First time dad supporting homebirth || Tom's experience supporting birth at home (South Australia)

In this episode of Partner's Supporting Homebirth, Tom from South Australia shares his experience supporting his wife Chloe (Episode 39) during the home birth of their daughter Matilda. 
Tom shares his initial fears and biases about home birth, the research he conducted, and the preparations they made leading up to the birth. He recounts the rapid progression of labor, the unexpected challenges they faced, and the emotional impact of becoming a father. Tom offers valuable advice for partners considering home birth and reflects on the transformative experience of parenthood.

Transcript

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This is Birthing at Home, a podcast. I'm Elsie, your host. I'm a home birth mom of two little boys, a doula in Melbourne supporting birth at home. I'm a mental health nurse and the co-creator of Home Birth Victoria. If you want to learn more about me, the podcast or my work as a doula, check out www.birthingathome.com.au. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional custodians of the land I'm recording on in Nam, Melbourne, Australia. I would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been birthing at home on country for tens of thousands of years prior to the British invasion and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. This is another episode in the Partners Supporting Birth at Home series shared today by Tom. We chat about his experience of supporting his wife Chloe with the birth of their first baby at home. Tom shares his first thoughts of birth at home and how it was so clear to him that home birth was the best choice for them when looking at the cold hard facts. You can also listen to Chloe's story in episode 39. Please make sure to share this episode with other dads or partners that will be supporting birth at home. Enjoy. Welcome Tom to Birthing at Home, a podcast. thanks. Thank you for joining me tonight. Tom, do you want to give us a little bit of a background about who you are, who's in your family, where you're located? Sure. Sure. So I'm Tom. My wife, Chloe did an episode not that long ago about our home birth for our daughter, Matilda. So that's our little family unit at the moment. And we're based in Adelaide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Chloe was in, she was episode 39. So if you're listening and want to hear Chloe's perspective, go back and listen to that. guess like to start off with Tom, so For those who haven't listened to Chloe's episode, she spoke about how you guys had sort of been, or she had at least been planting the seed of home birth for a while before Matilda came along. Do you remember like the first time or like your initial bias or perception about home birth or birthing at home? Yeah. Initially we Well, Chloe really wanted to do free birth. This is back when we were living in Melbourne and well before we had even started to consider trying to conceive and that kind of thing. And that honestly scared the hell out of me. I was like, God. yep. I knew all of the reasons why free birth is kind of the, I don't know, the powerhouse or the, has the attraction that it does. You know, it's the natural thing. We've been, women have been giving birth for millennia. That's how we have a human race. But the fear in me was, no, when it comes time for beauty of birth, want every single doctor on the planet around you to make sure you're safe and all that kind of stuff, which is very much that Western movies kind of attitude. And then we kind of meandered through that journey of both of us being on complete opposite ends of the spectrum and then kind of came to home birth. did some more research into it, kind of looked into the community around here in Adelaide, spoke to a midwife and an at home midwife obviously. And then yeah, we ended up landing on a home birth instead of a hospital. And that's based on some family members that I have that have lost kids. Unfortunately, during kind of birthing in hospitals and that kind of thing. And as well as Chloe's got some people she knows that have lost kids as well. yeah, it was... I can't stand hospitals. They make me incredibly anxious. I'd rather cut a toe off than go to it for a cut or something. Like I'm very anti-hospital. Not when there's an emergency and they're very necessary. I just, yeah, I very much don't like them. So home birth realistically made a lot of sense when I actually assessed the option and the thinking behind it. So I guess, you know, when it was initially sort of proposed to you, Like, did you already, like in terms of, I guess, free birth, if that was the initial sort of in, did you already have that sort of understanding that it was a very natural thing, but no, for when it comes to Chloe though, like I want to make sure like that's kind of, I guess what I'm trying to say is like initially where you like, no, that's not for us. Like we're not that kind of people. It was more the protection side of things. think I'm an intensely protective human over the people that I love. And yeah, I decided to marry Chloe. So I do love her quite a lot. not being safe. was like, no, no, this is a terrible idea. So yeah, was purely from the, the, the fear, I guess of anything