#gbspositive

Hi Kat

We're all very well thank you! Byron is such a sweet, serious little thing and I'm soaking up every precious newborn moment with him - even the sleep-deprived ones! Speaking of sleeplessness, every midwife/doctor has now remarked on how super strong and wriggly he is (he rolled over from his front to his back at 2.5 weeks old which my midwife says is just ridiculous!) - it all makes complete sense that he was flipping from transverse to breech to oblique, keeping me up at night with his constant acrobatics in the tummy right up until the day of labour.

So, GBS and home birth. I was basically told at the beginning that I didn't fall into the normal criteria for homebirth and was marked as 'high risk' due to the fact that I'd previously had GBS when I was pregnant with Tallis. Apparently Homerton have a policy to treat mothers as high risk and GBS positive if they've had a previous GBS-positive pregnancy, which is slightly ridiculous as we know that GBS comes and goes - you could very well test positive for GBS in one pregnancy but negative in the next. BUT, as every woman is entitled to give birth at home, I was able to meet with the consultant midwife at Homerton who was satisfied that I was making an informed decision and 'signed' me off for a homebirth. I think what helped sway it for her is me mentioning at the time that I would accept IV antibiotics if I tested positive at 37 weeks.

I did some research on having antibiotics at home and found that some hospitals did offer that option - unfortunately Homerton is not one of them. In fact, I don't think that many London hospitals do. When I asked about the possibility of having antibiotics administered to me at home during labour, I was told by a few midwives that there was categorically no way that the hospital would be able to provide that. The best they could offer was for me to go in to Homerton at the start of labour to get a course of IV antibiotics, return home to have the baby, then go back into hospital for the 24 hours of observations. My lovely midwife who looked after me throughout pregnancy and ended up delivering Byron (Cate in the homebirth team) did make a valid point that they don't like to give IV antibiotics at home as there is always the small (but real) risk of a severe allergic reaction occurring and the mother then needing immediate medical attention in hospital setting.

Much to my own surprise, I ended up deciding at 38 weeks - following a positive test result, having read the AIMS booklet and doing lots of research online - that I was actually going to refuse the antibiotics in labour. It wasn't a decision that George and I made lightly, but for me, the benefits of being able to birth in a calm home environment and not have the invasive procedure of canula insertion and being hooked up to the drip etc far outweighed the risk of the baby developing GBS without antibiotics in labour (I believe it's one in 300?). Cate was very supportive of my decision which helped massively I think. I would have gone in for the 24hour observations but Byron was born after a quick 9 hour labour (a massive change from my first 3-day labour with Tallis!) which meant we were at low risk of him developing symptoms. My membranes also ruptured right at the end pushing stage, which meant he was protected right up to the end, clever boy! We discussed things with Cate and decided we would do our obs at home until a midwife visited in the morning, which worked out well for us.

By the way, speaking of the birth - how funny that I emailed you right when I was in labour, I was obviously having a bit of a wobble with no idea of what was to shortly come! And guess what, as soon as I found out I was in labour, I switched off my 'thinking brain' and ended up having Byron naturally, with no pain relief, not even gas and air - just breathing techniques and visualisations!!

Thank you so much for your lovely card in the post by the way! I've attached a picture of us, taken the morning of his birth, and another that George took when he was a week old - would be lovely to introduce you soon!

Much love

Ax