kirsty3
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Time goes so quickly, I've been meaning to write up Isabelle's birth story but haven't had a chance before now, she'll be 3 weeks old tomorrow! I'm grabbing time while she's having a sleep on my lap after a feed...
We'd been planning a homebirth and had a massive octagonal birthing pool set up and ready to go in our living room. We'd done hypnobirthing and I'd been totally inspired by the book "Birthing from within". We were lucky enough to have a friend as a doula, and we'd spent hours making birth art and talking, preparing birth plans and enjoying delicious meals with her. Both Dave and I wanted things to be as natural as possible, I wanted to be fully conscious and aware of the birth process and wanted to avoid medical intervention as much as I could. The pregnancy was all straight forward (apart from bad morning sickness and some SPD), I was categorised as low risk and we were hopeful that we could follow our plans closely.
I had a few weeks of latent labour, with irregular contractions that would start, build up, become semi regular and then fizzle out, mostly in the evenings - this was quite exhausting physically and emotionally as I never knew if they'd lead anywhere.
Towards the end of my pregnancy I found myself stressing out rather a lot, I hadn't properly anticipated the pressure from the midwives to have the baby within their preferred timescale as per their policy/NICE guidelines. I was offered a sweep before I was even 40 weeks along, it felt too soon and I wanted things to start naturally if possible so declined. The longer we waited though, the more pressure we seemed to be under, to the extent that every time I saw a midwife my blood pressure was going through the roof (it was fine the rest of the time, we were monitoring it at home and kept showing them the log!) Just about every appointment, the midwifes advised that I should go into hospital for monitoring because of my blood pressure and how "overdue" Isabelle was, they all said this route would lead to probable induction. I declined and felt more pressured by what they were saying, blood pressure got worse during appointments etc - not the best cycle to be stuck in! I felt that Isabelle was moving lots and was fine, Dave and I weren't worried about her. We'd been told that normal birth happens anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks and wanted to give Isabelle as much of a chance as we could to come naturally. I'd agreed to additional monitoring after 42 weeks if we were still waiting for her appearance, instead of induction, but hoped I wouldn't have to even go for the monitoring, as I don't like hospitals and also because of the blood pressure pattern.
After 41 weeks of pregnancy I started trying anything natural that I could to get things started, I also found a deep calmness within myself, like being in the eye of the storm (most of the time anyway!). I spent hours and hours talking to Isabelle and telling her everything was ready, we loved her and anytime she felt ready to come my arms were ready and waiting to hold her. I spent hours in the birthing pool listening to the hypnobirthing CDs. I tried massaging evening primrose oil onto my bump and munching lots of capsules every day. I let one of the midwives try a sweep but it didn't work - things were softening and dilating but not enough for a sweep, my cervix was still slightly posterior. I tried massaging with clary sage and adding it to baths. I tried nipple stimulation, sex, acupressure points, homeopathy, even castor oil. I tried distracting myself, going for walks, watching movies, reading. I had a reflexologist round for an induction session on 11 April and enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing session with her.
On 12 April I thought I really didn't want to go for my midwife appointment the following day (I'd be 41 weeks and 6 days and didn't want another "conversation" about induction) so I spent ALL morning trying everything I could to get things going, I felt like the time had come. At 11am I downed the remainder of the bottle of castor oil, feeling rather desperate. An hour later I noticed the contractions had started again, in their irregular way. I decided to watch a movie to distract myself and help try relax me, randomly I chose "The Chronicles of Narnia" which I rather enjoyed. When Dave came home at about six I realised the contractions still hadn't fizzled out, I felt extremely calm but not especially hopeful that this would be different to all the other times. Dave said he'd have liked to have watched that movie so we started watching it over again together. At about 8:30pm I apologised to him, saying we couldn't carry on with the movie as the contractions were now so strong that I couldn't focus on anything else, this was the point we realised active labour had finally started. We had already decided that we wanted to call the midwives later rather than sooner - I didn't want hours of them of them monitoring me if it was going to stress me. We made the environment as calm and loving as possible - dim lighting, soothing music, aromatherapy oils (lavender and rose). We had throws over the bookcases to make the room look more restful, there was a beautiful birthing prayer flag and pregnant Goddess figure borrowed from our doula, birth art on the walls and the birthing pool was up to temperature and ready to go,
I hadn't expected a lot of back labour, especially as I'd been trying to map Isabelle's position using OFP, I knew she'd swung around once the previous week but I'd managed to move her through hanging over the birthing ball for hours - in early labour she turned again though and I had lower back pain which I could only describe as excruciating. Initially we tried using the birthing ball, paracetamol and a hot water bottle and I'd push backwards onto something for pressure during each contraction - nothing seemed to help as much as Dave massaging the lower part of my back as hard as possible with his thumbs, so he ended up doing this during each contraction, and between some of them too. I still wasn't convinced that this was it, so asked Dave to try get some sleep in case it all faded away again and he had to try get to work the following day. I think he managed to sleep for a while, I listened to the hypnobirthing CDs and kept as calm as I could, bracing my back hard against the back of the sofa through each contraction for as long as I could and resting in between, I'm not sure how long this lasted for, but eventually I ended up calling for Dave and telling him it was more intense and I needed him now, I felt I needed something to help so put on my birthing beads (strung together beads from family and friends, each with a well wish for the birth) and the birthing wrap I'd bought, Dave put more waterproofs down and kept rubbing my back through contractions for what seemed like a long time. I had a list of people I was intending to text for them to light candles for us, but there didn't seem to be a right time - I didn't want to tell people too early and then I guess it was too late, sorry people!
