Fair City actor Aisling Kearns welcomed her first in October.
And she is certainly settling into motherhood.
She has now discussed her birth and why she opted to go for a home birth.
Writing on social media, she explained: “When I first heard of a home birth my initial thoughts were, ‘No way, sure I need to be in a hospital’ but then after a wonderful chat with @midwife_aine I learned all about home birth and how it was actually much more suited to me and my preferences.
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“So I started planning my HSE homebirth. My midwife was @midwife_darry.reed and my doula was @birth_power_ .
“I couldn’t of done it without their constant support. I also have to mention how wonderful @dave_fennell38 was too, he was by my side for the entire birth and supported me in all the ways I needed before and during Tommy’s birth.”
She went into further detail on the Everymum podcast, admitting that she was never comfortable with hospitals and been looking for other options during her pregnancy.
“I knew that it was what I wanted to do. For a lot of people, they’re thinking that they want to have the option of pain relief. I knew that if I needed to go to the hospital or get pain relief, that I could go.
“It’s not a thing that’s spoken about or offered to you when you become pregnant. You don’t have to go to the hospital, but your brain just thinks that’s where you go to have your baby.
“We are conditioned to think that it’s the safest place to have a child. But before there were hospitals, women were doing it. I just don’t find hospitals comfortable. I’ve never felt comfortable in a hospital,” she explained.
She went on to say: “I had complete support around me all the time telling me I was well capable of doing it. I had my wobble, everyone does.
“My midwife encouraged me. I was 8cm dilated and exhausted. At that point, I was like, ‘ring the ambulance and get me in for the epidural now!’
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“But I moved upstairs into the bathroom and got into the zone. I had my birth pool downstairs, so I was in there for about two hours but I just couldn’t get in the zone. The contractions were coming on top of me and I didn’t feel like I had control.
“Next thing we knew, we were in the bedroom and he was being born a half an hour into pushing. I put it down to a home birth that my labour was short. I was only in active, intense labour for four hours. All the right hormones were pumping at the same time.”
She did end up needing hospital intervention due to issues with her placenta.
“I did have to go to hospital for a manual removal. We ended up needing to be there because Tommy had jaundice, so I try to look at the positives. It’s good that we were there because he could get checked,” she explained.
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“He had light therapy, so he ended up being in hospital a lot for the first week of his life. I had to stay in the hospital for three nights and then I was home for one or two, and then we had to go back in again for more light therapy. It’s just crazy. It’s so busy in there. It’s terrifying.
However, she admitted that it was “super overwhelming”, explaining that she would probably go down the home birth route once again.