potentially happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so when, you know, Do you recall like how many years maybe that kind of like pre Matilda learning about birth sort of was? From memory with Chloe, she said it was definitely a couple of years. Yeah, we'd been talking about it for quite some time. But we hadn't like we hadn't thought about actively trying to conceive until... Yeah, probably at least two years, I think we were talking about this before we actually started to actively try and conceive. And even when we were trying to conceive Matilda, there was still kind of that question of what we were going to do in the kind of birth scenario. So yeah, there was a good two plus years, I'd say of conversation. Yeah. And did you happen to like... mention it to like friends or like even family members that like this was something that you guys were exploring? No, I didn't. Which my there's a big gap between me my brothers and none of my kids, not my kids, none of my friends. I'm the first one in my close knit friend group to have kids. So the yeah, there, there wasn't really that place to talk about it and that kind of thing. So yeah, I it was all very much just conversations between me and Chloe and research that I did. I've listened to a few podcasts, looked up the statistics about, you know, mortality and birth and any complications that come from birth and that kind of stuff. The differences between like a home birth, something going wrong in a hospital birth, something going wrong, all that kind of thing. I did a lot of, I guess, statistical analysis. It's the pragmatic side of me was like, let's crunch some numbers and see if like all this fear that I have is even remotely founded. And then, yeah, turns out no, not really at all. So, yeah, was pretty crazy, right? Because, yeah, was talking to someone earlier and, he was saying, you know, like his piece of advice was like, look, just look at the facts, like, look at, look at it. and it's so true. And if the medical systems were actually looking at the evidence, then they wouldn't be how they are right now. And I think it's just, yeah, a lot of people just can't get over the fact cause we're like, built, well, we're like, you know, I don't know if groomed is the right word, but we're, you know, groomed to like kind of like trust the medical system. And you know, like, you know, I saw today, like somebody saying that their two year old was interested in becoming a doctor. And I was like, the child's two. And I think like, what I mean by that is like, we put doctors and, you know, specialists on this pedestal. Because yeah, like they they know so much and like med school is like so intensive and like whatever else and whatnot. But at the end of the day, they're just literal humans. And they are they fall trap to the same like cultural stuff that you know, non medical people do. Same cultural biases. So And if they're the ones making the guidelines and policies and making decisions, then yeah, it's not all rainbows. Yeah, the Western medical system is very intensely risk averse. anything they can do to control that level of risk or that potential for a poor outcome being like death, essentially being the worst possible outcome they will do to avoid that. but then obviously there's other impacts from interfering with birth and all that kind of thing that will lead to other issues, but it doesn't lead to death in most instances. they're like, that's great. But there's not that kind of broader view or that more. Yeah, I guess I can't think of the word holistic view. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And So, you know, crunching numbers and that kind of stuff. Was there any like particular resource or thing that you did that did really help? There was just like a simple Google. You look at the, I think it's the Bureau of Statistics or whatever it may be. And you just look at the actual results of, you know, home births versus in hospital births, that kind of thing. And then the amount of births that end up being like a C-section or something like that. And you look at the private system versus public system. if you go with a private hospital, then the number of C-sections goes way through the roof. It's like some obscene percentage. I'm going to say like 80 to 90%, but please don't quote me on that. was- It's pretty high. it also varies between obstetricians, between hospitals. Yeah, which is like so wild because at least here in Melbourne, for the public hospitals, like you get zoned to a hospital. So you can't just like pick and choose which hospital you go to. It's just like luck of the draw, like where you live, what you're zoned to. So yeah, I mean, yeah, that's pretty much the same everywhere in Australia, as far as where it's like wherever you live, the closest hospital is the one you're going to. