In this episode, we meet Rachel new midwife and mother of two based in New South Wales.

Rachel shares her birth stories only 6 weeks postpartum of her second baby.

Rachel found herself surprised by her first pregnancy and decided to have GP shared care with her local hospital. Expecting to have a natural vaginal birth just like her mother, she didn't think much of birth.

She had HG throughout her entire pregnancy and suffered while working as a nurse up until very late in her pregnancy.

At 38+2 she thought her waters had broken and she had cramps. She went into the hospital and was told her waters hadn't broken and that she wasn't dilated enough to keep her in. She was sent home.

She later started having closer contractions and headed back into the hospital to find she was already 8 cms.

She had early pushing, a cervical lip and a posterior baby with assisted vacuum and eventually forceps were tried in the operating theatre.

This birth ended up in a c-section and her baby in special care for 48 hours afterwards. Rachel also found herself back in the hospital a week later with a womb infection and suffered PND and breastfeeding challenges.

Her baby was born 4.2 kilos.

Baby number two was a planned pregnancy and during this time Rachel had been training as a midwife and had Hazel Keedle as one of her lecturers who had made her feel much more comfortable about having a vaginal birth after c-section with her studies & research.

She had met a student midwife in her class who suggested homebirth and recommended a homebirth midwife Louise.

When Rachel was pregnant she was in two minds about where she would birth her baby and decided to book into an MGP (midwifery group program) while she continued to educate her now-husband on the benefits of a homebirth.

Eventually, around 15 weeks, she decided to book in Louise and plan for a homebirth and so that's what she did. Louise and her student midwife were a great support for her during that time as she worked as a midwife and often had to overcome fear and concern about what could happen in her homebirth after seeing it unfold during her shifts.

After the 20-week morphology scan she was told that this baby was another big baby, Rachel didn't think much of it and continued on with a healthy pregnancy and didn't worry much about her babies size.

Although she did think about her babies position as she wanted to avoid a posterior baby this time around so she practised spinning baby techniques.

Towards the end of her pregnancy, she was expecting to go into labour around 38 weeks and was surprised to find herself still pregnant at 39 weeks and experiencing prodromal labour each day. She had an S+S at 39 weeks and the day before she went into labour she had acupuncture.

Rachel had a very quick birth at home and birthed a fair-sized baby of 5.2 kilos at home with her midwife and student midwife present.

Listen to this episode now to hear about Rachel's amazing birth stories & how she managed to birth her 5.2 kilo like a pro!!

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EP24| Rachel - 5.2 kilo homebirth baby, midwife mother, history of PND & big babies

VBAC Homebirth Stories Podcast

EP24| Rachel - 5.2 kilo homebirth baby, midwife mother, history of PND & big babies