I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful online course you put together. It is largely thanks to you that I was able to break free of the system, find an incredible midwife, and birth my beautiful daughter at my home in Cape Town.
I’m 42 and so my pregnancy was categorised as high risk. That’s fine I can accept it as a starting point, but the scans and tests that I did choose to 
do showed that all was good so I couldn’t understand what made my labour high risk. (Thank you for responding to my email on that!)
I could tell that my gyne, although she said that I “should be able to have a natural birth” since I birthed my first daughter that way 7 years ago, was not really on board with the idea. Then after seeing two of my younger friends having a c-section after being set on a natural birth at hospital I knew I had to do something drastic. It was around this time that I started listening to your course.
Empowered by what I had learned I found a midwife who supported me from around mid-pregnancy. My gyne refused to support a home birth for fear of being sued if something went wrong (her words) but my midwife introduced me to the one gyne in Cape Town who supported home births- in that he would be there in the event of any problem – and my new journey started. Empowered by the knowledge that I had gained from your course and with a wonderful team, I felt at ease with my decision despite what people would constantly tell me.
My mucus plug came out at 40 plus 5 and I was convinced baby was coming. I started having mild contractions but within two hours they were gone.
At 41 plus 2 my midwife suggested I have a scan to see that everything was okay. The scan showed my amniotic fluid was on the low side and that time was not on my side. The gyne would see me for a CTG the next morning and take it from there. At this point I was terrified at the idea of an induction and agreed to a membrane sweep.
In tears I booked an appointment for acupuncture and chiro that same day. I also walked barefoot outside to ground myself, got the burger I had been craving but had not gotten since early pregnancy, and listened to a few relaxations. When I got home from the appointments, I found that the house was cleaned, decorated with fairy lights and pictures that my seven year old made and there was a fire going. It was so special. The perfect birthing space.
Around 10pm that night contractions started. I thought it was just braxton hicks but within 30 minutes they were intense and three minutes apart. The midwife arrived at 2am. We all thought I was close. I wasn’t though, my baby arrived at 10:46am.
I laboured in the birthing pool which provided much needed relief. A very different experience to that in the UK birthing Center where I’m sure now that the pool was too cold because I was too cold to stay in it.
Things were not really progressing though and I accepted a vaginal exam at some point. I don’t remember how dilated I was. I think 9cm but the baby was still higher up. The push contractions weren’t coming and I had been throwing up with every other contraction since labour started (which I hadn’t realised was quite normal). However, I became weak and contractions slowed.
After giving me about 90 min to relax with slow contractions, the midwife offered me a drip. It saved me because after having my strength and my contractions were back. But it was now around 9am and still no push contractions so I asked for my water to be broken – it was getting exhausting. A short while later I gave birth to my baby girl in the presence of my seven year old daughter and partner in our own home. ( I can safely say that the pethidine I had last time made zero difference to the pain of the push contraction and only made me a bit spacey.)
I asked my daughter to take my phone and tell her grandparents her sister was here. She sent a voice note telling my parents that “there’s a real life baby on our couch!” It was adorable. None of us could believe it.
After an hour the midwife helped my partner cut the cord and my baby went to her dad for skin on skin while I showered. I found out later that that lasted all of two minutes because my daughter took of her top, sat next to my partner and announced that she was ready for skin on skin with her sister.
The experience was hard but incredible. I’m truly grateful to you for giving me the strength to avoid most interventions based on knowledge (I felt that in the circumstances some were necessary) and birth at home. I’m doing your course I also understood and learnt from my first birthing experience.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
One suggestion is to turn the course into an app so that it’s quickly accessible. It was often difficult to log in from my phone and in labour I couldn’t open the relaxation as I was struggling to log in during contractions.
Wishing you all the best at changing a truly broken system!
Warm regards
Nicole
and then