At some point everything became even more intense and I decided that getting in the pool might help, Dave rubbed my back through contractions and we used what for us was the essence of hypnobirthing - gentle arm stroking while I tried to keep relaxing deeper and deeper. We sat like that in silence for probably 2 or 3 hours - Dave gently stroking my arm whenever a contraction started and me trying to rest in between, we were working together as a team and it was wonderfully comforting.
Sometime between 2 and 3 am I felt my body starting to push downwards involuntarily and quite strongly and I felt like I needed a lot more support - Dave called our doula to come, and also called the hospital to send the midwifes.
Our doula arrived and started helping immediately - giving me water to sip, clary sage to sniff and mopping my rather damp face with a flannel, generally being encouraging and positive. She hung one of my birth art pictures close to me to focus on. She told me afterwards that she loved seeing how Dave and I worked together so well through contractions - at this stage he was in the pool with me and we were very silent and in tune with each other, at one stage I was resting my head on the edge of the pool and Dave's head dipped too (in tiredness?) which to her looked totally like we were dealing with things together perfectly.
The first midwife arrived, she was gentle and caring and I felt totally comfortable with her monitoring me. She monitored the baby underwater during contractions when I agreed (and respected my wishes when I declined or said there was a contraction coming), she said Isabelle was one of the calmest babies that she had monitored through labour. The second midwife arrived at some - somebody I'd met before and she'd come even though it was her day off, she was Irish and matter of fact and gave good practical support, they worked well as a team. Both stuck to the prepared birth plan and respected that I'd asked not for any internal examinations or what I felt was excessive monitoring, I loved that they were flexible enough to do to give us the space to birth how we felt was right for us.
My body was still pushing downwards and had been for what seemed like ages, I began to feel pressure above my bum and even though I'd read about this I hadn't quite grasped what it'd be like in reality, my birth team reassured me that this was all normal. My body felt so awesomely strong with these pushes, I felt like I was riding a wave of power but was determined to keep things measured and controlled, I wanted to birth Isabelle slowly and avoid tearing as much as I could. The pressure slowly moved to above my perineum and I could feel the bump of her head through my skin with my hand, everything felt so open and strong and powerful. At some point she started to crown and I could feel her head myself - starting to come out but then yo-yoing back in, again and again and again, stretching my body and getting us both ready for birth. During each contraction I collapsed with my head on the side of the birthing pool and just rested as much as I could. I was still battling with back pain, in my birth plan I'd said gas and air and I was very thankful when the midwives got this up and running. I got into this routine of pushing using the gas and air during each contraction, then resting during them, with our doula encouraging me to have some water and honey to keep my strength up, this stage lasted for ages. At some point I became aware and remarked that birds were starting to chirp outside and faint light was starting to come in through the curtains. Later on I felt I'd been pushing for an eternity and remember saying that she wasn't coming out like this. We all agreed that getting out the pool might be a good idea, I'd been in there for hours at this point. Our doula helped me to the bathroom and squatted on the floor in front of the toilet holding my hands, I remember giving her a wild-eyed look and saying "She's coming". I strongly felt that I didn't want to give birth in the bathroom and I started to waddle back to the living room - a great effort at this stage! At the same time the others started to say that my waters had gone (rather late for that and I honestly can't remember myself, I was so focussed on the baby's head). I didn't manage to get back in the pool and part of me didn't want to, I knelt down naked at the edge of the pool, with one knee on the soft, unwaterproofed rug and one knee on the hard, waterproofed, laminate floor. Dave was still in the pool and embraced me from the front, saying he loved me. Our doula was holding me from behind and I was very aware of her friendship, love and support, and I had a midwife at each of my sides, both saying supportive things. I totally went with what my body wanted, it opened more than seemed possible and Isabelle crowned. Somebody told me to feel her head and I refused as I'd been feeling her head for quite a while already in the pool! Still I was determined to birth her slowly and carefully, not in a massive push, and I managed to do this, pushing more of her out gently push by push. One of the midwifes caught her and immediately passed her between my legs for me to pick up, which I did. I sunk to the floor holding Isabelle, feeling ecstatic, exhausted and rather amazed that it had all just happened and I now had a baby!
