning on the edge of the pool, the contractions came with new intensity. For a while they felt strong, but going with them with all of me was really satisfying and Erika and Rachel occasionally whispered to me or laid a hand on me and for a very brief while my inner dialogue was reduced to ‘and another one, and breathe, drop your shoulders, relax’. 

Then the sharp ones started. Each contraction began with a piercing pain low down and central in my uterus - sharp was the only word I had for it. It almost took my breath away. 
I said “he’s still high and I’m not sure he’s in the right position’ and Erika told me afterwards that minutes before she had noticed my purple line going to the side and had said to Rachel that baby was probably asynclictic. 

The sharp pain at the start of each contraction continued and the conversation in my head went something like this:
‘This doesn’t feel right.
How not right?
I don’t know.
Well it’s not abruption, my placenta is higher.
Ok well maybe my uterus is going to rupture.
That’s ridiculous, that’s insanely rare. 
Well why is it such a sharp pain and just in one point?
I don’t bloody know!
Ask for an ambulance?
Shut up. If your instinct was really that something was wrong you would just say it, not be debating it. This is anxiety.
You are not letting fear win here. 
It’s not felt like this before though.
Every birth is different. You know that.
And I heard Erika say, after another contraction “birth takes us to our limits”

Yes it fucking does.

A few more sharp contractions with pushing at the peak - my vocalisations were high and then low. I so wanted my waters to break as I knew then he would come quickly.
I said this out loud. And Erika and Rachel continued to hold space for me.

I sat back and Erika asked what I was feeling. I answered that I was struggling to let go. That I wasn’t ready, but knew I had to be, but didn’t know how to let it happen. She answered that it would change now I had acknowledged it. And then I said the thing that I had been holding inside, the fear that was bigger than birth, that was about that moment, about how crossing the threshold can feel, about what I knew was coming next and what I know is coming in the next few weeks, months, and years. “It might kill me” And then the next contraction came and something shifted. He started to move down.

That little interlude was perhaps the most powerful part of my birth. For me it was the ultimate reflection of emotional safety. While I am very honest (some would say too honest), it’s not often I allow people into my inner world. I have the conversations in my head and pull my socks up and crack on. It took a lot to verbalise it. It was a leap of faith. I knew it was most likely transition, I had no doubt that I could continue to birth, it would have been easier to just swallow my words, keep my walls up and let the next part wash over me. Instead I chose vulnerability, I chose to share my inner dialogue and even the fear that I had held close for months. There are no words for the gratitude I have for the four women around me in that moment. That I was able to do that is such a testament to my trust that they could hold me. 

Four contractions followed, my body pushing with all it had and me gripping Rachel’s hands as if trying to share some of the force that was barrelling through me.
On the final one his head started to come and then the push intensified and I felt him fly out. The relief!

Someone, I think Erika, asked if I wanted to pick him up and I realised he was on the bottom of the pool. I reached down, my hands the first thing he felt outside of the womb. As I lifted him they realised his cord was around his neck and Erika unlooped it. No gloves - that was important to me. 

I brought him up to me and started to land from those final moments, realising my boys were next to me, that I was holding my baby, that he was here.

Erika asked if she could wipe his face, I nodded. He was covered in meconium. There was a lot of meconium. My waters hadn’t gone until he burst out and he’d clearly been in it for a little while as all of his lovely vernix was yellow! 

I looked at the water, my bleeding was ok, I could see my feet. I put him to my breast and shared him with my boys, they reached out and stroked him and I felt another contraction. My placenta was coming.
Not keen on birthing it in poo soup, I carefully got out of the pool with my midwives and mum helping. Someone grabbed a bucket and out it came! Cue the waddle to the sofa, skin-to-skin, feeding, stroking his baby fuzz and cuddling my boys  before they left for school and nursery (I wasn’t keen on them leaving, but was outvoted and they wanted to share the news with their friends, so it all worked out!). Rachel made me toast with lots of butter and marmalade and later mum made cacao.  I had torn a little and did plan to leave it, but one of the tears had created a little skin flap that I wanted putting back where it belonged. 

After more time resting, feeding, taking in my babe and being covered in even more meconium, the time came to separate him from his placenta. As a doula I have been part of a cord burning. I won’t share too much about it as it’s not my story to tell, but what really stayed with me was how gentle it felt. How it slowed down something that so often feels rushed. When I started thinking about how to separate my baby from their placenta, I knew cord burning was how I wanted to do it.

I still carry a sadness around the placentas and cord cutting from my first and second births. I didn’t see them, didn’t keep them, and my babes had their cords cut too soon. At the time, in the grand scheme of it all, it didn’t seem to matter. With my first I was still reeling from a traumatic birth - cutting the cord felt like such a minor detail. With my second I was so overjoyed that I had my home birth (and in a slight state of shock that he’d come face first) that I accepted the injection and the cord cutting happened in a blur.

With hindsight I wish I had taken time to look at my placentas, found ways to honour them, and had, at the very least, been the one to separate my babes from their life sustaining placentas.
This time it felt like something to reclaim. Something to honour. Lotus birth didn’t feel practical or right for me and cutting, even after waiting for white, felt so instant and final. Burning offered the gentle pause between the two that I needed. 

My mum wrapped some foil around a piece of cardboard to make a heatproof shield and Erika tied on the cord tie I’d made (there is no need for a cord tie with cord burning, it was purely symbolic).
We lit the candle from my mother blessing and used it to light two beeswax candles that I’d bought in preparation.

I held one, my mum held the other, and eventually swapped out with Erika. There is something about fire that asks for stillness and quiet and we sat, saying very little, watching the flames lick up and around the cord. Watching it twist and curl and blacken. 

It was beautiful and simple and my favourite kind of ritual - not perfectly curated, but real and simple and just as it was meant to be.
After some time, 15-20 minutes maybe, the cord finally broke apart. Erika cooled the end with water and welcomed my son earth side. And for me, that was the end of his birth and the start of the next chapter.

I was Mother Nature 
With all my elemental might 
I breathed and groaned and sent
Out the air from my body
As the tides came and went.
As you passed from water to water
And into air
And onto me
Still rooted in my womb,
Momentarily.
And there you were
Nestled in me
But still suspended.
Between breast and placenta,
Between world and womb,
And we let flames curl
Around your cord,
Fire is life
And as the flames died
And your cord crackled,
You landed
On this earth.
And I
Had given birth"


On the full moon, on February 15, I had the incredible honour of witnessing the beautiful birth story of of the absolute goddess that is Lucy Rose & her little boy, Pippin.