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it was. Yeah, it's, it's a flawed system, in my opinion. Yeah, agreed, agreed. And so you know, working up to like, labor and the birth of Matilda, was there anything that you kind of like started to look into, like to prepare? Or like, did Chloe like give you instructions on like what you had to do or what you were meant to be doing? Because obviously Matilda was came along. much quicker than anticipated. Yes. Yes. Yes. Very much so. But like pre, pre that quick labor, what, what were your jobs? What were you allocated to do? I was allocated getting the birth pool inflated and then filled, which I did. and then she ended up being born in the shower. yeah, that was, was a, that was a really helpful thing that I did that we didn't use at all. no, we didn't. We had a bit of a plan about, you know, we're going to set up a nice space, have some music going. We had like printed and laminated a birth plan, all that kind of thing. it all happened so very quickly that that went out the window and we just did what worked. Which was, yeah, Chloe being in the shower under the nice hot water and like, I'm not going to say happy about it, but it was a much more comfortable experience that way. And yeah, she just went from. my water's broken to like in transition and full labor just so quickly. Yeah, it was kind of astounding and I don't think we realized that I certainly didn't realize that because I was half asleep. I got woken up at quarter past two with my water's broken. I went, wow. Okay. And off we went. Yeah. So it was, but leading up to it, we did some courses. I think it's core and floor was the course that we did. And so I was looking out for the signs about when going through transition, go into yourself kind of thing, into that primal mode. I was looking for that and I think I saw it, but then Chloe was still talking to me. So So mixed messages. Yeah, exactly. was very much the, it was incredible and exactly not what I thought it was going to be. So as much as I thought we were prepared, I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was for sure. which is why very glad we had our midwife. was, yeah, she was my kind of, I guess, sounding board. I just watched her and however she was reacting, I was keying into that while trying to pay attention to Chloe the whole time. But yeah, our midwife asked me before the birth, she's like, you know when to call me? And I jokingly said, yeah, when Chloe starts to moo, I call you. yeah, that's, I called her before Chloe started mooing and lucky I did because I think active labor was eight minutes or something crazy. so wild. like, pre like during that pregnancy stage, like, did you come across any particular fears? you know, because you'd already sort of had in your mind said, well, maybe we'll choose home birth. You know, maybe that will be the path. But like during the pregnancy, did anything in particular come up for you that you know, you had to like work through? Not really. Initially Chloe was very unwell. had... Hyperemesis. Thank you. Yeah. And so she was very unwell for the first trimester. So 10, 12 weeks of just her feeling horrible. So that took up all of my attention for that entire time. So luckily at the time I was working from home. So I was able to work from home and look after to her. So I was juggling full-time work and full-time caregiver effectively. then once we got out of that, I was like, good, okay. She started to feel a bit better. She can actually eat and function. And it was just trying to, I guess, catch back up on work again and then, you know, keep everything kind of together there. So I didn't have a whole lot of, I guess, time that first and second trimester to look into that. into my own feelings, I suppose. was just more worried about her. The trimester, was like, this is happening. Okay, cool. Here we go. Let's like get into the courses. Let's try and learn as much as we can. And we live maybe 10, 15 minutes from the closest hospital. And so I was like, okay, cool. If anything happens, then I'm not going to be calling an ambulance. I'm going to pick her up, put her in the car and go. So yeah, there was, I guess that was my only fear was getting her to emergency medical care if it was needed. Cause in Adelaide we have the ambulance ramping kind of drama and situation. So I was like, well, I don't want to have to rely on an ambulance, which is, you know, kind of a horrible thought, yeah, because we're so close. Yeah. Melbourne as well. Yeah. Dread, dare I say it, dread the day. Yeah. Touching the wood that I have to call an ambulance because Yeah, it's that's I mean, that's a whole other thing. But yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So through this stuff that you did like the call for restore, antenatal classes and whatever else that you came across, that was enough to kind of give you confidence in Chloe, but in this whole home birth thing. Yeah. And like leading up to the birth, we we got in contact with the midwife. virtually as soon as we found out Chloe was pregnant so that we could book someone in to do a home birth. And building that relationship with her was great. She kind of helped us out and she is a very kind of natural midwife. She's like, you know, your body knows what to do. We just have to support you through that. We don't need to interfere and all this other stuff. If it's unnecessary, if there's an emergency and we need to transfer, we will do that. But, you know, people have been giving birth for millennia. You know, we just kind of have to trust in the process and let you do what your body was built to do. yeah, it was very reassuring. And I think that very much helped. Yeah. Yeah. And then so, so Chloe wakes you up and says, my waters have broken. And do you remember like, are you panicked? Are you excited? Are you like, sleepy. What the heck? Just the first thing was, what? Can we do this another time? Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm a slow person to wake up at the best of times. you know, she woke me up, took me a few shakes, took a few shakes to wake me up. What's going on? She's like, I think my water just broke. I was like, wow. which hilariously was the exact same thing. I told her when she said to her, when she told me she was pregnant. and she's like, I'm going to go have a shower and wash my hair. And I'm like, that's right. All right. No worries. And she's like, can you blow up the stuff? Yeah, exactly. She's like, I'll go have a shower. It'll be nice and relaxing. I wash my hair. I'll feel really nice. I'm like, okay, cool. No worries. I lay there for a minute and like let my body catch up with my brain and got up, went and checked her in the shower and she's like, yeah, I'm okay. She was just kind of swaying in the shower and letting the water do its thing. And then I went in the lounge room, which is at the other end of the house, essentially, and blew up the pool. And that took me probably about maybe 10 minutes. And in that time, she was, yeah, she'd pretty much gone into active labor and was transitioning, I guess. And was, yeah, kind of on all fours in the shower and, you know, feeling all of the movements and things happening. remember, I think when I first went in to check on her, said, do you think I should call Panita the midwife? And he goes, I think we're okay for now. was like, okay, no worries. Cool, cool. go and do the job that I am assigned. So I went and then I was trying to figure out the hose attachments to go on the tap and that kind of thing quickly. I was like, look at this in a minute. Went back and checked on her in the shower again. She clearly had quite the change. And I was like, okay, maybe we should call Panita now. And I feel like Chloe said yes, but at the same time, I don't think she was overly responsive. So she just kind of went, yeah. I was like, all right, cool. Call Panita. And she's like, hello. told her, yeah, we're in labor, waters are broken, in the shower. And Panita also very sleepily is like, do you need me to come now? And I was like, said, Chloe, do you think Panita needs to come? And Chloe's response was something along the lines of I don't know in groan. And then Panita on the other end said, okay, I'm on my way. No worries. Cool, happy days. Yeah, so off she went and then we were in there for a little while and then hanging out in the bathroom and I was just putting the water over Chloe's back and stuff said I'm gonna go and unlock the front door put the shower head back in a told her went around unlock the front door so Pane didn't come in straight away and then came back and yeah in that time Chloe's like you were gone forever I was like maybe 30 seconds I promise I'm right here and we just kind of went through that process. remember my feet being on fire because I was like crouching down in the bathtub. I'm a large human. I know you don't record video, but I'm like six foot one, 130 kilos. So I'm a big dude and my feet were on fire. And I was just like, okay, we got this. This is fine. Everything's fine. My feet don't matter. I'm just going to hang out here. And then I was like, Panita's taking a while. I called her and she was like around the corner. And she, yeah, kind of got there and when things progressed even further and Panita left the room to call the secondary midwife to come and be her support. then Chloe said, I feel the head. And I said, where? Which is a really silly thing to say. Where do you think the head's going to be, And then Panita comes running down the hallway, turn the water off because she was in the shower, not the bath. So we had to the water on to make sure Matilda didn't aspirate in any water. And then before that, Panita told Chloe that the water would have to go off when when bubs started to come out and stuff and Chloe replied with that's bullshit because that was the only thing that was really helping her through the process. And then at some point I went and locked the dogs out in the laundry because they were barking like crazy. Panita got there it was all a bit of chaos. Yeah. Yeah. And then don't know how do you want me to Go through the floor. yeah, yeah, keep going. This is great. And then, yeah, head came out, baby came out, hit the floor a little bit, just kind of did a little donut on the floor of the shower. Thankfully, I'd cleaned it like two days before. Yeah, I you saying that. And I remember seeing a bit of blood and I was like, God, there's blood. And obviously it was in the shower mixed with water. So it looked like a lot more than there actually was. And in that instant, I panicked. was like, God, is this hemorrhage? Like my mind automatically went to all the terrible places. Then I just looked at Panita and she wasn't fazed at all. was like, no, we're good. Okay, cool. And I just, remember having this huge spike of adrenaline going, crap. And then, no, everything's fine. We're good. Wow. Matilda gave out a cry pretty much straight away and off we went to try and I tried to pick Chloe up out of the shower, but the umbilical cord was in the