Isabelle was born at precisely 7am on 13 April. I was 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant She was a beautiful little thing, very calm and alert. We had precious skin to skin time straight away, there was lots of vernix everywhere and she latched on to a nipple. I couldn't believe how beautiful and small she was. I felt in awe of the birth process, nature and the power of my body, I also felt exhausted and relieved. I was glad she had such a natural birth, and that she had come at home surrounded by love and calm.
Shortly after the birth I felt some pain, which we thought was the placenta, but it was followed by a pool of blood. I passed Isabelle to Dave and lay down. The midwives realised I was hemorrhaging badly, and they stepped in. This could have happened anywhere but was a scary experience. I was rushed in to hospital by ambulance and am grateful to the NHS for stopping the bleeding and stabilising things. I stayed there for 3 days and had 2 blood transfusions, they let Isabelle stay with me and Dave spent all the time he could at the hospital too. We're all home now and I am loads stronger again and we're settling down to being a family. Apart from the hemorrhage, I had one small tear 1-2cm long, and this has healed naturally, as has the bruising (with the help of a bit of arnica and some herbs). In my mind, the birth went wonderfully and was a very empowering and natural, powerful experience, I'm proud that Isabelle had this as her entrance into the world.
We'd been planning a homebirth and had a massive octagonal birthing pool set up and ready to go in our living room. We'd done hypnobirthing and I'd been totally inspired by the book "Birthing from within". We were lucky enough to have a friend as a doula, and we'd spent hours making birth art and talking, preparing birth plans and enjoying delicious meals with her. Both Dave and I wanted things to be as natural as possible, I wanted to be fully conscious and aware of the birth process and wanted to avoid medical intervention as much as I could. The pregnancy was all straight forward (apart from bad morning sickness and some SPD), I was categorised as low risk and we were hopeful that we could follow our plans closely.
I had a few weeks of latent labour, with irregular contractions that would start, build up, become semi regular and then fizzle out, mostly in the evenings - this was quite exhausting physically and emotionally as I never knew if they'd lead anywhere.
Towards the end of my pregnancy I found myself stressing out rather a lot, I hadn't properly anticipated the pressure from the midwives to have the baby within their preferred timescale as per their policy/NICE guidelines. I was offered a sweep before I was even 40 weeks along, it felt too soon and I wanted things to start naturally if possible so declined. The longer we waited though, the more pressure we seemed to be under, to the extent that every time I saw a midwife my blood pressure was going through the roof (it was fine the rest of the time, we were monitoring it at home and kept showing them the log!) Just about every appointment, the midwifes advised that I should go into hospital for monitoring because of my blood pressure and how "overdue" Isabelle was, they all said this route would lead to probable induction. I declined and felt more pressured by what they were saying, blood pressure got worse during appointments etc - not the best cycle to be stuck in! I felt that Isabelle was moving lots and was fine, Dave and I weren't worried about her. We'd been told that normal birth happens anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks and wanted to give Isabelle as much of a chance as we could to come naturally. I'd agreed to additional monitoring after 42 weeks if we were still waiting for her appearance, instead of induction, but hoped I wouldn't have to even go for the monitoring, as I don't like hospitals and also because of the blood pressure pattern.
