Lucas' Birth - June 2nd 1996

On the first of June, the night of the full moon, my daughter Tracey began labour. She had an extremely healthy pregnancy, had done a lot of research and had resisted all medical intervention, sometimes under a lot of pressure.

She had chosen me as her birthing partner, for her home birth, as I was a trained nurse. She had also employed a private midwife, who in fact turned out to be a disappointment.

Early on in the afternoon Trace had gone into the first stage of labour, she was nearly three weeks overdue, as I had been with all my babies. She began to get niggling pains in her back and low down at the front of her pelvis, she was very tired and had little appetite and in the evening I gave her some reflexology. After this she began to become quite uncomfortable, with contractions every fifteen minutes, when I put my hand on her stomach it was practically crackling with energy.

She had a snooze and then a bath around midnight. At two in the morning she was in serious labour with painful contractions every eight minutes, either standing or lying in the bath. Then she got out of the bath to use the toilet and her waters broke. - splodging all over the bathroom floor. By this time she was making quite a noise and I was a few feet away, crying at each fresh contraction.

At 3 a.m. I thought it was time to call the midwife, contractions were now every fifteen minutes, Cathy sounded very sleepy and said "Okay call me at 9 a.m." and appeared to go to sleep before I put the phone down. I was getting worried now as she lived forty miles away from us!

In the next three hours the pain became very intense. I rang the midwife again at 6 a.m. She said she'd have her breakfast and be along in a couple of hours, no matter how encouraging I was to get her to us quicker or pick up my sense of urgency.

At 6.30 Tracey began to push, there was a lot of screaming attached to this phase, the babies' head could now be seen. Cathy arrived at 6.50, after I'd given her a further encouraging call. She was surprised at how advanced the labour was!

Trace was now standing holding onto the edge of the bath, Lucas' head came out, then a tiny little nose and a very flaccid looking mouth , the cord was wrapped tightly around his neck and he was going purple! The midwife cooly turned his shoulders and he was free. This may have been a fairly terrifying situation for us to deal with by ourselves.

During the third stage of labour we transferred to the bedroom and once the cord was clamped I cut it. There were very intense emotions flying around when baby Lucas began to suckle. Ten minutes later the placenta arrived and the birth was complete.

The next day I cut the placenta into small cubes and froze it, five or six cubes to a bag, and put it in the freezer. For several weeks Trace swallowed a cube a day until it was all gone.

During this intense procedure I found I was not at all brave and was stunned at the bravery and control of my daughter. Lucas is now a strong, healthy, delightful boy. I'm very proud to have assisted my daughter in her home birth.