way. So Chloe kind of had to pick herself up because it was a very small shower. And then, yeah, we went and put down a nice big waterproof blanket in bed and laid down and Matilda did a tummy crawl to get her first feed and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, it was beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to cry sitting here. This is ridiculous. but that's, that's so funny. I, I think I might've like used the audio that Chloe, Chloe said that she was like, I feel the head and then Tom was like, where is like, that's brilliant. yeah, like. Wow, Tom, that's, I think you've told it so perfectly. Like, I think that really speaks to the power of continuity of care and like knowing your midwife and having that trust in the midwife. like the midwife has trust in Chloe and like you as, know, a duo as well. So it's just like, yeah, like amazing. like, so interesting as well, because yeah, like as first time parents, you're told generally that, like, it's like usually longer and like, it's going to take a while. And so yeah, like you did, did such a good thing by being you know, kind of reading the room, being like, I actually think that maybe we do need to call Panita. Yeah, it was it was very, very sudden and unexpected. Chloe, her mom had a very quick first, first birth. And then I think the second one was even quicker with her brother. So yeah. And I have no idea about my birth story. I know I was born via Caesarian. Outside of that, I've got no idea how I came around. But yeah, it was astounding. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And like from the perspective of like dad, you know, those early hours, those early days, thoughts, feelings, how like, how would you say it was? It changes your brain and it changes the way you think. Prior to this, I was like, I can't love anyone more than I love Chloe. No way. Like no chance. But I don't think I love Matilda more than I love Chloe, but it is an incredibly different type of love. yeah, that little human is just my entire universe. that kind of starts from the beginning. You first hold your kid and we did skin to skin and that kind of thing and I was just like wow Yeah, like this tiny little critter is just like a part of you, which is yes an incredibly alien yet perfectly human concept So yeah, and a lot of people I've heard like take a little while to connect and all that kind of stuff and it took me probably a couple of days to really connect to Matilda because obviously You know, she's been part of Chloe literally growing inside of it. And so that, you know, the outside world was just a complete shock, but just being able to hold her and interact with her outside of feeling a kick against Chloe's stomach and that kind of stuff was pretty boggling. was very lucky. The company I was working for at the time had a pretty great parental leave policy, so I had eight weeks off and just got to be home and be dad and help Chloe. And yeah, she was able to really kind of rest and recover. Not that she did, she got up after like 12 hours and started doing stuff because that's the human she is. And I was like, you should probably stop that. she said, I'm just going to go and do this. I'm just going to, I'm just going to say, okay, You should, you should be resting. So yeah, but. Yeah, it was crazy to just have this tiny little human in the world now and just completely changes your view on your role in the world. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like to finish up, like if another dad or partner or like somebody was asking like, you know, for advice on like if they were on the fence about home birth, is there something that you would tell like say to them? Like what would you say to them? Talk to the services in your area, you know, the people who at least here the people that do home birth do it because they believe it's the thing to do, you know, they believe in the process and they want to help women give birth so that they can do it in the most natural way possible and have the best connection to the kids. So yeah, talk to the services in your area, do as much research as you can. And don't, I don't know, unless you have some seriously huge risk factors, don't buy into any of the, I don't want to say propaganda, because it seems like a bit of a buzzword, but it kind of is propaganda about the danger of home birth. As long as you are a healthy human, and you don't have the risk factors, then you can absolutely give birth at home and you should feel empowered to do so. So, and if your partner is so set on that, then, you know, then by all means, listen to them and do the research together, do a bit on your own. If you feel like, you know, you have questions that might be a bit awkward to talk with your partner about, but yeah, do the research and there's probably a reason your partner wants to do home birth and try and find out that reason as well. Yeah. That's perfect. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you really wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about or anything like that? I don't know, being a dad's great. Best job you'll ever have. One of the hardest jobs you'll ever have. But it'll all work out in the end. It'll all work out in the end. Thank you so, so much, Tom. No worries. Thanks for having me.