After 41 weeks of pregnancy I started trying anything natural that I could to get things started, I also found a deep calmness within myself, like being in the eye of the storm (most of the time anyway!). I spent hours and hours talking to Isabelle and telling her everything was ready, we loved her and anytime she felt ready to come my arms were ready and waiting to hold her. I spent hours in the birthing pool listening to the hypnobirthing CDs. I tried massaging evening primrose oil onto my bump and munching lots of capsules every day. I let one of the midwives try a sweep but it didn't work - things were softening and dilating but not enough for a sweep, my cervix was still slightly posterior. I tried massaging with clary sage and adding it to baths. I tried nipple stimulation, sex, acupressure points, homeopathy, even castor oil. I tried distracting myself, going for walks, watching movies, reading. I had a reflexologist round for an induction session on 11 April and enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing session with her.
On 12 April I thought I really didn't want to go for my midwife appointment the following day (I'd be 41 weeks and 6 days and didn't want another "conversation" about induction) so I spent ALL morning trying everything I could to get things going, I felt like the time had come. At 11am I downed the remainder of the bottle of castor oil, feeling rather desperate. An hour later I noticed the contractions had started again, in their irregular way. I decided to watch a movie to distract myself and help try relax me, randomly I chose "The Chronicles of Narnia" which I rather enjoyed. When Dave came home at about six I realised the contractions still hadn't fizzled out, I felt extremely calm but not especially hopeful that this would be different to all the other times. Dave said he'd have liked to have watched that movie so we started watching it over again together. At about 8:30pm I apologised to him, saying we couldn't carry on with the movie as the contractions were now so strong that I couldn't focus on anything else, this was the point we realised active labour had finally started. We had already decided that we wanted to call the midwives later rather than sooner - I didn't want hours of them of them monitoring me if it was going to stress me. We made the environment as calm and loving as possible - dim lighting, soothing music, aromatherapy oils (lavender and rose). We had throws over the bookcases to make the room look more restful, there was a beautiful birthing prayer flag and pregnant Goddess figure borrowed from our doula, birth art on the walls and the birthing pool was up to temperature and ready to go,
I hadn't expected a lot of back labour, especially as I'd been trying to map Isabelle's position using OFP, I knew she'd swung around once the previous week but I'd managed to move her through hanging over the birthing ball for hours - in early labour she turned again though and I had lower back pain which I could only describe as excruciating. Initially we tried using the birthing ball, paracetamol and a hot water bottle and I'd push backwards onto something for pressure during each contraction - nothing seemed to help as much as Dave massaging the lower part of my back as hard as possible with his thumbs, so he ended up doing this during each contraction, and between some of them too. I still wasn't convinced that this was it, so asked Dave to try get some sleep in case it all faded away again and he had to try get to work the following day. I think he managed to sleep for a while, I listened to the hypnobirthing CDs and kept as calm as I could, bracing my back hard against the back of the sofa through each contraction for as long as I could and resting in between, I'm not sure how long this lasted for, but eventually I ended up calling for Dave and telling him it was more intense and I needed him now, I felt I needed something to help so put on my birthing beads (strung together beads from family and friends, each with a well wish for the birth) and the birthing wrap I'd bought, Dave put more waterproofs down and kept rubbing my back through contractions for what seemed like a long time. I had a list of people I was intending to text for them to light candles for us, but there didn't seem to be a right time - I didn't want to tell people too early and then I guess it was too late, sorry people!
At some point everything became even more intense and I decided that getting in the pool might help, Dave rubbed my back through contractions and we used what for us was the essence of hypnobirthing - gentle arm stroking while I tried to keep relaxing deeper and deeper. We sat like that in silence for probably 2 or 3 hours - Dave gently stroking my arm whenever a contraction started and me trying to rest in between, we were working together as a team and it was wonderfully comforting.
Sometime between 2 and 3 am I felt my body starting to push downwards involuntarily and quite strongly and I felt like I needed a lot more support - Dave called our doula to come, and also called the hospital to send the midwifes.
Our doula arrived and started helping immediately - giving me water to sip, clary sage to sniff and mopping my rather damp face with a flannel, generally being encouraging and positive. She hung one of my birth art pictures close to me to focus on. She told me afterwards that she loved seeing how Dave and I worked together so well through contractions - at this stage he was in the pool with me and we were very silent and in tune with each other, at one stage I was resting my head on the edge of the pool and Dave's head dipped too (in tiredness?) which to her looked totally like we were dealing with things together perfectly.
