In the West, the first birth most people experience is their own. I had the privilege and gift of being at my friend's birth long before my own. Here's the story.

In 2011, my friend Sophie invited me to be at the birth of her first baby. She was planning a homebirth and had been told she could have whoever she wanted there for it. I'm close with both her and her husband, Ed, and they wanted me to join them along with Ed's sister, Lulu, who already had kids.

I was thrilled. I loved them, I loved babies, and I was excited to get to see a real live birth. What didn't occur to me at the time was to plan or prepare in any way. I did zero Googling, I read zero books, I talked to zero people about birth. It just didn't cross my mind.

One morning in July, I woke up to a text from Ed letting me know Sophie was in labor. She was in the bedroom wanting to be left alone and that there was no rush, but I could come over any time. When I arrived, I joined Ed in the living room and we talked until it was time to move into the bedroom and join Sophie who was deep in her labor bubble.

At some point Lulu arrived, as did the gentle NHS midwives who sat quietly in the corner taking notes. We didn't do much, and Sophie was doing amazingly.

Ed, on the other hand, was struggling. With no plan, no concrete steps to take and no idea how to support his wife, he started getting overwhelmed. I made a lot of tea and toast, and spent more time trying to keep Ed grounded than supporting Sophie.

At some point the midwives' shift ended and two new midwives arrived. The first thing the main midwife wanted to know was who all these people were in the room. She was rude and aggressive and made it very clear that, as I wasn't a relative, I shouldn't be there. Thankfully Sophie was deeply enough in her labor that she wasn't aware of the bad vibes that came with the shift change.

The only times I actively helped Sophie were when she asked me to. I rubbed her back. She stood between me and Lulu and we held her while she swayed. I fed her water, I helped her use the toilet, I helped her into the shower.

There was a small birth pool someone had handed down to them, but we hadn't made a plan about using it so it just sat there in the corner of the room.

By early evening, the midwives thought Sophie's bladder was stopping the baby descending so they gave her a catheter, and soon after that it was time for her to push. She knelt and leaned over the side of her bed, Ed and Lulu either side of her, me at her feet, while we all cheered and shouted words of encouragement like we were on the side of a football pitch (it makes me cringe to think about it).

She didn't push for long before her baby's head was birthed. The baby was completely blue. Instantly, the midwife cut the cord, pulled her out of Sophie's body and started resuscitating her. Time stopped. None of us breathed. Ed was white. Sophie, who had no idea what was happening, was smiling and laughing. Then she asked why the baby wasn't crying. None of us could answer her.

After what felt like an eternity, the baby starting making a grizzling sound. I looked at her and, even though they hadn't picked a name, I saw in her face that her name was Sarah.

The midwives called an ambulance, gave Sophie a shot to release the placenta and, even though she was about to be transported to hospital, Sophie was deep in an oxytocin high, holding and gazing at her baby girl.

The ambulance arrived, they left for the hospital and Lulu and I stayed behind and cleaned up.

I went home and I was a mess. I was in shock that a textbook labor with no signs of any issues could end with a dramatic, life or death situation. Like most people, all my birth education came from watching television. I had no idea what midwives did. No idea might go wrong at a birth. No idea what was normal and not.

I talked a lot with my boyfriend (who is now my husband) to try and process it all. It had been such an amazing experience and such a terrible one. Such a high and such a low. It had been birth.

The next morning Ed texted me and let me know mum and baby were doing fine, and that I could come up and visit them in the hospital. He also let me know they had named her Sarah.

It took me a long time to process the shock I felt from Sarah's birth. All these years later, I can still clearly see her being born and being resuscitated. I can see Ed and Lulu's faces and hear Sophie's voice. I can remember what that mean midwife looked like.

A few months later, another friend asked me to be her birth partner. She was having her second baby at home after a traumatic hospital birth that ended in a vacuum extraction. Like most people, she'd gone into her first birth underprepared. When she unpacked everything afterwards, she realized she hadn't been relaxed enough to surrender and that had led to her traumatic experience.

For her next birth she wanted to do everything she could to feel relaxed. She chose a homebirth, she did hypnobirthing, and she wanted me to be her birth partner instead of her husband, who didn't make her feel as relaxed as I did. In the end she decided to have her husband there instead of me, and had her redemptive homebirth. She'd learned the hard way how important it was to intentionally create her birth environment for a positive experience.

Being at a birth is such a privilege. Even though I'm so grateful to have been at Sarah's birth, and Sophie and Ed feel I was a great help to them, I regret that I didn't do a better job. I wish I'd learned about birth, and I wish I'd learned how to be a birth partner.

I learned a lot from Sarah's birth. At the time all I could see was that birth is unpredictable and scary and it made me feel more nervous about my own first birth. But after having more experience in birth, in reflection I gained more perspective from having attended a birth as well as giving birth.

I learned that you need to prepare for birth. Whether you're the one giving birth or the one supporting them. Everyone in the room should know what to expect, how to be supportive, when to step in and when to step back.

I learned that everyone needs to know their rights. None of us knew what to say to the midwife who was telling me to get out the house, and it sucked energy away from our job of supporting Sophie into defending my right to exist in the space.

I learned that the team you have around you when you give birth is important. That feeling safe and supported is everything.

I learned that as a support person, it's important to have knowledge, tools and skills so you can preempt the needs of the person giving birth, not just rely on them to ask for what they need.

Birth is a wild and crazy ride, whichever side of it you're on.