My birth plans for August.

I am aiming to have a home water birth, with no drugs apart from gas and air.

That said I am a first time mum and I reserve the right to change my mind, in any or all respects once I actually start in labour.

I want to stay at home during labour, as I think it will be easier to relax and hopefully the more relaxed I am the easier it will be to cope with the pain of labour.

I have an unreasonable fear of hospitals arising from my several hospital stays as a young child. Though logically, entering hospital as a pregnant adult must be a totally different experience than what I can remember from 25 years ago as a sick child but if I can avoid a hospital stay, I will. Though I should point out that if for the health of my child I need to go to hospital I will go and willingly but I am hopeing it will not be necessary....fingers crossed.

As part of my online research, I have been looking at all sorts of water pools which can be hired or bought for a home water birth.

I have decided on this purpose designed inflatable birthing pool from Made In Water.


This pool has the following advantages…..it is a lot cheaper than renting a rigid pool, so if we can't use it for labour for whatever reason I won't feel that we have wasted lots of money.

We get to keep the pool and hence it can be used as a paddling pool, sand pit or ball pit for Bert next summer.

Unlike the rigid pools, this one takes up far less space in our living room and can be stored deflated in a little bag until we need it.

We will be the only people to use this pool so it will be brand new and perfectly clean. I know the rental pools offer additional liners to use with their pools but we are still dependant on other people cleaning the pools well, which is off putting.

The only potential issue is our cats might scratch it and hence puncture it, so that is my dear husband’s role during labour the setting up and supervising of the pool so the cats don't go near it. We reckon the cats will disappear anyway once I'm in labour, especially once our midwifes arrive, so hopefully this won't be a problem.

Lastly when I contacted this company with a couple of queries, they responded quickly and gave me good friendly answers and they even fielded my 'cat question' with a thoughtful response. If their pools are as good as their customer service, then I'll be one happy bunny.

The strangest thing is that I am really looking forward to going into labour, not the pain of course but as the final inevitable step between being pregnant and seeing our Bert in real life.

Roll on August 06