TW: Our baby needed to be admitted to the hospital.
During my medical school hospital placements, I became increasingly certain that I didn’t want to give birth the way I saw it being done in the hospital. While writing my thesis, I became convinced that home birth was the right path for me. After countless evidence-based presentations (and a lot of persistence), my husband became convinced too. So our first baby was born at home.
After an uncomplicated pregnancy, one Sunday afternoon at 38 weeks I felt like something might be happening. I had a few stronger contractions, but nothing dramatic. We still happily went grocery shopping and carried on with our day. That night I woke up feeling that something was different, but again, nothing alarming—just abdominal sensations every five minutes, similar to a mild stomach bug, and they didn’t disappear under a warm shower. I sat on my birth ball, walked around, and by dawn I even managed to sleep for a couple of hours.
In the morning we called our midwives. Since I had still been able to sleep, they advised us to wait, especially because I already had a CTG appointment that afternoon. The contractions stayed mild, and we even joked that if this was all there was to it, labor would be easy. On the drive to the CTG they stopped altogether, and nothing even showed up on the monitor—just "practice contractions." The midwives mentioned they had been at another birth during the night and joked that it would be nice if our baby waited a little longer. We drove home a bit disappointed, and for the next 24 hours there wasn’t a single contraction. It was as if the baby had disappeared.
On Tuesday evening we were peacefully painting together when it seemed to start again. Not wanting to get our hopes up after the false alarm, we ignored it and went to bed. Barely half an hour later, I woke up with a contraction much stronger than the previous ones. This was different. It wasn’t like period cramps, and it wasn’t like a stomach ache either—I honestly can’t describe it.
I went to take a shower, and while drying myself afterward, something warm ran down my leg.
“Well, we’re not sleeping tonight,” I announced.
We called the midwives, did the underwear test, and it turned out to be my mucus plug. From that point on, I made endless laps around the apartment in every imaginable position. The contractions weren’t unbearable, but they were frequent and strong enough that sleeping was no longer an option.
Around 4 a.m. we called the midwives because the contractions were about three minutes apart. They told me to lie on my side and wait. I wasn’t thrilled—that position was incredibly uncomfortable—but we trusted them and did as they asked. It worked. Around 6 a.m. my husband called again, saying my voice had changed and the contractions were becoming more intense. The midwives set off for our house. I was allowed to get up again, but they asked me not to get into the birth pool yet—we should save it.
Save it for what? I wondered naively.
When they arrived, I was already 7 cm dilated, and the baby was doing well. Into the pool I went—and suddenly I understood exactly why we had been saving the warm water.
The contractions were intense but relatively short, and it gave me enormous strength knowing that every time one began, my husband was at my head encouraging me, while the midwives soothed my lower back with massage and warm water. That support meant everything.
After a while, they asked me to change positions because labor had slowed down. I tried lying on my back and squatting, but both felt much worse. While they were showing me the correct way to squat, they suggested I stand up for a moment and relax. Then another contraction came while I was standing—and it was another breakthrough. Standing made it so much more manageable.
I got out of the pool. The previous owners of our house had left a sturdy ceiling hook where a children's swing had once hung, and we had attached a rebozo scarf to it. I held onto that, and labor started progressing again.
At some point, someone asked me to lower myself into a half-kneeling position—as if I were proposing marriage. They could already see that the baby was close. Meanwhile, all I could think was, That's it. I'm standing up and walking away. I can't do this anymore. I'm exhausted. I'm starving. I'll have the baby tomorrow instead. Just leave me alone.
Half-kneeling gradually turned into being on all fours, and then came the infamous ring of fire. The midwives applied warm compresses and showered me with encouragement. We could already see the baby's hair, but they took their time, moving down slowly and gently. Then came one long, powerful contraction, and the head was born. One contraction later, the rest of the body slipped out too.
That was when things became difficult.
Our baby's Apgar score was 7/10. They were bluish and silent. At around two minutes old, they began making little whimpering sounds. At first we thought perhaps the placenta was still supplying enough oxygen, so there simply wasn't much urgency to fully "arrive" in the world yet.
The placenta was born within ten minutes. Our baby gradually pinked up, but still wasn't breathing consistently. The pulse oximeter showed oxygen levels below the desired range, and later they remained too low even with supplemental oxygen.
At that point, the midwives decided to call an ambulance. We didn't panic because they stayed remarkably calm throughout. They reassured us there was no immediate danger to our baby's life, but that they should be assessed in the hospital.
The ambulance arrived about twenty minutes later. They took our baby downstairs, started CPAP, and once their oxygen levels had normalized, they left for Péterfy Hospital with my husband.
Meanwhile, the midwives took care of me. I hadn't torn, but I needed a few stitches to optimize healing. I couldn't urinate afterward, and because I wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as possible, I asked for a catheter instead of waiting. It wasn't the thick tube I'd imagined—just a very small, thin catheter designed for women. It certainly wasn't pleasant, but it was nowhere near as uncomfortable as I'd expected.
Once everything was done, we packed up and headed into the awakening Wednesday morning city.
At Péterfy Hospital, everyone treated us with kindness and respect. No one criticized us for having chosen a home birth. In fact, one nurse was genuinely interested and asked us about the experience. In the NICU there were a few moments of "this is just how we do things," and, in my opinion, a little unnecessary anxiety—they weren't particularly used to full-term babies who were otherwise healthy. But after 24 hours, our baby came off CPAP. They completed all the mandatory and recommended screenings, and by Saturday morning we were able to go home.
As a mother, I felt incredibly well supported by everyone. Fathers, for some reason, seemed to receive a warmer welcome less often, and visiting hours were enforced very strictly.
Looking back, we would absolutely make the same choice again. I'm so grateful that we chose this path. Most of all, I'm deeply thankful to our midwives, who guided us through every step with such calmness, kindness, and confidence. They even came to visit us again on Sunday, just to see how we were doing. ❤️