Blueberry smoothie…and a birth story |

I wanted to share this recipe with you guys as it’s actually the first thing I had after a gave birth to my newest little addition, baby Buddy, on the 16th of March this year. It was just what I fancied…cool, refreshing, hydrating and packed with iron, perfect for a tired mama who’s just been through the equivalent of a marathon! For anyone wondering how I (or to be precise, Mr H) was able to magic up a smoothie shortly after birth, well, that is the beauty I guess of giving birth at home with all your creature comforts around you. Having had two incredible births, which I can only describe using words like calm, empowering, relaxing, exhilarating and serene, I wanted to share my story on here (as well as this recipe) for anyone who wants to read it.

I used to claim that I wanted to have an elective C section when I had kids, because I have such a low pain threshold. However when I was pregnant with Azaria (baby H, who I guess isn’t the baby of the house anymore) I learnt about hypnobirthing and home birth from my incredible sister in law Juliet Hollingsworth, and thought I’d like to give it a go. My labour with Azaria was just wonderful, and left me feeling so excited at the prospect of doing it again.

Although I was itching to get pregnant again. my body had other ideas. I have PCOS and definitely ended up with adrenal fatigue after Azaria’s birth, so it took some time to fine tune my cycle and get things back up and running again. I ended up falling pregnant with baby Buddy somewhere between day 35-40 of a super long cycle, which felt like a total miracle! I’m quite an anxious person and have been in both my pregnancies, to the point I have had to ask my proud parents and in-laws to refrain from telling everyone and their dog about my pregnancy until my baby is safely in my arms. And I guess that extended to social media as well, as I felt like it would only add to my already heightened sense of anxiety if I were to ‘announce’ it to the world of Instagram or Facebook. So for anyone who wondered why I hadn’t mentioned it at all, that’s why really! Safe to say that now that he’s here you can expect a lot of baby spam!

Anyway back to birth (for those who are interested), after having the most wonderful (and quick) home birth with Azaria, I was so desperate to have that experience once more. I felt more calm and confident about the whole birth process and couldn’t wait to get there. I’d been expecting him to arrive a little earlier than Azaria did (she was 2 days late), and all my friends who were due around the same time as me had had their babies early too, so boy was I frustrated when my due date came and went. The midwives started saying words like ‘sweep’ and ‘induction’, which I was not up for. Luckily after going to see my amazing acupuncturist and her magic needles one week after my due date things seemed to start up. That night I started getting mild contractions throughout the night, but tried not to get excited as I knew that really I should get some rest. I remember saying to Mr H in the middle of the night ‘I feel like doing a hakka’ I was so ready to deal with whatever my uterus had to throw at me!

I woke up in the morning and contractions were mild and totally manageable. To add to my frustration they stayed like that all day, and every time I came out of our dark bedroom where I’d set up camp watching Netflix they seemed to stop altogether. In the afternoon I realised that my body was just waiting for Azaria to go to bed. I was so right. At 8pm she was snoozing away, and by 9pm my contractions were coming every five minutes. We decided to wait until 10pm to call the midwives, but by then it was more like every four. My midwife had to leave the cinema in the middle of her film because she knew that if it was anything like my first birth it was going to be quick. She arrived at 11pm and by this point they were coming around every 2-3 minutes and were, in a word, intense. She did an examination and I was 7cm, so I got into the birth pool that Mr H had set up in our living room. It wasn’t long before I felt an almighty need to push. His head came out and I let it crown…despite how utterly weird it felt (ring of fire alright) I knew I had to breathe him out as slowly as possible. He popped out, so gently, still in his sac (!) and at 12.24am on 16/03/19 he breathed his first breath. 8 pounds and 6 ounces of my baby boy, and not so much as a scratch.

Within 12 hours I felt completely back to normal, even ‘down there’. The recovery time was just ridiculous. I honestly think that if I hadn’t had used the hypnobirthing techniques to stay calm, and had such a gentle and lovely home birth, there’s no way it would have been as easy afterwards. The midwives left us to it just over an hour after he was born, and Azaria woke up in the morning to her new baby brother! From that moment she was just besotted. He slotted into our family like the most natural thing in the world and we’ve just been on a little cloud ever since.

Now obviously I know that home birthing isn’t possible for everyone, nor indeed everyone’s cup of tea, but I do think that if you do get the chance then it is a wonderful thing to do, and you can always change your mind during and transfer into hospital instead. Hypnobirthing however can be fabulous for everyone, whatever kind of birth you plan on/end up having, as although it’s such a physical experience, the power of the mind is just incredible too.

And back to this smoothie. It totally did the trick after he’d arrived, but it’s just such a delicious start to any day! I like using frozen fruit to make it super cold and thick, but if you don’t have it frozen then fresh is fine too! It’s definitely one of my favourite morning smoothies, I really hope you guys love it too!

Serves 1

Ingredients