The first midwife arrived, she was gentle and caring and I felt totally comfortable with her monitoring me. She monitored the baby underwater during contractions when I agreed (and respected my wishes when I declined or said there was a contraction coming), she said Isabelle was one of the calmest babies that she had monitored through labour. The second midwife arrived at some - somebody I'd met before and she'd come even though it was her day off, she was Irish and matter of fact and gave good practical support, they worked well as a team. Both stuck to the prepared birth plan and respected that I'd asked not for any internal examinations or what I felt was excessive monitoring, I loved that they were flexible enough to do to give us the space to birth how we felt was right for us.
My body was still pushing downwards and had been for what seemed like ages, I began to feel pressure above my bum and even though I'd read about this I hadn't quite grasped what it'd be like in reality, my birth team reassured me that this was all normal. My body felt so awesomely strong with these pushes, I felt like I was riding a wave of power but was determined to keep things measured and controlled, I wanted to birth Isabelle slowly and avoid tearing as much as I could. The pressure slowly moved to above my perineum and I could feel the bump of her head through my skin with my hand, everything felt so open and strong and powerful. At some point she started to crown and I could feel her head myself - starting to come out but then yo-yoing back in, again and again and again, stretching my body and getting us both ready for birth. During each contraction I collapsed with my head on the side of the birthing pool and just rested as much as I could. I was still battling with back pain, in my birth plan I'd said gas and air and I was very thankful when the midwives got this up and running. I got into this routine of pushing using the gas and air during each contraction, then resting during them, with our doula encouraging me to have some water and honey to keep my strength up, this stage lasted for ages. At some point I became aware and remarked that birds were starting to chirp outside and faint light was starting to come in through the curtains. Later on I felt I'd been pushing for an eternity and remember saying that she wasn't coming out like this. We all agreed that getting out the pool might be a good idea, I'd been in there for hours at this point. Our doula helped me to the bathroom and squatted on the floor in front of the toilet holding my hands, I remember giving her a wild-eyed look and saying "She's coming". I strongly felt that I didn't want to give birth in the bathroom and I started to waddle back to the living room - a great effort at this stage! At the same time the others started to say that my waters had gone (rather late for that and I honestly can't remember myself, I was so focussed on the baby's head). I didn't manage to get back in the pool and part of me didn't want to, I knelt down naked at the edge of the pool, with one knee on the soft, unwaterproofed rug and one knee on the hard, waterproofed, laminate floor. Dave was still in the pool and embraced me from the front, saying he loved me. Our doula was holding me from behind and I was very aware of her friendship, love and support, and I had a midwife at each of my sides, both saying supportive things. I totally went with what my body wanted, it opened more than seemed possible and Isabelle crowned. Somebody told me to feel her head and I refused as I'd been feeling her head for quite a while already in the pool! Still I was determined to birth her slowly and carefully, not in a massive push, and I managed to do this, pushing more of her out gently push by push. One of the midwifes caught her and immediately passed her between my legs for me to pick up, which I did. I sunk to the floor holding Isabelle, feeling ecstatic, exhausted and rather amazed that it had all just happened and I now had a baby!
Isabelle was born at precisely 7am on 13 April. I was 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant She was a beautiful little thing, very calm and alert. We had precious skin to skin time straight away, there was lots of vernix everywhere and she latched on to a nipple. I couldn't believe how beautiful and small she was. I felt in awe of the birth process, nature and the power of my body, I also felt exhausted and relieved. I was glad she had such a natural birth, and that she had come at home surrounded by love and calm.
Shortly after the birth I felt some pain, which we thought was the placenta, but it was followed by a pool of blood. I passed Isabelle to Dave and lay down. The midwives realised I was hemorrhaging badly, and they stepped in. This could have happened anywhere but was a scary experience. I was rushed in to hospital by ambulance and am grateful to the NHS for stopping the bleeding and stabilising things. I stayed there for 3 days and had 2 blood transfusions, they let Isabelle stay with me and Dave spent all the time he could at the hospital too. We're all home now and I am loads stronger again and we're settling down to being a family. Apart from the hemorrhage, I had one small tear 1-2cm long, and this has healed naturally, as has the bruising (with the help of a bit of arnica and some herbs). In my mind, the birth went wonderfully and was a very empowering and natural, powerful experience, I'm proud that Isabelle had this as her entrance into the world.
