Sovereign Birth
Izzy Armstrong-Holmes describes how planning a home birth and the resulting caesarean delivery have led to a powerful transformation
May 2024
Yesterday, our daughter Mary was born by caesarean section. I’d planned a home birth, to heal deep wounds caused by the traumatic, heavily medicalised birth of our first daughter, Bess, four years ago. I did everything I could to prepare for a home birth this time and was certain that, if I ended up in hospital again, I would feel I’d failed, or I’d be traumatised all over again. But I don’t feel I’ve failed and I’m not traumatised. Choosing to walk out of my house into an ambulance, to end my beautiful, intimate, powerful, gutsy home birth labour, and transfer to hospital for a caesarean, is the most empowering thing I have ever done.