Poppy is the kind reminder that, however many births I attend as midwives, I should never expect birth to look a certain way, or expect a woman to behave in a certain way when she is in labour. She reminded me, once again, to stay humbled by the power of women and their bodies.
A simple wish
Poppy’s wish was not extravagant. She simply wanted to birth at home again, because her first home
birth had been so special that it carried her through the challenges the first newborn months, and she longed for that experience a second time. More than anything, she felt it was Lola’s birthright to be born into love, in her own home.
When she looked into the numbers, she saw how few homebirths were happening in her area and how often local homebirth services were being suspended, and she realised her chances of the birth she wanted were slim. So she took her power back and reached out to me.
She got in touch a little later in her pregnancy than I would usually hope for, because I always encourage women to reach out early so we have time to build our relationship and the trust that grows from it. But we had a great conversation, and I felt straight away that it would be really good to work together.
“I trust you”
In her first birth, when Poppy called to say she was in labour and needed someone with her, she wasn’t quite believed, and so she laboured mostly alone. The work she was doing was invisible to the people listening to her, and so it went unrecognised and unseen. Until someone came and confirmed, ah YESS YOU ARE IN LABOUR, your baby is coming soon.
… this is one of the main reason people contact me… they know they can do it but they don’t want to be alone…. birth has always been woman with woman… holding witnessing and mothers and sisters loving care….
So this time I made her a promise. I told her, “I trust you. When you tell me you’re in labour, I’ll come, and I won’t question it, because I trust you, and you trust yourself to know.”
The day Lola arrived
Poppy’s waters went earlier in the day, and I went to visit her at home.
When waters release before labour begins, it can be so tempting to feel that you need to do something, to get things moving and make your labour start. I used some homeopathy and aromatherapy to gently support her, to help her body soften, and allow….. But mostly, it was about stillness. There was no rush and no pressure, only rest and quiet and a deep trust in what was already unfolding.
So much of the way we talk about birth is about effort, about working harder and pushing through and making it happen. Yet sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stillness, and to trust that birth is something we receive, not something we always have to work and work to create. Poppy’s body knew what it was doing, and her baby knew too. Our job was simply to make space for them.
Later, she called to say, “I think I would like you to come”
I went. To me, and I think to anyone, she didn’t look like she was in labour, perhaps not even to herself, but deep in her heart she knew, and that was why I was there. We all carry an idea of what labour and birth should look like, and birth keeps teaching us that it rarely matches…. if you let it happen!
Opening takes so much energy, even when nobody can see it. That invisible work is something we so often forget toacknowledge and to praise, and something you deserve to feel truly proud of, precisely because it goes unseen.
Often this unseen work starts months and year before your baby decides to arrive, the opening of your heart.. oh love, thats the biggest work you can do!
But the power in that room was real, and it was so magic.
Lola was born into so much grace and peace on the brightest night of the summer, just as her big brother had said she would be.
Grace, effortless beauty and power
Poppy is an artist, and her paintings are full of grace and effortless beauty. I saw that as she was birthing. Her creative power is so gentle, and yet so strong, and she brought her daughter into the world with the same love, peace and power.
TRUST not fear, through the generations
Poppy was born at home too, and her mother passed on to her the message that birth is about trust, not fear. It was so SPECIAL to wake her mother up in the night announcing the birth of her granddaughter!Now Poppy has given Jude and Lola and that same gift, to be born in love, kindness and peace. 
That message will travel on into the generations still to come, and what a gift that is, for her and for all of us. THIS IS THE MEDICINE THE WORLD NEEDS
“Thank you so much for your incredible support and advice during my pregnancy, birth and after! I really appreciated your honest and calm approach, and your guidance and support during the birth supported my daughter’s calm entry into the world, wish I had you as my midwife from the beginning of my pregnancy.
“Thank you for your incredible presence and experience. I feel very lucky to have had you there.”
What Poppy taught me
And yet, for me a humble message that birth is never the same, sometimes is loud, sometimes is peaceful, sometimes it looks like “labour”sometimes it looks just different….. and a total affirmation and confirmation that where there is relationship, trust grows, and where there is trust, there is safety. That’s where you come home to a deeper trust in yourself, in your body and in your baby.
Care that works together
Poppy’s care was also a beautiful example of what happens when teams work together, and I am so happy to share that the local nhs team was open and supportive.
They respected Poppy’s choices and worked alongside both of us with collaboration and respect!
The reality of homebirth suspensions
I want to take this moment, through Poppy’s story, to talk about something that is happening right now across our country, and here in our own area too, because it is affecting women and families every single week, and it is not being talked about nearly enough.
Choosing where you give birth is your right, and homebirth is a choice every woman is entitled to make. Yet right now, homebirth is one of the most undermined and unsupported parts of maternity care. This is rarely about there being no midwives, acuity of the wards, bla bla bla…… it is about priorities. Care for women with physiological pregnancies, and their choice to have a PHYSIOLOGICAL birth, at home in the birth centre, even on labourt ward, is consistently put last, treated as an optional extra rather than a right that must be protected.
And the cost of that is real. Women and families, spend months preparing for the birth they are visioning, in the place where they feel safest, only to be told, sometimes when they are already in labour, that it isn’t available today. That is not a small inconvenience, it changes how a woman births, how she feels about her birth, and what she carries with her into motherhood.
Across the South East, the homebirth service is very often suspended, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for the night, and sometimes for a day or more. In other parts of the country it has gone further still: just a few days ago, Homerton Hospital in London suspended its homebirth team from supporting births at home with immediate effect. Women can still receive antenatal and postnatal care from the team, but not in labour, and nearly two thousand people have already signed a petition asking the hospital to reverse its decision. And this summer, births at North Devon District Hospital were suspended entirely, leaving families to travel much further to give birth. Often it is not shared is how many women planned a homebirth and didn’t have one, because the service was suspended or partially suspended on the day or working on 1:1 basis.
Poppy looked into this for herself. She asked how often the service was being suspended, and when she heard the answer, she realised that the birth she wanted was unlikely to happen, she said to me, “I wish they had told me sooner, and been more transparent about this.” Knowing this clearly and honestly gives you the time to make the choice that feels right for you, so if you are planning a home birth or a birth centre birth, make sure you ask in advance ….. and if you don’t like the answers… take your power back!
If you are dreaming of a homebirth in East Sussex and you want a midwife who trusts you as deeply as you trust yourself, I would love to hear from you. Book your free consultation and let’s begin!
Homebirth in Eastbourne, Hastings and across East Sussex
I support families planning a homebirth in Eastbourne, Hastings, Bexhill, Hailsham, Polegate, Seaford, Lewes and the surrounding East Sussex villages, as well as across Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Whether you are booked at Eastbourne or the Conquest Hospital in Hastings, or you haven’t booked anywhere yet, you can choose to have your own independent midwife. The earlier you get in touch, the more time we have to build the relationship and trust that make all the difference to your birth.
